Prologue

~I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down~

Buffy barged into The Alibi Room for the third night in a row. It was Thursday, Dawn had been missing for two days, and while there was little hope of Buffy shaking anything new out of Sunnydale's shadier residents, she had no other leads to work on.

The Slayer had not been so alone since her first day at Sunnydale High. Willow was still 'recovering' and unreachable at some coven in England. She'd called Giles of course, but her Watcher had decided he could be of more use exploring the Watchers Council's vast information network and he'd not flown back to California or, as yet, turned up anything useful. Even the once steadfast Xander was working a contract in LA and Buffy was reluctant to call him back. They'd never healed the rifts in their friendship caused by Anya and Spike and Willow, or those caused by her own resurrection, and she knew when he'd been offered a lucrative out of town job he'd been glad to go.

And Spike, of course, was nowhere to be found. Not that Buffy regretted that, but at least there would have been someone at her side who shared her concern and would drop everything at her say-so.

This left Anya. Buffy wasn't sure about her Scooby status - newly re-recruited vengeance demons didn't generally want to be white hats - but Anya had been the only one to offer real and practical assistance so far, even if it was only helping file a missing persons report and occasionally showing her own brand of pragmatic comfort.

And Buffy was really scared. She just couldn't be the brains of the operation. She and Anya added together didn't make one half of Giles, and it had been two whole days without the tiniest scrap of a hint of a lead. The only thing keeping the Slayer upright was the failed locator spell Giles had tried; if someone was expending magical energy to keep her sister hidden then at least she wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere.

It was a couple of hours before dawn when Buffy decided to head for home to see if Giles had called her back. The Slayer vaulted over a fence to take a shortcut through a backyard; when she cleared Revello Drive she could see a light on in the front window and started running.

A freshly showered Dawn met her at the door in a white towelling dressing gown. Buffy had to stop and pinch herself.

"There you are," said Dawn. "I was worried. Giles has left, like, a dozen messages to call him and there's no food in the house that doesn't have mould on it."

Buffy stared, open mouthed. "We can order pizza," she said faintly.

She ran up the front steps and caught her sister round the waist. "Where the hell have you been?"

The teenager extricated herself from a Slayer strength hug. "I was kidnapped by slave traders," she said nonchalantly. "Then I escaped, had to find my own way home from LA. You haven't been answering the phone all night."

More helpless gaping on the part of Buffy, she grabbed the girl by the shoulders and gave her a shake. "Dawn! You can't be serious!"

"It's true!" said the teen indignantly. "And you totally owe Anya $80 for the cab. I had to go to the Magic Box; it’s lucky Anya hadn't teleported to Brazil or something."

Still, the Slayer just stared. "Well I was in a seedy part of town," Dawn rattled on, "and it's not like I had busfare-"

"You were kidnapped by slave traders?" Buffy repeated stupidly.

"I think they were after demons really, but apparently I set off the supernatural sensors still, must be some keyness thing. And they chained me up with a load of, like, hideous demons - that bit was quite scary... And I was going to be auctioned off, so it's lucky Spike was there or I might have been thousands of miles away before I escaped. Think what the cab fare would be like from Florida."

"Spike?"

"Is there an echo in here? Spike helped me to escape, but he was being really weird, kept pretending he didn't know who I was and he wouldn't talk or anything. He said he couldn't leave, or he could have stolen a car or something. And I don't think the pizza place will deliver this late, so I'm going to make popcorn. That doesn't go mouldy, right?"

Dawn squeezed past her bemused sister into the kitchen. "And you should call Giles," she called back over her shoulder. "It can't be four o'clock in the morning this time, because it's four o'clock in the morning here."

"Slave traders?" The girl paused in the pursuit of munchies to roll her eyes at her sister.

"Yeees."

"Spike?"

"Jeez. Is your brain not working tonight? Lucky I didn't wait for you to come rescue me, huh?"

Just that second the phone in the hall started ringing; the Slayer picked it up automatically, though her eyes followed her sister as she opened the microwave.

"Hello?"

"Buffy! I've been trying to get hold of you all night. Whatever was blocking our locating spell has been lifted, the coven got a bead on Dawn about two hours ago. She's a few miles out from Sunnydale. Now that you're home we can repeat the spell-"

"She's here, Giles."

"Oh? That's good. So the crisis is over?"

"I think so," said Buffy, with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "There were slave traders," she added vaguely. "Can I call you back tomorrow?"


Chapter One

~Round and around this world you go
Spinning through the lives of the people you know
We all slow down~

The sun was well over the horizon by the time Buffy had any real idea what was going on. It took hours to drag all the details from a chattery and unsubdued Dawn; they painted a disturbing picture but Buffy was too relieved and sleep deprived to dwell on it. Even Dawn had exhausted herself by the time they turned in, and both sisters slept soundly till afternoon, when they were awakened by the door bell.

It was an unhealthily perky Anya, who despite lecturing Dawn on the stupidity of being kidnapped, repeatedly, and the diseconomies of long taxi rides, made herself at home in the kitchen with groceries and a percolator.
A still sleepy Buffy escaped with a mug of fresh coffee and hid in the living room before Anya could get started on the importance of good housekeeping lecture, and Dawn hastily followed.

"I know they're demons," she started out of nowhere, flopping onto the sofa beside Buffy. "And I guess it makes it easier for you if people are rounding them up - less to kill and all that. But... That place was really horrible, Buffy. You could hear screaming, like, all the time. And everyone was so scared, even the vampires shuffled round like they were terrified. And they had this weird processing room, I don't know what they did but I'm thinking I'm really glad I wasn't processed."

The Slayer took a deep breath, not at all liking the hopeful look on her sister's face. The thought that an unofficial Initiative might have set up in California was unnerving to say the least but then interdemon behaviour was hardly her concern, neither was it her job to police humans. "This might be a little big for us, Dawn. Not apocalypse big, but this is organised crime. And you may have noticed, we're a little thin on Scoobies."

"But you can't ignore it, right? I mean they got me, who knows who else they think doesn't count as human? Maybe Giles could help? Or Angel?"

"Maybe we could let the police handle this one?"

"Because cops and magic and demons, that always works out well."

Buffy sighed. "I know. We'll see what we can do, but I don't think charging off to break up a slave ring sounds like a good idea. I've already been shot once this year."

"Did Spike really try to rape you?"

Buffy blinked. "Where did that come from?" she asked guardedly.

"Well he's still there, he said he couldn't leave. So did he?"

"Dawn..."

"I know," snapped the teen. "It's complicated, and I have to respect your privacy, and I'm not old enough to understand. But... He looked like a famine victim. If you'd just beaten the crap out of one."

"He tried to rape me," Buffy said slowly, "But..."

"But?" prompted Dawn tenaciously. Her sister, not known for her cowardice, had chickened out of this conversation and indeed managed to avoid it for the whole summer. Buffy hadn't found the stomach for destroying Dawn's faith in her first evil crush by giving her a black and white account of what had happened that evening but neither did she want to try and justify his behaviour. So she had taken the safe line that what had happened was between her and Spike, and as he was gone it really didn't matter. Of course that had left Xander as the teen's only source of information but it did mean Buffy didn't have to try and explain a relationship she hadn't understood herself to a girl not old enough to understand that right and wrong were often grey areas.

"But... See that's not really a statement you can add a 'but' to. Rape is one of these unequivocal things. Unless it's 'but he was under the influence of evil demon venom and it was totally out of his control' and it wasn't. Maybe I could use 'and yet...'"

"Buffy!"

The elder sister shrugged apologetically. "You know what Spike is like. He doesn't think beyond the next second, maybe giving him aims and objectives is over crediting his intelligence. He's just an evil vampire, and a totally stupid guy, and I shouldn't have forgotten that long enough for... for things to get to the point they did."

"So he's just an evil vampire? Does that mean we're leaving him there?"

"Spike is plenty big enough to look after himself," Buffy hedged. "And you said he wasn't chained up, maybe he's working for them?"

"You didn't see him, Buffy. And the chip, remember? I'm sure some of those bastards were human, they could be doing anything to him and he wouldn't even be able to fight. Does he really deserve to be tortured?"

"Did you not just hear me say I don't know? How am I supposed to judge him? If he was human he'd have earned himself the chair a thousand times over but by soulless vampire standards he was Francis of Assisi. I don't suppose vampires deserve anything, I don't stake them because they've got it coming, I stake them to keep people safe."

Dawn digested that for a whole five seconds. "He could help, he must have insider information on the slave ring, right? He could help us take them down."

"Help us do the thing that we were just deciding was a bad idea? And you can just bury that 'us'. Your contact with demon slave traders is well and truly over. Spike isn't worth risking you for. Not for a second."

"Help you, then."

"You're just not going to let this one go, are you? I can't care, Dawn, these are the things I kill and I just can't care about their welfare. It makes my job too hard."

"You do though, don't you? You care that Spike's there? A tiny bit?"

Buffy gave her sister an irritated look that answered the younger girl's question. "I'm really trying not to."

"Me too. I hated him all summer for you, I was doing really well. Is it wrong to care about the guy who tried to rape your sister?"

Buffy shrugged. "Probably. It's not like you really get to choose. What he did to me was inexcusable but here I am making excuses for him. This is all your fault," she added with a pout. "If you could only have gone a whole season without being kidnapped I'd never have had to think about Spike ever again."

********

Anya breezed in with a plate of sandwiches. "I don't know how you two survive when I'm not here. There's nothing in your fridge that isn't out of date; I had to use powdered milk." She sat down on the armchair and leaned forward expectantly. "So, do you have any rescue plans yet?"

"She's already been rescued," Buffy protested weakly, but like everything else, Anya dealt with her misdirection directly.

"Spike," she clarified, as if Buffy hadn't perfectly understood her meaning the first time. "Have you got a plan to rescue Spike from the evil demon kidnapping slave traders?"

Buffy felt trapped. Dawn and Anya ganging up on her from one side and her own conscience trying to stop her wriggling out the back door.

If the Slayer was entirely honest with herself, she was kind of glad that Spike had tried to rape her. Not at the time of course, when it was all hurt and horror and disbelief. But afterwards, when the dust had settled on Willow's moment of madness, and it became apparent the vampire had left town for good. Then, a few bruises and broken trust seemed a fair trade off for a Spike-free Sunnydale and while she'd not been able to wish the vampire as much harm as she felt appropriate, she certainly had no wish to hear of him ever again.

But the hearing part was already done; it was too late to close her ears to his plight. And judging from the determined expressions of her companions, already too late to avoid planning harebrained rescue attempts. The Slayer knew she had no defence and would let herself be talked into whatever the two girls were planning, because it didn't seem right to leave the vampire in the clutches of the same people he'd freed her sister from. And really, a theoretical rescue she could do, but she worried that Spike would see it as an open invitation back into her life.

"You do want to rescue him?" the vengeance demon asked sharply, interrupting Buffy's thoughts.

"Not really," the Slayer admitted.

"I see." Anya's tone was icy. "So we demons still aren't worth anything to you? I suppose if it's me that disappears next you'll all just shrug and say 'oh well, she was a demon and hasn't earned the same emancipation as a real American citizen,' and leave me to a fate worse than death?"

Out of the corner of her eye Buffy could see her sister stifle a giggle at Anya's sudden righteous indignation. "You disappear all the time," she pointed out. "How would we know that you'd been kidnapped?"

"You know Spike's been kidnapped."

"Well yeah. If we knew you'd been kidnapped we'd come and rescue you, okay?"

"It's because he slept with me, isn't it? Because you know, you have no more right to be jealous than Xander does, you dumped him and-"

"Not jealous!" Buffy squeaked. "You do know he tried to rape me, right?"

"Really? Xander mentioned it but I assumed he was exaggerating."

"Not so much."

"Oh." For a second the vengeance demon deflated, blink and you would have missed it. "Do you want to wish vengeance on him?"

Buffy opened her mouth to answer, thought better of it and narrowed her eyes at the vengeance demon. Just sometimes she suspected Anya could be subtle. "Are you trying to reverse psychology me?"

"No. A vengeance demon has a duty to offer in such clear cut circumstances. He probably does deserve it, you'd have to be pretty stupid to try and rape the Slayer. I mean, you could just cross your legs and he'd be stumped, right? Unless he'd drugged you. Did he drug you?"

"No! And you know what? I don't really care to continue this conversation. If you can come up with a plan that doesn't involve me getting killed, or probably killed, then I'll go and rescue Spike, okay?"

"Well first things first," said the demon positively. "You can phone Angel, it's his city and he really should know what's going on in it."

Anya held out the phone impatiently. With a sigh Buffy caved, took the receiver and under Anya's watchful eye started dialling.

********

Buffy was circumspect with Angel on the phone, managing to omit any mention of Spike and she hung up with a vaguely uneasy feeling that he'd been just as reticent with her.

"He hasn't heard anything," she relayed to Dawn and Anya, "But he said he'd look in to it. Is there any way that's going to be enough for the two of you?"

"It's not a rescue plan," said Anya pointedly.

"Why can't you just teleport in and rescue him?" snapped Buffy, "You want him safe so much."

"Because I couldn't teleport him out, and besides if they have lots of different demons held there they'd probably have guards to stop anything teleporting out. I'd be stuck. Giles said there was something blocking his locator spell, remember? They might have a shield around the whole building. You'll just have to go to LA. Dawn can draw you a map of where she escaped from."

"And how is that a plan that involves me probably not being killed? Do you think they're just going to hand him over, decide they've seen the error of their slave trading ways?"

"There is one other way," Dawn suggested. "If they're selling slaves, you don't need to rescue him at all, you could just buy him."

"Don't think the budget will run to a vampire," answered Buffy dryly. "We're still at the generic cereal stage."

"You could just pretend to buy him," put in Anya, as if talking to a child. "Then, when he's all neatly bagged for you, you could kill them all."

The Slayer fought down the urge to strangle the vengeance demon. "I could kill an entire cadre of Mafia demons? And humans? With guns?"

Anya shrugged, as if the mechanics of the fight were hardly a concern. "Well run then. Shoplifting must run in the family." She didn't seem to notice the death glare this earned her from the Slayer. "You could always just leave, if there were too many of them. Then we could come up with a better plan."

"And you're okay with that?" Buffy asked her sister. "Me risking life and limb to rescue the guy you've been busy hating all summer?"

"You risk life and limb every day," answered Dawn blithely. "And he saved you from having to risk life and limb to rescue me. Anyway," she added primly, "We're not rescuing him. We're gathering valuable information in order to break an evil demon trading ring that kidnapped me."

********

The rest of the afternoon was a tidal wave of Anya that Buffy tried her hardest to let wash over her head. She also tried to disapprove, but nothing was coming. Anya, after all, had no particular reason for helping anyone but in her own way she'd turned out for Dawn and it was easy to see how, from her point of view, Spike deserved no less consideration. The fact that it was Buffy's life Anya was proposing to risk was just... Anya. And for just Anya she was being very good. Hadn't even mentioned the taxi fare that she knew the Slayer couldn't repay, had even offered to lend Buffy her car though she'd seen her drive. Buffy couldn't even mind that the offer had been more of a command and came with a lengthy explanation of insurance and part trade-ins that left Buffy with the uncomfortable knowledge that Anya would gain financially if she and the borrowed automobile perished.

And in an entirely clean, non kinky way it was kinda nice to be ordered around. Have someone else take the responsibility. Buffy was in no way rushing off to rescue her evil former lover, she was just succumbing to peer pressure. So Buffy only grumbled half heartedly as Anya and Dawn studied maps and made plans, it was only when they announced themselves finished that she made any real objection.

"Tonight? I have to go tonight? But it's already tonight!"

Anya patted Buffy on the back, in a way she imagined was comforting. "Just think of poor Spike being tortured."

The Slayer gave the vengeance demon another death glare. "Think of poor Spike when I get hold of him," she said darkly, but Anya was already handing her coat to her.

"Tell me again why you aren't doing this?"

"I can't come," said Anya bluntly. "I've wasted far too much time doing good, I'll fall behind with my vengeance quota."

Buffy, as usual, closed her ears to such unwelcome details and merely nodded.
"And Dawn is staying with me. Have you not been listening the last two hours?"

"Umm..."

"You have the map, right? Just think of this as recon."

"Right now?"

Anya was literally pushing Buffy out of the door, and she let her because... well she didn't know why.

"I miss Giles. He'd tell me rescuing Spike is a stupid idea."

tbc

Chapter Two
~How you gonna keep on turning from day to day
How you gonna keep from turning your life away~

The drive to LA was taxing for Buffy, braving the freeway was bad enough, and it took her several hours to follow Dawn's sketchy directions to the right block. In dubious consolation she'd obviously come to the right place; her Slayer senses were going crazy in a way that wasn't explained by the human looking demon guarding the door of the shabby warehouse.

Deciding on the direct approach, Buffy sauntered straight up to the door with her prettiest smile firmly plastered on.

"Heard this is a place to come if you're looking for an unusual pet," she remarked casually to the guard.

"If you've got a couple hundred grand," he answered, obviously surprised but friendly enough. "You might be best off trying the zoo, gorgeous."

Buffy pouted. "But I did want something special, and I can get the money," she lied. "Can't I have a look at... um... what you have in stock?"

"Sorry doll, no-one gets in without a ticket. You need to see Ricky, the Pawn shop on 78th and West. He likes the cash up front, two hundred thou like I said, checks out your credentials, then you come back here and... select your merchandise."

********

It wasn't a long wait for Buffy till she saw someone approaching the warehouse, a human woman accompanied by a squat green demon. She took out the demon easily enough, it offered no resistance to her surprise attack, and with barely a twinge of guilt she knocked the woman unconscious, pulling her behind a dumpster to rifle through her pockets. Then a longer wait until the guard on the door changed, and she could walk straight in through the front door unchallenged.

There was something nerve wracking about how easily she got in, something that made the door swinging closed behind her sound ominous. Once inside there was no opportunity to poke around. The guard at the door summoned an escort, an oily little demon who put her ticket through a portable scanner and handed Buffy a pile of paperwork.

"I see you've bought items from us before, Miss Mainwaring," he purred, "So I don't need to explain our selection process and control procedures. Were you satisfied with your last purchase?"

"Umm.... I guess."

"A Selark demon, I see. Not too much of a handful for a young woman such as yourself?"

Buffy just shook her head guardedly.

"And what can we do for you tonight?"

"A vampire," said the Slayer hastily, then remembered herself and tried to get more into her role. "I'd like to see your selection of vampires, if you please."

"Certainly. The second pamphlet details vampire care and restraint, if this is your first. As they have more native intelligence than the Selarks we take extra precautions, it might be as well to familiarize yourself with these."

The humanoid demon carried on with its patter in a practised manner more reminiscent of an airline steward than a card carrying member of evil, Buffy started to tune him out as he started on the rules and regulations.

Just being in the vicinity of so many demons was taking up most of the Slayer's attention. Though there was no-one else in the reception area, she could sense them through the walls, a constant background static so loud that Buffy had no hope of picking out an individual vampire vibe from the mass. She tuned back in as the demon tried to guide her out of the room.

It took real effort not to slay him as he steered her by the elbow down a long corridor and out into a balcony space. "This is the vampire holding area," Oily Demon continued. "Of course if you find nothing suitable you're more than welcome to peruse our other pens, there are many species more or less human in appearance."

Still playing the part of a rich, and presumably amoral slave buying lady, Buffy tried to make no reaction to the conditions in the pit below. Forty or more vampires, all standing and shackled hand and foot, none of them looking at her. She had never been more keen to leave a building, and quickly Buffy scanned the bowed heads until she spotted a familiar streak of platinum in the crowd.

"I'd like to take a closer look at the blond one," she announced haughtily to her escort and he hurried off.

Seeing Spike shuffling into the private viewing room had more effect on Buffy than she'd anticipated. The anger and hurt she'd firmly repressed over the summer came rushing to the surface, but couldn't stand in the face of his pitiable condition. Dressed, as all the vampires had been, in a sheet draped round his person and fastened at the shoulder, every inch of his exposed limbs were covered in marks. Burns and scars and half healed cuts; only his downcast face was unscathed.

He kept his eyes on the floor as he entered but Buffy saw his nose twitch and his head jerk up, for a second his startled eyes met hers then flickered away. His hair was longer and straggly, brown roots pushing out the bottle blond. His cheeks were hollow, finely sculpted bones even more pronounced with lack of feeding.

The look of him made Buffy want to hit things, but she couldn't take out a warehouse full of demons with only the help of a shackled and starved vampire. She'd done a lot of damage herself during her long career as defender of human kind, had done a lot of damage to Spike in that dark winter after her resurrection, and Buffy'd thought there was no squeamishness left in her. But what she could see now was beyond a beating, beyond what Glory had done to him, more than the effects of starvation. He looked defeated.
When her escort started to invade her personal space he was unknowingly risking his head, but Buffy managed to keep calm, realised the demon had been talking and she'd forgotten to listen again. Now he was giving her some necklace, which hopefully wasn't too important because she'd missed the explanation. Only a few more minutes, she told herself, and only imagined tearing his head off as he fastened the leather loop around her neck.
Buffy barely listened any better as the attendant logged her choice and went through the paperwork, her attention divided between Spike and her own inner turmoil. Apparently the real buyer hadn't yet raised the alarm because despite the Slayer's apprehension everything went without a hitch, and soon she was holding the keys to her very own vampire, who had yet to say a word.

Oily Demon insisted on escorting the Slayer and her new 'purchase' to her car, carrying a trunk full of accessories, the details of which Buffy had failed to listen to. She popped the boot of her borrowed automobile to load up, and at a gesture from the demon, Spike started to follow the case in.

"What are you doing?" Buffy snapped. Sharing a building with so many uglies had stretched her last overtired nerve, and she was already annoyed by the vampire's stubborn silence. For only the second time, Spike met her eye, the same startled expression on his face. But it was the demon that answered, in a silky smooth voice that begged to be silence with a punch.

"Our commodities are accustomed to riding in the trunk; I assure you they're all fully trained."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Spike but the vampire was looking down, again, and didn't seem to share her amusement at such a description, standing awkwardly half in and half out of the car. His passivity made her angrier still at the smug suited demon and she gave him a snarl that a Doberman might envy. "Have you pulled out his tongue or something? Cause I thought I was asking Sp... the vampire."

The demon turned towards her, obviously surprised, and the Slayer tried to reign in her temper before she raised any suspicions. She slipped into general mode, which had always been a form of self defence for her, and hoped it was in keeping with the slave buying rich persona she'd adopted.
"You," she pointed at the toadying demon, "Can go, our transaction's complete. You," the finger moved to Spike, "Get in the car through an actual door."

The vampire hastened to comply, the shackles making the rush awkward. Buffy was hit by a sudden and disturbing thought. "You do still have a tongue, right?"

"Yes Mistress."

Buffy gave him a look that quite clearly said that answer was far from funny, but Spike was still looking at his chained hands. The usually in-your-face vampire seemed to have developed an aversion to eye contact and Buffy hoped that was a sign of remorse. Or maybe he was just embarrassed, being caught wearing a toga.

The oily demon was still standing there, apparently not recognising an order from General Buffy. Ignoring him she opened the passenger door and waited pointedly until Spike shuffled in, then moved around to the driver's side, determined to leave now if she had to drive over him. As it happened, her quick exit was marred by the emergency brake, but the relief Buffy felt at leaving that place was worth any engine damage.

********

Buffy half expected his motormouth to restart once they were safely away, but Spike remained resolutely silent. Even his body language was unusually quiet, his hands folded in his lap, head bent and shoulders slumped. True, it was hard to look Spike-like in what amounted to a dress, but it seemed to Buffy the changes went deeper than costume.

The need to drive helped fill the stony silence, it wasn't a skill that came naturally to Buffy and took up most of her attention as she navigated out of LA. But she couldn't help but notice that he hadn't so much as glanced in her direction since entering the car. Occasionally his head would lift slightly to look out of the window but other than that he just sat there, content to make no effort at communication.

And it was pissing her off.

Buffy was damned if she'd speak first, she had just rescued him, after all, from wearing a toga and likely worse. Much worse, if what she could see of his skin was anything to go by, but Buffy tried not to notice the marks on his body, not wanting to feel sorry for him. And she'd seen him more seriously injured, still talking with broken ribs and punctured lungs, the least he could manage was a thank you. Or if he dared, an apology. After all that had happened between them it seemed wrong for Buffy to encourage him to talk, but the silence was driving her crazy.

Of course the longer the silence stretched the more tense the Slayer became; eventually necessity broke the stalemate. As they passed the last services before the freeway sign, Buffy noticed the empty gas gauge and pulled over, stopping on the hard shoulder. Filling a tank was a new experience for the Slayer, bad enough to pull into a floodlit gas station with a vampire dressed in a sheet, the bondage gear had to go.

"I'm going to take these chains off, okay?" she said, searching through her brand new set of gaolers keys until she found one that matched the manacles. "We need gas and I don't want to get arrested for kidnapping."

Mutely Spike held out his wrists, eyes still on his lap, and Buffy squashed the urge to grab his chin and force him to look at her. She had to bend to unlock his ankles, so close against him in the cramped footwell that she was certain he wouldn't be able to keep back an innuendo, but he did.

"Would you say something," she burst out.

The vampire twitched visibly but still didn't look at her. "I'm sorry Mistress. What would you have me say?"

"Well not that for a start," Buffy snapped, half certain she was being made fun of. "We're not going to be indulging your dominatrix fantasies."

"Sorry," Spike mumbled.

"What for?" asked Buffy tartly. There was an opening if she was ever going to give him one, and she didn't know quite what she expected in answer but it wasn't the hesitant shrug she got.

"Calling you Mistress?"

His apparent determination not to mention their last meeting incensed the Slayer. She restarted the car with angry, jerky movements and when she'd finally manoeuvred into awkward stretching distance of a pump, jumped out and slammed the door.

Buffy watched Spike through the garage window as she stood in line to pay - there was something niggling at her and for once it was nothing to do with Slayer senses. The entire time she waited in line, Spike did not move once. Didn't look like there was anywhere in that toga to keep cigarettes, his preferred form of displacement activity, but neither did he reach for the radio, or even check out his surroundings. He just sat in the passenger seat, head down.

She was way beyond tired, two days ceaseless searching for her sister had taken their toll on Buffy and she'd barely caught up enough to deal with a long drive and a very tense evening. And she'd been dreading seeing Spike again, though she never would have admitted that feeling or allowed it to stop her doing what she saw as right. Her most fervent hope since he'd left town was that he would have the good sense never to come back again, but as he'd rescued her sister she rescued him. Might have done it anyway, despite what had happened between them at the end. He'd had her back so many times in the past, and if she'd left him to an unknown fate the Slayer suspected it would never have completely left her mind.

It was the right thing to do, nevertheless this drive home was an extra emotional strain on the tired girl, and she wanted some resolution. It was obvious he was no physical threat to her, was so emaciated in fact she doubted he could be a threat to anyone chip or no, but he'd given her no indication of... well anything.

And that made Buffy cross. Okay, crosser. Not a thank you, or apology, not even a greeting.

But then he looked so terrible, it was hard to cling to the real and justifiable reasons for her anger, and she ended up merely irritable that she couldn't be really pissed. And when she picked herself up a chocolate bar at the counter she found herself adding a pack of Luckys to the order, that annoyed her too.

She virtually threw them at him when she got back to the car and sped out of the forecourt in a way the gear box wasn't likely to forgive.

"Are these for me?" Spike asked of the pack now in his lap. It was a stupid question, but also the first words he'd spoken that she hadn't dragged from him, so there was a measure of relief in Buffy's sarcastic answer.

"No. Lung cancer is my new hobby."

He picked up the box of matches and looked at her uncertainly. When it became clear he was neither going to light one nor say anything else, Buffy turned her attention back to the road with a huff. "Vow of silence, Spike?" she asked eventually.

Again that unaccountably startled eye contact, as if she'd asked something bizarre and shouldn't have been able to speak in the first place. "Not allowed to speak without permission."

Even the voice was wrong. Soft and cultured, more like Giles than the vampire she remembered with his exaggerated cockney coarseness and endless depth of expression. The whole damn thing was so wrong Buffy nearly laughed. "Because you were always so good with rules," she said aloud.

There was no mistaking the fear on his face. "Learnt," he said hastily. "Good now."

Buffy lifted a sceptical eyebrow, but inside that puzzling little niggle was crystallizing into real worry. She couldn't think, off the top of her head, of any occasion she'd seen Spike afraid. At least nothing he couldn't mask with aggression or bluster; it was catching. Sure, she'd been planning to chew him out and violence hadn't been completely removed from the table, but since when had Spike been afraid of confrontation? Up until three months ago his second favourite occupation had been goading her into a fight, and while circumstances were different it was hard to believe that Spike had changed so radically.

She wanted to ask what had happened to him in that place, but the cuts and welts told part of the story and she wasn't ready for the gruesome details. Wasn't going to be his shoulder to lean on when he obviously wasn't going to apologise for trying to rape her. Yesterday she would have scoffed at the idea that an apology was within his power, but she reserved the right to be annoyed that he had not even tried.

"Is there something wrong with you?" she asked instead. Even as the words left her mouth it occurred to the Slayer how boisterous dogs are sometimes brought to heel and winced at the thought, but the vampire merely looked puzzled.

"Apart from being sold into slavery?"

"Apart from that. Because the vampire I knew wouldn't have rolled over so easily." He didn't answer.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Spike looked sideways at her, a nervous glance that answered her question. "Yes," he said flatly, and because she seemed to expect more he added defensively: "Can't think of anyone in the world with more reason to want to hurt me than you. Well no-one who's still alive."

"It's pretty obvious I'm not going to stake you."

He dropped his eyes again, seemed far from reassured. Buffy bristled at the implication that she might have worse in mind for him.

"I'm too tired to have a go at you," she sighed eventually. "Stop being weird."

"Yes M... Yes. Okay." His eyes darted uncertainly round the car and he seemed to be searching for a way of being normal. "Thank you for the cigarettes."

Buffy humphed. "You're such a... Jerk! I don't know why I'm driving you back to Sunnydale."

And she really didn't. Despite Dawn's grand schemes of championing demon rights, the Slayer hadn't really been expecting to take this vampire back to the Hellmouth. Hadn't really expected to find him at all, it was unnerving how well their sketchy plan had worked and part of Buffy was still waiting for something to go wrong. Certainly the same conscience that would not have let her leave him there had nothing to say on the subject of nursing him back to health and L.A. was as good a place to leave him to fend for himself as any. If she'd had any firm expectation it was that whatever the circumstances, he would piss her off so much and so quickly the two of them would never have made the city limits in the same car.

And annoy her he had, though he'd chosen an unusually passive method. In her haste to get far away from the demon trading house, she'd headed straight for home and the only excuse she could offer herself was a pervasive feeling of something wrong.

"Then why did you buy me?"

The question was so soft and hesitant that Buffy had to restrain herself from looking around the car to see who had spoken, because those tones just couldn't be coming from the same Spike who regularly murdered the Queen's English with cheerful abandon.

"I didn't buy you," she prevaricated. "Technically I mugged you from some woman named Ms Mainwaring."

The traffic was thin this far from LA and Buffy risked taking her eyes off the road to give him a more serious answer. "She's my sister, so I figured I had to. If you think I wouldn't wish you dead or in pain, you've got another think coming. Besides," she tried to joke, "Dawn's been making little lists of how she's going to torture you, I wouldn't want to disappoint her."

"Of course not," murmured the vampire. "Um... who's Dawn?"

TBC

Chapter Three

~I feel like I'm dipping and a-diving
My sky shoes are spiked with lead heels
I'm lost in this star car I'm a-driving
And my air soul is pushing big wheels~

"...who's Dawn?"

The car screeched to a halt. Not that Buffy had been going for such a dramatic, swerving stop but gentleness with foot pedals hadn't ever been her thing. Spike cowered away from her as she turned to look at him and that was the second thing that was very wrong here.

"I'm sorry," he squeaked. "No talking. No more talking."

Buffy didn't answer, busy counting down from ten. Maintaining a Zen state of calm wasn't easy when the world kept throwing this crap at her. "Who am I, Spike?" she asked eventually.

And the vampire, who should have rolled his eyes and said she was the thorn in his bloody side, looked like a kid facing a surprise pop quiz - where the punishment for failing was painful death.

"Mistress?" he whispered. Her eyes flashed and he hastened to correct himself. "Slayer!" Then with increasing desperation: "Buffy Summers!"

"Riiiight. So my sister is?"

He shook his head, the petrified resignation on his face making Buffy's blood run cold. "I'm sorry. I don't know the answer."

The Slayer banged her head on the steering wheel. At that particular moment there seemed nothing else sensible to do, and she was so tired.

"You remember the chip in your head, right?"

Again he reacted physically, as if her words were a threat. "Yes."

"Well good. So I guess we can worry about the whole brain meltdown after I've had some sleep."

She restarted the car, but of course couldn't leave it there. "Do you remember when we last met?"

"Yes."

"Where did you go, after?"

"LA."

"And you're really not even going to say sorry?"

"I'm sorry!" he positively leapt on the instruction. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I didn't know any better then."

"Oh!" Buffy couldn't have said if the surprise or hurt was greater. Their last meeting wasn't exactly something she'd dwelt on, and after three months the details were a little hazy round the edges but his lack of game face throughout was seared on her memory and his attention had definitely been directed much lower than her neck. "You were trying to kill me, I didn't realise."

He was looking at her as if she was crazy, and very volatile.

"You don't remember me either!" she accused, a light bulb coming on. "You mean another time you were trying to kill me."

Spike just watched her helplessly, not daring an answer to this nonsensical statement.

"You have amnesia!"

Of course. And Buffy was strangely relieved, that she'd solved the mystery of Silent!Spike. Because really she'd expected him to be sorry, if only for as long as it took to start hitting on her again. She remembered clearly the horror on his face when she'd finally managed to throw him off her, had thought for once she'd seen real awareness, that he'd done A Very Bad Thing. And of all the reasons she'd tried to give herself for not coming to his rescue, she'd not considered that he might be a threat to her, at least not intentionally. She'd wanted to think at least that much good of him, that he regretted what he'd done, and her new theory allowed her to carry on believing that.

Also selfishly adding to her relief, the thought that vampire brain damage was someone else's research problem, and most importantly of all a problem that would keep till she'd had some sleep. Only thirty miles from home now and Buffy was counting the minutes.

"So when was the last time you remember trying to kill me?"

"Daytime," the vampire answered succinctly.

"When you had that ring?"

Spike nodded warily.

"But that was before the chip," Buffy frowned. "How come you remember the chip and not me?"

"You want me to tell you the things I don't remember?" From Spike it should have been sarcasm, but it wasn't. He seemed to be pleading for easier questions.

"It's okay, that was stupid," Buffy said hastily, starting to wish she could remove the fearful look from his face. "This isn't making any sense to you, is it? It's okay, we can fix it tomorrow." She gave a hollow little laugh. "God knows you wouldn't want to miss out on the torture of your last few years."

She was looking at the road and missed the way Spike flinched. "Don't you have any questions?" Again with the surprise exam face. "I'm not going to stake you for talking, Spike," she added.

He shook his head. "Don't know where to start, Slayer. Guess I would like to know, please, what you want me for?"

"Nothing!" Buffy exclaimed, wrinkling her nose. "Big heap of nothing. When we get your brain fixed you're gonna remember just how much nothing."

********

The car was at a distinct angle from the sidewalk, Buffy eyed it critically before deciding she really didn't care. Spike had followed her out of the car, she turned to hand him the keys and he shied away like a nervous horse.

"Keys, Spike! For getting your stuff out of the trunk, not fatal to vampires."

He took them obediently and was back to looking at anything but her.

"I've already said I'm not going to stake you, not if you're really still harmless. What the hell are you so afraid of?"

For a brief instant Buffy thought she could see a glimpse of the real Spike in there, that look he gave her when he thought she was being stupid. "Helpless and at your mercy, Slayer, how would you feel if our positions were reversed? And when you tire of me, on to the next sadist until somebody finally takes pity and dusts me."

Buffy stubbornly refused to offer him comfort; though every instinct was to reach out and touch him she was afraid he would remember when he was back to being obnoxious. "You're not going back to that place," she said flatly. "I'll dust you first. And I'm not a sadist. I'm mad at you for a whole lot of reasons you don't remember but I'm not getting off on this, okay?"

The vampire nodded, though he hardly looked happier.

"Get your stuff."

He retrieved the case and followed her up the front steps, pausing briefly at the entrance before testing his welcome and shied again instinctively as she turned to take the case from him and place it on the counter in the kitchen. The tiny, mean spirited part of Buffy that had thought maybe he deserved to look so beaten now wanted to slap him round the head and tell him to pull himself together. Instead she tried to speak kindly. "Get some blood if you want some, and some sleep, we can worry about the details tomorrow."

"Blood?" the vampire asked suspiciously. "You... blood for me?"

More grinding of teeth as Buffy fought for patience, half tempted to go to bed and let Spike sort himself out. "You still drink blood, right? Because if you're a Spikebot there's going to be trouble."

"I drink blood."

Buffy just shook her head, determined to put the oddities that were Amnesia!Spike on the back burner till tomorrow. She flipped on the kitchen lights and he followed, standing awkwardly in the doorway as she went to the fridge.
"Anya said she'd put a couple of blood bags in... ah, here they are. Remind me to send her a text later or Dawn will be back first thing checking I've not been kidnapped too." She turned to find a mug and noticed him still standing, paused in her blood prep to push a stool out for him. "Sit down before you fall over."

Obediently Spike sat as Buffy programmed the microwave and helped herself to a glass of juice. She put the heated blood on the island in front of him and Spike watched her expectantly.

"Not hungry?" she asked when he continued to stare. "Because I've got to say - the skeleton look? Doesn't suit you."

"Not allowed to feed without permission."

Fascinated, Buffy watched as his fingers seemed to reach for the mug of their own volition. It was incredible to her that he could really expect her to punish him for drinking blood she'd just given him but if it was an act it was a hell of a performance.

"You think I'm putting blood in front of you to not drink?"

His doubt was obvious and Buffy tried hard not to explode. "Rhetorical question, dummy!"

Quick as a whip he was pouring the blood down his throat, licking inside the rim of the mug until she had to look away. He noticed the movement and hastily put the mug down. "Thank you M... Slayer. Sorry."

"I'm used to your table manners," she said lightly. "It was worse with a straw, I don't suppose you remember that either. After the first couple of days we sent Dawn in, that's my sister that you mysteriously don't remember at all. More?"

Without waiting for an answer she reached over and snagged the empty mug, took it over to the fridge and pulled out another blood bag. "We don't have so many rules in this house, okay? Don't put your feet on the coffee table, don't leave scum around the bathtub, that sort of thing. Here you speak when you've got something to say and you eat when you're hungry. As long as it's not people. Or anything that Dawn cooks. That last one's more of a health and safety regulation than an actual rule."

He was regarding her suspiciously but anything was better than carefully schooled blankness or poorly concealed terror. And her words must have sunk in a little, because when she took the second mug out of the microwave he picked it straight up and downed it, though he still said nothing as she started on the third and final bag.

"When did you last feed?"

Spike shrugged. "Get a pint a day, if I'm good."

"I'm going to guess you weren't," said Buffy dryly.

"Tried," the vampire snapped back defensively. "They kept changing the rules, made it so you couldn't win." The blood, already affecting his sallow features, gave him foolhardy courage. "That your game, Slayer?"

She could see him bite back the words almost as soon as they were out. Didn't answer as she put the third mug on the table and slid onto the stool next to him.

"No game. I'm trying to help you."

The vampire gave her an incredulous look and Buffy shrugged.

"It sounds pretty unlikely to me too. It is unlikely, because you're an-. Well, you're not very nice. But you didn't deserve this."

She ran her hand along his scarred upper arm, Spike started at the touch. With more tenderness than she'd really meant to let show Buffy added: "I don't like seeing you scared, Spike."

He stood up so suddenly, the chair fell back with a clatter and his empty mug hopped off the counter and smashed on the floor. "Bitch!" he roared, with such violence Buffy was momentarily cowed. "Just bring it on, you hear me? Bring it the fuck on!"

Buffy blinked. Tried to squash down the hurt and count to ten, it was getting to be a night for that. "Ooo-kay. Maybe scared had something going for it."

But she didn't think the vampire had even heard her. "You think you can fuck with my head? It's all been done before, Slayer. You expect me to believe that's why you bought yourself a vampire toy? That's why you picked one that had tried to kill you - you want to be my friend!"

"Stop it, Spike."

"Don't use my name. You want your payback? Just take it, call me slave like everyone else because you can't make it hurt worse. I'm not falling for that line of bullshit."

Rant over, the vampire braced himself against the table, trembling. His head was turned away from her and Buffy knew that was because he was crying. She couldn't summon up the slightest bit of anger at being screamed at when it had obviously taken so much out of him. Whatever had happened to Spike to make him forget the last three years had left behind an entirely different vampire and Buffy had to stay calm and find a way of getting through to him because she couldn't rest while things were in this state.

"Spike, look at me."

The habit of obedience was long engrained and he turned his eyes to hers.

"I don't torture people. Not even vampires. What was done to you was evil, and I'm the girl that takes a stand against evil."

It was plain on his face that he didn't know what to believe. All self restraint gone, the naked fear in his expression was almost unbearable to look at.

"So you're not going to beat me for breaking the cup?"

TBC

No days you can borrow
No time you can buy
No trust in tomorrow
It's a lie

There was a time, a century plus of time, when Spike would have scoffed at the notion he might enjoy warmed pig’s blood. Who could savour reheated food from a sterile cup when you could work up an appetite with a hunt? Feel the blood pumping into your mouth, spiced with fear and adrenalin? Now, warm blood was the stuff of fantasy, even if it came from a plastic bag and a microwave, and the vampire couldn't stop his mouth watering as Buffy neatly snipped the top off a second bag.

Now, a meal he didn't have to beg or perform for was so close to being an impossibility that he wanted to be suspicious, would have been suspicious, but the smell rising from the empty mug in front of him and the hope of seconds drove nearly every other thought from his head.

If he'd ever thought about it - and he'd pondered on the Slayer plenty back when he'd had choices and free will and thought William the Bloody was the biggest bad in town - he’d not have pegged her as the sadistic type. Had always known she'd shared the enjoyment he felt when fighting her, the challenge of meeting a real equal. Had almost gone as far as regretting that it was a dance that had to end sooner or later with her death, because they'd fought so well together they'd both deserved to win.

That was before he'd come to realise how humans could be predators as well as prey. Could take that victory to such extremes even an evil vampire had his stomach turned, as well as his body broken. And now they weren't equals. She held the upper hand as surely as he'd done with every helpless girl he'd ever cornered in a dark lonely place, and he was the victim whose best hope was the quick death she didn't seem inclined to give him.

Spike had spent the last week waiting to be sold again, with only the occasional menial task around the warehouse to occupy him. He'd not spent the time wondering what his next buyer would be like, because he knew full well what to expect. When action was impossible and pain inevitable it did little good to wonder what form of torture was coming your way. Given enough time, even a change of tormentor was a holiday, and maybe if he'd had even that much choice Spike would have said he preferred the humiliation of slavery to the nerve wracking waiting in that hellish place filled with screams that no longer turned him on.

The evils of men were easy for a vampire to understand - the cruelty of the individual - but the institutionalized brutality of that demon trading place was something beyond him. And though he should have been used to it by now, the number of times he'd been displayed and resold, somehow this stint had seemed harder and Spike was truly starting to wonder if he was losing his mind.

A young girl, whom Spike would have sworn he'd never seen before and would have eaten if he had, had called out to him as if he was her saviour. And even though the scars he'd received for allowing her to escape were still fresh all over his body, he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined her. If he hadn't daydreamed daring to stand up to the guards, and fabricated in his own mind resistance that he was no longer capable of, after so long trying to stay quiet, obey the rules as best he could and never call attention to himself. And now he was sitting in the Slayer's kitchen as she made him dinner, which could surely be nothing but a fevered dream.

He'd felt surprise as he overheard from the guards that his potential new buyer was a woman, but hope had long been quashed in him and he'd expected nothing better than a slightly different form of torture. When the first tingle of Slayer had hit his senses and he'd scented the more personal signature of the girl he'd always considered his Slayer, he'd been so surprised he'd broken the no eye contact rule. The face that met his had been grim and angry and made Spike realise with a shiver that the change might be no good thing; he got the distinct impression that the reason she was there was intensely personal.

So he clung to the hope that she might kill him because it seemed the best option. But despite the aggression in her every movement as they'd left, she'd still made no move towards him - not even raised a hand to him though he'd seen those hands twitch with the effort of restraint. And instead of telling him what she wanted from her new slave, or what gruesome fate he had in store, she'd babbled nonsense about a sister he knew she didn't have.

And she'd thrown his tiny, horrible world into confusion.

Not that Spike was stupid enough to argue with her. Even if the habit of silence hadn't been so ingrained he could hardly shift it when told he would have retained the sense not to remind her of their past. How he'd stalked her for the kill, filmed her fighting, kept careful tabs on her family and friends. Invaded her home, twice, and seen with his own eyes and senses that she'd only had a mother.

Better sense than to remind her of what a threat he'd once been, and better sense than to take her at her word and ask any of the questions bubbling in his brain. The only question that had ever garnered him a straight answer these past few years was 'how are you going to hurt me;' and even if he was brave enough to want to know the answer, he seemed to have fallen through a wormhole where nothing she said made much sense.

Blood was simple though and as she placed the second mug in front of him he took the gesture as permission enough. Whatever game this might be, she could not later take back the feeling of having a full stomach for the first time in as long as he could remember. His eyes followed her back to the fridge and he realised she was already preparing a third mug. She turned suddenly and caught him looking.

"This is the last one, yeah? So you might want to slow down, savour it a little."

Last one for now or the last one ever? The vampire didn't know and didn't dare ask. He didn't take her advice either. Downing this half pint as quick as the first two, he could feel the blood warming through and it was a strange feeling after so long on begged scraps. Wounds that had stayed open and itching for days were already starting to close and Spike wondered if he was being repaired as a fresh canvass. Because that's what life had been to him for so long now; there had to be a huge comeuppance on the way for this current bounty.

The Slayer was looking at him with an expression he hadn't seen on anyone for years and never directed at him; he thought it might be pity but wasn't ready to believe this would lead to clemency. When she started asking him questions he answered automatically, waiting for the thing he could say that would cause her to punish him but the girl merely frowned as he dared a complaint about the conditions in which he was kept. Suddenly tired of waiting for her to strike, he said: "That your game, Slayer?"

She frowned again and he looked down again, bracing himself for impact. No amount of conditioning could have stopped him staring in disbelief as she sat down beside him and told him she was trying to help. The Slayer was still talking, quiet and serious, but Spike wasn't really taking the words in and when she touched his arm in a manner almost comforting he reacted more than he would do to a blow. Confused and scared, he rose up violently and made his stand with more courage than he'd felt for a long time. Maybe it was the belly full of blood, or maybe that this girl, and this place, reminded him of how fearless he'd once been. Lent him strength to speak his mind with a passion he hadn't let loose in years.

"Stop it, Spike."

Again and again using his name as if that's who he still was, and although he railed against it verbally, he could already feel uncontrollable tears prickling behind his eyelids. The shouting drained him, defiance dissipating as quickly as it had arrived and leaving him clutching at the table for support as the tears started to flow. He'd lied when he said she couldn't make it worse because he hadn't cried for as long as he could remember, tears meant emotions and he'd been forced to give those up somewhere along the line.

And the Slayer was talking again, her voice earnest and friendly but the huge concept of hope was too much for him to take in right then so the vampire went back to what he knew.

"So you're not going to beat me for breaking the cup?"

My world is a constant confusion
My mind is prepared to attack
My past, a persuasive illusion
I'm watching the future, it's black

"So you're not going to beat me for breaking the cup?"

Buffy shook her head, shuddered to think how long his world had been about waiting for the next beating. It didn't seem possible that her vibrant and defiant former arch nemesis could have been brought to this state in a matter of months. Or at all. Whether he was committing evil or saving the world, there was one constant about Spike: he was utterly irrepressible. And what might have brought him to this state didn't bear thinking about.

"We have a lot of history," she tried to explain, but there was no short recap of the bizarre Spike and Buffy story. "We hurt each other, a lot more than you remember. We were kind of... friends and then... we had a fight."

There was no telling what her Spike would make of that description if he ever remembered the details. Not a joke, if he knew what was good for him. But she had to find a way of reassuring the Spike in front of her and bravely forged on.

"So when I came to get you I was pissed, and you didn't say anything which made me even more pissed, but I thought you knew I was there to rescue you. If you could remember me you would have known I was there to rescue you." Buffy tried to smile at him, once again touched his arm. His eyes followed her hand but he didn't move a muscle. "Or stake you," she amended in a more joking tone. "I'm not the slave keeping type, too much responsibility."

"Rescue me?" he repeated stupidly.

"Yes," said the Slayer firmly, and her warm fingers were gentle on his skin. "So please stop being scared of me, it's giving me the wiggins."

Partly to give himself time to think, and partly long habit, the vampire shook off her hand and started picking up the pieces of shattered china. The Slayer watched, pensive also.

"Hard not to be," he confessed. "Been tortured by the best but none with your power; you could take me apart without breaking sweat and I don't know why you don't. I tried to kill you. Often."

"I'm trying to be nice and that's quite an effort for me, don't complain."

"I wasn't-"

"I told you in the car. You rescued my sister, I owe you."

"I did?"

"Okay, I didn't realise you had amnesia then, so maybe I didn't explain properly. The people that had you took my sister a few days ago. We couldn't find any trace of her but then she turned up on her own and she said you'd helped her to escape."

"Skinny girl, long dark hair?"

"Yeah." She watched him curiously. "If you didn't know who she was, why did you help her?"

"She knew my name. And she just... told me to, so I did. Maybe I was just trying to go out with something better than a whimper."

"Well thank you. It sounds like you saved her from a pretty ugly time."

The vampire said nothing, Buffy didn't know if that meant he didn't want to talk about it or if he just wasn't up to the give and take of an actual conversation. In the ensuing silence she found herself stifling a yawn, offering Spike an apologetic smile which he almost returned.

"Sorry. Think we'll both be better off for some sleep."

The Slayer willed herself the energy to stand up, padded over to Spike's trunk still sitting on the kitchen counter. "Got anything that's not a dress to sleep in?" she asked.

The vampire realised what she was about and followed her up, but strong conditioning stopped him from interfering. It wasn't like he could prevent her looking if she decided she wanted to and he really didn't want to upset their apparent truce.

"Oooh, nice." The Slayer reached for the knife lying on top of a jumble of objects and held it up to the light, examining the gleaming blade with professional admiration. "Very nice."

Spike had a sudden realisation: for all that she'd rescued him, the Slayer had no idea from what. The thought that all this kindness was a ploy to get his hopes up had disappeared; far from trying to top three years of torture this innocent girl couldn't even imagine what had been done to him He kinda suspected she'd be happier to stay that way, certainly he didn't want to be the one to explain it to her. It was enough of a fear to push him to intervene.

"Don't think you really want to look in there, Slayer."

His voice was neutral but she glanced up and caught the stricken look on his face, put the knife down with a guilty start.

"Sorry, I shouldn't be going through your stuff-"

"Your stuff, your prerogative. Might not want to is all."

"My knife?" she asked hopefully, because it really was a lovely weapon. More Faith in style but beautifully balanced in her hand. "Do you mind?"

Spike shrugged. "Don't mind you looking. I'd mind you using."

Buffy held up a silver object, an ornately carved cylinder with representations of open mouthed dragons at either end. "And what, precisely, would I use this for?"

The vampire opened his mouth to answer but the words dried up. Something in his expression must have tipped off the Slayer, though no wiser she dropped it back into the case and rescinded the question. "You know what? Never tell me."

Obscuring the rest of the contents was a coiled leather whip; the Slayer picked it up and tossed it into the kitchen bin.

"I'm not going to find any pyjamas in here, am I?"

"No."

She didn't recognise the next item either, held it up for a second and slowly realised it was another whip, six foot of rapier wire weighted with a spiked metal ball. An unwieldy weapon obviously not designed for fighting a moving opponent. She raised dismayed eyes to Spike, who couldn't tear his gaze away from her hand.

"This stuff's all for you isn't it? I'm supposed to use this stuff on you?"

He nodded. "Wouldn't encourage it myself, but that's the general idea."

"You carried this box in here and it's full of things to torture you." Somehow that detail struck Buffy as obscene. He must have known what was in that box, and he'd brought it into her home without a word of complaint.

"Special treat, that one," said Spike blankly. "Got fifty for letting your sis leg it."

Angrily Buffy threw the metal coil after the leather. "Let me see," she demanded, suppressed fury creeping into her tone. Obediently the vampire turned round, Buffy pulled aside his loose garment and gasped at the ragged cuts that crisscrossed every inch of his back.

Obviously the scars she'd not liked to look at on his arms were just the tip of the iceberg, places where the weapon had slipped and older marks. The lesser wounds round the edges were starting to close up but where the blows had hit hardest she could see white rib bones, once protected by lean muscle but now protruding even where the skin was unbroken. This was what had been happening as she'd argued with Dawn and cursed him for being stupid enough to get kidnapped. Sure explained why he'd sat so still, the drive back must have been agony.

She remembered looking at that back one rare occasion when Spike had slept beside her, seeing the marks left by her own finger nails over otherwise unblemished skin and wondering just what that made her. To want to rip and tear at that graceful beauty even as he'd screamed encouragement, come hard for her every time she hurt him. It made her just as bad as Spike, she'd decided at the time, and both of them better than the person who'd taken her graceful, beautiful vampire and shredded him.

"Thank you," she whispered again.

The vampire shivered as she gently traced the half healed cuts across his shoulders. "Was worth it," he said fiercely, straightening imperceptibly under her touch. "Just for the sake of rebelling it was worth it. And then... here I am, and maybe that's worth a lot more. God I hope you're real, Slayer."

Her hands fell away and he turned back around. "Not that bad," Spike added awkwardly. "Only 'cause I ain't fed since, be right as rain tomorrow."

It was only at his words Buffy realised she was crying, and if she spent another second looking into those expressive blue eyes it would become out and out bawling. Or worse, she'd end up hugging him. With great effort Buffy snapped herself back to the present, picked up the case and forced herself to speak casually.

"Is there anything in here that's actually useful? Bearing in mind we'll be skipping the torture?"

"My chains? If you want to..."

The Slayer rolled her eyes through her tears and he let the suggestion tail off. "I'm gonna take that as a no," she said firmly, picking up the case intending to dump the whole thing in the bin. A piece of jewellery dislodged by her earlier rummaging jangled on to the floor and Buffy picked it up.

"What's this?"

"Cock ring," answered Spike flatly. A split second later he wished he'd lied, but his head was still in a place where not answering a question immediately was deserving of a punishment.

The Slayer stared into the box, a horrible truth finally slotting into place for the girl. The jumble of metal and plastic and leather became individual items of torture and though most of these toys were unfamiliar to her all too many had a purpose that was clearly apparent. For Buffy they painted a graphic and sickening picture, the realisation and disgust were plain on her face and made the vampire defensive.

"What did you think people want slaves for?" he asked diffidently. "Get a Latino in cheaper to do the heavy lifting. And I'm so very pretty," he added mockingly.

Buffy dropped the box in the bin, swept the knife she'd admired in after it, then walked carefully over to the kitchen sink to vomit. She stood there for several minutes, running the tap and completely unable to look at the vampire.

AN Apologies to JustSue. Somehow her cock ring just snuck itself a cameo in my fic even though I was trying not to think about it. The case of toys was lifted from her excellent fic Buyer Beware as well.

What do you know? You know just what you perceive
What can you show? Nothing of what you believe

Ten deep breaths later Buffy straightened up and walked past Spike to the basement door. "You can sleep down here, yeah?" she said, cutting off any comment he might have made. "It's a bit musty but there's a bed, and the sun won't get you in the morning. I mean in an hour," she amended ruefully.

"'M lucky really. Vampire dust's got no value; lots of species were sliced up for parts."

The words were obviously meant as a sop to her and they touched Buffy in a very well protected place. That he would wish to comfort her and take away the pain of learning about his suffering. Meeting his eye again was a mistake and she dashed angrily at a second wave of tears.

"You alright?" Spike asked bluntly.

"I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow." And because he looked as if he really cared, and Buffy didn't want to add to his worries, she reached out and squeezed his hand briefly. "And so will you. Well maybe not fine, but better. Safe. Is there anything you need before I go to bed?"

Spike's eyes crinkled as he looked at her, and there was something disturbingly familiar about that affectionate half smile. Maybe it was the affection.

"I'm starting to think you're not all that scary, Slayer," he said softly. "Been three years since I slept in a bed, I'll be better than fine."

Buffy's subconscious, crying for sleep, tried very hard not to hear that last sentence, but her mouth was already working.

"Three years?"

He nodded. "Well that I remember, as you seem to think I'm missing a couple. Been three summers since they got me."

"Three years?"

She could see the panic start to rise again in him and guessed it must be plain on her face that this wasn't good news. This time she was too tired even to bang her head against anything.

"You're not my Spike," she groaned in explanation. "You don't have amnesia at all. Spike only left town three months ago, you're not him."

They stared at each other for a beat that stretched and stretched. "I didn't lie to you," the vampire whispered eventually. "I feel like Spike."

Maybe she was reaching the point of hysteria, because despite the frightened little boy expression he'd been pulling on her all night Buffy couldn't stop a giggle that bubbled up in her throat. "You feel like Spike," she confirmed, then giggled again as she heard her own double meaning. "I mean Slayer senses, you just seem... You know what? I don't care. We can worry about who you are in the morning, if you don't go and murder me in my sleep."

********

Buffy waited until the basement door had closed before switching off the lights and trudging up the stairs. She wasn't quite tired enough to skip her shower, she needed five minutes to empty her mind under scalding hot water but it was an automatic exercise and not entirely successful.

She didn't even notice the stone the demon had given her earlier or the brown leather thong looped around her neck until she was towelling her hair in front of the mirror. She took it off to examine it closer, considered throwing it out but remembered it must have some purpose and maybe Giles would know what it was. In the meantime she put it back on and admired the way the shining emerald surface brought out the green flecks in her eyes.

The pretty shiny thing could only distract Buffy for so long though, and as she slipped into her pyjamas her mind naturally returned to the vampire. It was almost easy to decide she wasn't going to think about the fact that he wasn't Spike - that all practical considerations could just wait till tomorrow - but harder to shake the mental image of his back or the look on his face when she'd tried to reassure him. And just impossible to forget that whoever-the-hell-he-was was in her basement, probably still scared and finding it much harder to dismiss the practical considerations.

********

Spike walked down the stairs in the dark, vampire eyes easily adjusting as the door swung shut behind him. The bed was there, just like she'd promised. Small and lumpy but a bed, not a rack or a cage or a set of chains and Spike wasn't quite sure what to do with that. Sleep, he supposed. Had been days since he'd slept in a not knocked unconscious way but he had a feeling rest wouldn't come easy tonight.

A full meal after three years on congealed scraps and Spike was on the vampire equivalent of a sugar high, but beyond that he was flat out scared. It seemed ridiculous even to his own mind to be more scared of a bed than regular torture but there it was.
The part of his brain that had begun to wonder these last few weeks if he'd gone insane half believed the bed was as imaginary as the house and the Slayer and this whole bizarre night, figments of memory or hallucination. Testing the mattress and finding it solid would not dispel the illusion.

Everything had changed faster than he could understand after years of trying not to think on anything. His whole world, small and painful as it was, turned on its head, individual facts percolating through because the whole was just too much to comprehend. There was only so much information anyone could absorb in one go and the vampire had been used to a very simple life. Do what you're told, don't question, don't scream, don't think; he'd almost forgotten how. And now he wasn't the only person who didn't think he was real; Spike thought he could be more or less happy with that if he could be sure she was. No reason to think otherwise but still he doubted.

Because who was rescued by their mortal enemy? It was a ridiculous notion and surely one that could only be conjured up by an over-abused and desperate mind. And if she were real, the kindness and sanctuary she offered was meant for someone else. Spike tried not to dwell on that, because he couldn't pin down a single piece of evidence that he really was Spike. The last three years were a blur of torment without specifics and he couldn't clearly remember how it started, had only recently begun to question.

And though he could clearly remember a time when he knew exactly who he was, even that seemed more like a nightmare from this distance. The acts he had committed, though the memories were crisper, turned his stomach as much as the atrocities performed on him. He'd told the Slayer he felt like Spike but realised the words weren't quite true as soon as they'd left his lips. He really didn't know what being Spike felt like. He remembered, the lust for life and joy in destruction, but from this distance the feelings were foreign.

He sat down on the mattress, still marvelling at the lack of restraints. He could move his hands however he wanted, stretch out or curl up, could sit here and wank if he chose to. If not for the sounds of the Slayer still up and about above his head he could walk straight outside and look at the stars. Couldn't leave, of course, but freedom was relative and Spike felt like he'd been given his.

He remembered Buffy well, at least the girl she had been. Had obsessed over her and his inability to kill her until other things had driven every thought of his previous life from his mind. He'd pegged her wrong from that first view of a bubbly and shallow teenager dancing with her friends, nothing special. And though she'd managed to thwart his every plan and avoid his fangs Spike had put that down to luck. He hadn't really sat up to take notice till she'd evaded the Order of Taraka and put him in a wheelchair, by which time all he could do was sit. She was upgraded in his mind then to a worthy and amusing opponent, and delectable eye candy with it, but even then he didn't see the steel in her until Angelus returned.

Since then she'd become a legend, and the bare fact that she was still alive made her unique, as far as Spike knew. And terrifying, he'd thought at first. He couldn't imagine the force of personality that had kept her fighting for six years, how that might change a person so much they'd pick themselves up a vampire slave. But she hadn't, and it was impossible to stay scared of the girl who'd cried silently as she'd touched his wounds and thrown up when it had finally sunk into that innocent head just what he was.

The Slayer wasn't what he'd expected. Worlds away from his previous owners and different again to the perky punning girl he recalled from better days. She had the power to end his life in screaming agony with her bare hands but he was already coming to realise it was so far from her mindset as to be impossible. He'd been wrong, the worse she had to offer him was a quick death.

He wasn't the person she'd cried for and Spike couldn't begin to conceive of how that had come about or what this other Spike had been to her. Maybe when she'd slept on this knowledge a quick death is exactly what he would receive, but it was not a thought that chilled him. The threat of a sudden ending, unable to defend himself, had been hanging over his head for years now and he'd often wished he was able to do it himself. To die standing and unbound would be a blessing compared to dying chained and tortured and begging for the pain to stop. And it was fitting, she'd beaten him twice in a fair fight now and it was no shame to be killed by this remarkable Slayer when far more illustrious foe than he had died by her hand.

Dusting was nothing to the nightmare of waking up to find he'd never left LA. That hope really was an impossible fabrication and he was destined to spend his interminable existence as a whore held in place by chains and silicone. There's a limit to how much you can hurt someone when there's nothing left to take. Now, he had a full stomach, a bed, full range of movement and the compassion of his mortal enemy. And other things it was harder to put a name to, hope and choice and chance and feeling. Maybe they were all illusions but Spike already knew if he lost them it would destroy him.

********

He was still sitting when the basement door opened and the Slayer reappeared, armed with a duvet that swamped her small frame and almost hid her adorably childish pyjamas. Business-like she marched down the stairs, dumped the duvet on the bed and handed him a bottle that had previously been hidden from view.

"It's Giles's. Thought you might want it," she explained. "'Night."

The vampire watched her exit, a warm glow spreading that had nothing to do with the half bottle of whisky in his hand.

If this was insanity maybe his mind didn't hate him after all.

TBC...

Chapter Seven

And as you grow, each thread of life that you lead
Will spin around your deeds and dictate your needs
As you sell your soul and you sow your seeds

It was mid morning when Buffy forced herself out of bed, and even then she could have gone another couple of hours. Even when asleep she could sense Spike, a niggling tingle that had invaded her dreams with its associations and left her feeling less than well rested. No hope either that she'd dreamed the whole experience, as her slippered feet padded down the stairs there was a flurry of activity and by the time she got to the bottom the vampire was standing in the kitchen, ostentatiously doing nothing and looking guilty as hell.

"What have you been up to?" she snapped, harsher than she'd intended. Buffy really wasn't a morning person. And it didn't bear thinking about what her Spike might have been doing in her house unsupervised; hopefully this version didn't come complete with his own Slayer underwear fetish. He took a small step back as she marched into the kitchen but at least he was meeting her eye this morning.

"I'm sorry," he started nervously. "I haven't been in a house... I didn't mean to wake you."

Oh yeah. It was going to be another long, long day. At her frown Spike's expression went from guilty to out and out miserable, he stood his ground as Buffy stalked towards him but it obviously took some courage. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I didn't intend to abuse your hospitality."

"What. Have. You. Done?" Buffy enunciated clearly, trying to keep the accusation from her voice.

"I was watching telly, didn't you hear it?"

"Telly? The TV?"

"Yes."

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head, because it would be so wrong to laugh at this weird anti-Spike when he was virtually cowering. She'd thought cocky Spike was irritating but at least she knew how to deal with him, punching this one would hardly help anything but her grumpiness. She poked him in the chest instead.

"I don't torture people! I think I mentioned that last night. I don't care if you watch TV and if I did I'd only yell at you. You annoy me enough and I might hit you 'cause I'm kinda short tempered like that but I'm not gonna... Stop being scared of me, okay?"

"Wasn't scared," said the vampire, though his wary eyes never left hers and he still looked like he wanted to flee. "Didn't want you to think me ungrateful. Didn't want to disturb you."

"Well you've got your very existence against you," said the Slayer dryly. "And you're not helping, I thought you were sacrificing goats in the basement at the very least. Can you kill goats?"

Spike looked a little bemused, it was a step up from scared. "Can't say as I've ever tried."

"I never thought about it before," mused Buffy. "There were the kittens, but I never actually saw you eat one. I think you just gambled them away again. I suppose you wouldn't have mentioned it to me if you were out draining people's pets. It was a thing," she added off the vampire's confused look. "Sounded stupid to me too. I mean if you wanted kittens why didn't you just gamble for money and then buy kittens? Or have kitten chips, like Vegas? See you're making me nervous now. I'll stop rambling if you stop jumping out of your skin whenever I come into a room, okay?"

He nodded, did that almost smiling thing again, as if he wasn't ready to let loose with a whole facial expression or had forgotten how. Buffy stepped out of his personal space in the hope he'd relax some and busied herself making coffee, even with her back to him she could feel eyes watching her every movement. There must have been a thousand questions the vampire wanted to ask but he stayed silent, the questions Buffy had she already knew he couldn't answer so she went with the mundane.

"You're looking a bit more person shaped this morning."

And he was. It didn't seem possible that three mugs of blood could have started putting the weight back on his face but he definitely looked less hollow this morning, eyes and cheeks where they should be instead of shrunken back into his face. He still looked ridiculous but that was probably the toga; for a moment Buffy diverted her mind with the simple problem of where she could find something less silly for him to wear.

"That'll be the blood," said the vampire quietly. "Thank you."

Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. "It was Anya that put it there. I'll get some more later. Did you sleep okay? Did your back keep you awake?"

Spike shook his head, opened his mouth, waited a long second before speaking. "Just you."

With a blush Buffy remembered her not entirely dreamless sleep. "I snore that loud?"

"No, I mean... Had a lot to think about, is all. Didn't want to sleep." He pushed off the counter, unconsciously straightening as he spoke. There was a hint of defiance in his voice as he continued. "Didn't want to wake up and find I'd dreamt you."

"Funny, 'cause I was hoping just the opposite."

The quip was automatic, a defence against letting the conversation slip into sappier territory. Buffy needed to be the Slayer today, rallying the troops and solving the evil mysteries because if she thought too much about what had happened to Spike she'd just have to hug him and that would be all kinds of wrong. The vampire was still a pathetic enough sight to tug at the stiffest of heart strings, and now that she'd found out he wasn't her vampire, she didn't even have legitimate reasons to hate him and maintain the distance. So she drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter as she waited for the water to boil and planned her phone call to Giles. He was certain to want to know what on earth had been happening in Sunnydale and Buffy suspected he would not be commending her actions.

When the coffee was brewed and she turned back around, Spike was still staring at her. Buffy really couldn't adjust to a Spike that could go whole minutes without opening his mouth. Not Spike, she had to remind herself. And it was easy enough to remember when she was looking at him; only the platinum of his hair had been recognisable as Spike at first glance and even that was being pushed out by a good inch of darker blonde and matted to his head with grease and blood. The dress, the posture, even his silhouette radically different from the vampire she remembered. But with her back turned, her only view of him was that sixth sense that came with the Slayer package, and he looked exactly the same.

"D'you want coffee?"

Spike seemed more thrown by this little question than the issue of not actually existing, transferred his gaze to the coffee pot as if it might tell him the answer.

"I don't know," he said eventually.

Buffy poured out two mugs with a snort, pushed one toward him. "Why don't you find out? I'll drink this and then I'll pick up some blood, then we can start in on the research. I suppose we should compare notes, see what you remember differently. Phone Giles. Do you remember Giles?"

He nodded. Spike was dying to ask what they would be researching, exactly, and what the end results might mean for his continued wellbeing, but as he didn't find the courage to voice these questions Buffy remained oblivious.

"But you don't smoke?" she asked.

The pack she'd bought the night before was still sitting unopened on the kitchen island. Spike shook his head. "I did. Just not had one for a couple of years. Thought I'd best wait-"

The vampire broke off so suddenly for a second Buffy thought he was reacting to something she couldn't hear. "Wait for what?" she prodded gently, when he didn't go on. His eyes darted away shiftily.

"I didn't mean... It's all out of my system now, isn't it? I ain't jonesing for 'em anymore."

"Wait till you know I'm not going to take them away from you again," Buffy realised out loud.

"Well yeah."

Buffy shrugged. "Up to you. The porch is in shade, if you do. And you could maybe stand to shower if you don't mind me saying. There're towels and stuff up there, and I could find you some clothes I guess, though they might be a bit girly."

The way his eyes lit up made Buffy feel guilty for not thinking of such details the night before. He downed his coffee as he'd done with the blood, apparently oblivious to the scalding heat. "Now?" Spike asked eagerly.

"When. You. Choose. To." Reiterated Buffy firmly.

Spike did that incredible vampire trick of getting to the door without seeming to move, pausing briefly in the doorway to give her a smile. An actual, whole, unreserved, genuine smile.

"Thank you."

********

Spike hesitated uncertainly at the top of the stairs. Obviously in this world he'd somehow ended up in the Slayer's bathroom at some point because she didn't think to give directions but all he knew of the upstairs of her house right now was several unfamiliar and firmly closed doors. He picked one at random and found himself looking into an airy double room with a faintly musty smell. Whatever had happened to the Slayer's mother was obviously permanent and not recent; there was no trace of her scent even in the master bedroom, only the stale lingering tang of cleaning fluids.

He quickly shut the door and next time struck lucky, a white tiled bathroom bursting with fruity smells and girly lotions. A fancy shower unit of the kind Spike vaguely remembered from the days of happily killing desk clerks and making himself at home in hotel rooms. He stripped off the sheet, picked up a bottle of papaya and kiwi essence shampoo and laughed at the absurdity of it. He was looking forward to standing under hot water so much the anticipation made him hard, and he couldn't care less if he came out of it smelling like a pansy. Maybe the Slayer was right, he really wasn't Spike at all. Or maybe it was just a natural reaction to three years of being hosed down in public.

Buffy would have been shocked at the sight of his naked rear view as he stepped into the shower but Spike had grown used to his scrawny body. Couldn't remember what he looked like unmarked, with actual flesh between skin and bone, couldn't remember the last time he felt clean, come to that, and it was going to be nice. The only thing nicer was going to be stepping outside in the afternoon shade and having himself the first cigarette in three years.

The first blast of hot water on his marred back stung, but it was the good kind of pain, like picking a scab or muscle ache after an active day. The skin was tender and red but no longer raw, even the deepest gashes well scabbed over. Spike doused himself liberally from a bottle of eau de something girly and relaxed into the self indulgence of washing.

The vampire hadn't lied earlier, he'd spent the rest of the night, or more accurately morning, pondering the Slayer and second guessing his own grasp of reality until finally lured from his own thoughts by the forbidden luxury of daytime television. Strangely the sleepless night had left him feeling buoyant. Not enough yet to think about being the vampire he once was, not enough to restore his self confidence, but enough for him to start placing his confidence in her. And trust was big scary thing that he wasn't used to, had never been used to, but strangely enough Spike was feeling less scared by the minute.

He'd trusted Drusilla to carry on being Drusilla, but even in the wildest delusions of romantic love he'd never kidded himself that he could trust her further. Beyond that he'd never put the slightest iota of trust in the people or vampires around him since the night his own mother had turned on him - until that first uneasy truce with the Slayer. He'd known with certainty she'd keep her end of the deal and then a part of Spike had held her in contempt for it. Now, she had absolute control over his life and he trusted her with that power on the basis of twelve hours real acquaintance and the memory of a girl who'd made a deal with a vampire to save the world. It should have been terrifying, and a part of Spike was still terrified that it would be snatched away. But she'd promised he wouldn't be going back to that place and he believed her.

This girl, tender hearted as she obviously was, might even let him go. She'd said herself she wouldn't stake him if he was still harmless and she'd forgiven his grandsire for far worse than trying to kill her. Spike wondered if he'd still know what to do with freedom, the longing that had gnawed at him had vanished in the night. Maybe he'd become institutionalized, although even Spike's confused inner monologue didn't really believe that. Far more likely he just wouldn't mind being the pet of this golden warrior with her endearing and comforting soft side, he was already overcome with the urge to kill things and lay them at her feet.

It was enough to decide he'd think no more on any subject and enjoy the moment. Maybe more a desperate coping mechanism than a resolution but freeing nonetheless, and it could almost be said that Spike was enjoying himself as he scrubbed at weeks’ worth of dirt and scabs and unmentionable fluids until the water ran clear.

His body grew as warm as the steam surrounded him; it was invigorating and soon Spike's attention wandered from personal hygiene to the almost forgotten idea of pleasure. His hand moved instinctively to his hard cock and his mind conjured up, unbidden, an image of a freshly showered blonde girl in yummy sushi pyjamas. He turned his head slightly and nearly jumped out of his skin to see that same blond girl standing at the end of the bathtub, arms folded, stance relaxed.

"It looks like we can rule out brain damage," said Buffy with a derisive nod in the direction of his privates. "Everything seems to be in working order."

Frozen in shock, it took Spike a moment to recollect what he was doing and move his hand away and turn the water off. Her mere appearance was surprising enough; Spike hadn't heard the bathroom door or any other sign of her approach. The way she casually disregarded both his privacy and his nudity shocked the vampire on another, more Victorian level. Not that anyone had extended courtesy or rights or privileges Spike's way for the past few years, but he'd just about decided for sure he could expect different here and though it was a small infraction it cut deep. He tried to pull himself together, the Slayer had every right to enter her own bathroom without knocking if she chose and making jokes about his todger was a long way from torture. He clung to the promise of no torture.

"Maybe I was wrong," continued the Slayer nastily, looking him up and down in a manner befitting a whole other kind of girl. "The skeletal look does give you a certain something, maybe feeding you was a mistake."

Struck almost physically by the force of her venom, the vampire was visibly wilting under her scathing gaze. He didn't step back, or try to cover himself up, long training prevented it. He just stood there wilting.

"Maybe I was a little hasty, throwing out that box. If you have trouble keeping your hands to yourself I could always cuff them to the wall."

Frantically, Spike tried to think up reasons for this sudden anger. They didn't seriously teach school kids that wanking was evil? Certainly walking in on him in the buff didn't sit with a puritanical upbringing. But he couldn't think of anything else he might have done to incur her displeasure, outside of the freedoms she'd permitted.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

"Yeah? It was in here that it happened, you know."

He just couldn't ignore the obvious cue. "What happened?"

"You violated me," said the Slayer casually, as if the words weren't serious and Spike weren't naked and damp and standing in the bathtub. He could only stand and wait, with a sense of dread.

"I was injured. Running myself a bath. You threw me down on the floor right over there, held my wrists down, forced my legs open."

Spike opened and closed his mouth like a fish, only vaguely aware that the Slayer was smiling at him in malicious satisfaction.

"That's why you left town. You were afraid I'd come and stake you. And I would have. I so hoped you were dust."

An hour later Spike would have questions. How had he hurt her if he had a chip here? Why hadn't she just staked him in the car? How on earth had she managed to keep in all that hatred till this moment? But right then, for the second time in 24 hours, Spike's brain had completely shut down. He could just about make out the bare facts of her words - he'd raped her. Spike had raped her.

"What? You don't remember?"

And as if she knew just how much her tear-filled eyes affected him, the spiteful glee disappeared and her bottom lip wobbled. "I begged you to stop. You didn't even listen. I hate this room now - you ruined my home for me."

The vampire could no longer look at her. In years of being treated with contempt, he'd never been made to feel like it was so well deserved. "Kinda ironic," she continued, reading his mind again. "What happened to you. Did you beg them to stop too? As they held you down and took their pleasure of you? I'm the Slayer, I don't condone what happened to you, but I can't think of anyone who deserved it more."

Like the proverbial moth he couldn't help but glance at her again. Her expression was granite hard and the vampire simply couldn't stand it.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Well that's alright then," snapped the Slayer. There was a pause, Spike imagined she was glaring at him some more. "I wouldn't accept an apology from you if it was written in your dust." By the time Spike gathered enough courage to look again she was gone, as silently as she'd arrived, and Spike was reduced to just one clear thought. His benefactress wanted him dead.

A few minutes later he regained his senses and determined that she must have left the house, he couldn't feel her anywhere nearby. Only then did he dare move. Reached for a towel, opened the door to check his empty house assessment and found some old clothes left outside. Quickly he dressed, went downstairs to the empty kitchen and liberated his all-purpose slave owner’s kit from the wastebin. He couldn't oblige her with his dust, but if she wanted to chain him up he wasn't going to fight her on it.

The packet of cigarettes stayed unopened on the kitchen counter.

And you wound yourself and your loved one bleeds
And your habits grow and your conscience feeds
On all that you thought you could be
I never dreamed this could happen to me

Ten minutes of searching for clothing for Spike and Buffy had turned up exactly one black T-shirt, stolen from same one night months ago when his impatient attentions had destroyed her own blouse then stuffed guiltily in the bottom of a closet. And that was a no-go, she couldn't be sure even after such time that he wouldn't be able to pick up their combined scents. The same went for his duster; she wasn't prepared to even look in that closet, wasn't really keen on admitting to herself that she hadn't thrown the thing away. So Buffy shoved the T-shirt in the washing machine and borrowed Dawn's least frilly sleepshirt and a pair of sweats at least four sizes too short for the vampire, though he probably now had the waist to fit in any clothing in the house. She left them folded in a neat pile outside the bathroom door and added black jeans to her mental shopping list before slipping into shoes that didn't have fluffy bunnies on them and heading out for the butcher’s.

********

When Buffy returned home she was laden with blood and clothes and Spike was nowhere to be seen. Buffy called Dawn first, let her know they were safely home, though the call quickly became an argument when the Slayer asked her sister to stay another night at Anya's.

And then the phone call to Bath, with the inevitably awkward explanations, but an unexpected voice answered the phone.

"I'm okay Giles, you don't need to check in every two minutes."

"Willow?"

There was such a long silence on the line the Slayer expected the dial tone to interrupt any second. "Buffy?"

"Willow! Um... Hi?"

Willow must have heard the unspoken 'you haven't escaped and got back on the magic crack?' question because instead of a greeting she said: "Giles knows I'm here, they said I was ready to practise being in a less controlled environment. He got called out to some emergency Council meeting, but he'll be back in an hour or so. How are you? How's Dawn?"

"Willow!" Buffy repeated, because she hadn't thought to rehearse this conversation. "We're both fine."

It must have taken her far too long to say the words; she could hear the anxiety increase in her friend's voice. "Can I take a message for Giles? Or can I help? You don't want to talk to me, do you?"

"I was kinda geared up for Giles," Buffy admitted. "I had my excuses planned out and everything. If you could maybe sound a little more disapproving I could get back in the mood?"

"What have you done that he'd disapprove of?"

"Kidnapped Spike from demon mafia slave traders."

There was a long pause before Willow's voice came back over the line, slightly more steady. "That's not as bad as trying to end the world, I'm not sure I can disapprove."

"Well I bet I'm gonna get a bigger lecture than you did," Buffy grumbled. "Anyway, it turned out not to be Spike at all which is why I was calling. What's new in Britain?"

"Giles has an itsy bitsy teeny apartment called a flat and there's nothing to do here but drink beer. Revolting flat beer. Nothing as exciting as demon mafia."

"And how are you?" asked the Slayer more seriously.

"Probably better than I should be."

"All demagicified, then?"

"Um... No... See it wasn't... I can't really be demagicified. It's part... Most of it is just knowing how to do stuff, and you can't really unlearn it. But it wasn't... The homicidal tendencies were something else, the magic is under control."

Buffy digested this, not very happily, and tried to swallow a worried response.

"I can't change it," Willow added. "I'm sorry Buffy."

Buffy took a deep breath. "That's quite the big news that Giles completely failed to even hint at. So you can do spells now without going all veiny? I can ask you stuff about magic?"

"That's the theory. But maybe you'd better tell me what on earth's been happening first."

Buffy hardly realised just how much she'd missed her best friend until she started talking, recounting Dawn's welcome reappearance and the rescue of Spike that turned out to not be Spike at all. Willow made all the right sympathetic noises in a way Giles simply didn't know how to.

"So now I have exactly zero ideas," Buffy finished. "So I need you to have a few brainwaves and tell me what the hell is going on."

"Off the top of my head? They could be importing their product from other dimensions, he could be the Spike from a slightly different world. Or, he could be our Spike, and he's been in a dimension where time doesn't run the same. Or he could be some kind of clone. Did he say how long it was since he last saw you, from his point of view?"

"No, I'll ask him."

"And find out if he remembers everything exactly the same up to that point. Of course," Willow continued, "He could just be Spike, spinning you a line for his own nefarious purposes."

"I really don't think he's making it up, Will. The real Spike wouldn't have the patience to stay in character for more than two minutes. Did I mention he stayed silent for a whole half hour in the car? That's a physical impossibility for our Spike."

"Ooh! Vengeance wishes. You didn't happen to say to Anya 'I wish Spike could be tortured for three years'?"

"I did not," said Buffy firmly. "And Dawn never uses the W word anymore. It can't be anything Anya did, she'd been... helping. Any more ideas?"

"Sorry, that's all I got. If he was human I could maybe track his life force, see if it's tied to this dimension, but I don't know how the spell would translate to a vampire.

Buffy hung up the phone feeling like she was weighed down with one less thing. Willow might never be the shy girl she'd once known and things could never be quite the same between them but whatever she had gone through this last year she was still sounding reassuringly... Willowy. Which was of the good, because one case of complete personality transplant was enough for a Slayer to deal with.

Even the thought of digging out her wayward mystery vampire wasn't too depressing. Weird as Non-Spike was, and a hard adjustment, he was in a way considerably easier to be around than the extrovert original. In terms of baggage it was hard to tell who came more laden but at least with twitchy, nervous Spike his baggage was all his own. It wasn't their baggage. It wasn't part of the horrible mess that was Spike + Buffy. And this wasn't the Spike that could see right through her. Not the Spike that was always confrontational, that always said the things she least wanted to hear. Not the Spike that always wanted. She could be sympathetic to this Spike without it leading to innuendo and awkwardness. And though she was too upright to test the power, she was fairly sure that if she told this Spike to shut up, that's exactly what he would do.

Weird!Spike had his own draw-backs of course, but he'd had a few hours to settle in. She could only hope he'd relax some now that he could be sure she didn't want to hurt him.

********

Spike stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the Slayer moving overhead and uncertain of where he was supposed to be. After her revelation in the shower he just wanted to keep his head down and stay the hell out of her way, and decided in the end to wait for her summons. He heard voices, or rather once voice, and though he couldn't make out the words through two closed doors, it was apparent she was making telephone calls.

When the door opened twenty minutes later he was still standing there. The Slayer descended the stairs slowly, eyes adjusting to the near darkness, gaze fixed on the vacant cot bed.

"Spike? Are you awake?"

"Here."

She visibly jumped at his quiet voice two feet to her right, swivelled her head in his direction to peer into the darkness.

"You need a bell round your neck," the Slayer snapped, reaching for the light switch.

"I've got one." Spike pointed to the trunk, now sitting on the dryer. "Do you want me to wear it?"

Buffy's eyes followed his finger; she gave the case a frown that the vampire couldn't interpret. "No! Just don't sneak up on me, okay? It freaks me out and it's liable to get you injured. In a totally accidental hit before thinking way."

She gave the case another odd look, and shook her head before holding out a package to Spike. "I picked you up some clothes, which is lucky because you're not exactly Dawn's size. Didn't think to get hairgel." She gestured vaguely around her own hair. "You have quite a thing going on up there."

Automatically Spike's hand went to his head. His overgrown locks had not seen soap for quite some time, after years plastered back with dirt and dried blood they'd sprung to life, no doubt smelling of kiwifruit. He made a token effort at smoothing them down, well aware it made not the slightest difference. And now she'd completely thrown him, as if there was anything Spike had a firm grip on nowadays. She wished him dead but she bought him clothes; she sneered unembarrassed at the sight of him naked but she was too polite to come right out and say he looked stupid.

How was he supposed to react to her now? Even the Victorians hadn't had a formal protocol for social interaction between a person who remembered being raped and a second party wearing the body of the perpetrator yet with no memory of the event.

"I also got blood," Buffy continued when he finally took the clothes from her hand. "So come on up when you're changed and we can do the dinner and research thing."

She trotted up the steps, leaving Spike wondering what Slayer he'd be getting when he followed her. There were no clues in the bag, unless you counted the absence of underpants, just two black T-shirts, a pair of black jeans and a packet of black socks. Was it worse not to know? Possibly getting glared at should be a huge step up from certain torture but maybe even vampires craved a little certainty. Any more of this head fuck and he'd be looking back nostalgically to the good old days when he was only beaten and raped regularly. At least there was the training to fall back on - obey orders.

So when he opened the basement door he was wearing clothes that fit, in a loose kind of way, clothes that he might have picked out himself. He could smell warm blood, as he paused in the kitchen doorway he could see a mug sitting on the kitchen counter. Buffy turned around from where she was stabbing her microwave meal and caught him staring.

"If you're going to ask if it's for you, I may have to hit you. Just so you know." But her tone was light and the words accompanied by a warm smile that made Spike want to smile back though it was hardly appropriate.

And that damn smile, that was why he was starting to think he preferred the torture. When she smiled at him like that he felt so pathetically grateful. She smiled at him like she was pleased to see him, or at least trying not to show that she wasn't, and to someone so deprived of positive human contact that kindness was a gift. And every time she did it he was swept into the illusion that he was safe. Worse, that he was cared for. Had really let himself believe it for a few precious hours before the mask slipped and she revealed how much she really detested him. And the absolute worse? The Jesus-can-I-be-any-more-fucked worse? He wantedher to care for him. He craved her kindness. And he hated, hated the thought that the distaste and dislike that must be bubbling under the surface of that smile was so thoroughly justified.

Spike couldn't get by without people. That most basic of human needs that the vampire William hadn't quite managed to leave in the grave - companionship. Vampires or humans, didn't matter, just people to talk to, touch, react to, laugh at. Communicate with as equals. After three years of loneliness he was so desperate for the smallest token of affection that this pretty girl with her warm smiles had already more power over him than restraints alone ever could.

He must have watched her smile too long, now she was watching him curiously, one eyebrow raised. "I'm not going to do the aeroplane thing with the spoon," she said dryly. "Gotta draw the line somewhere."

He downed the blood, warm and unexpectedly satisfying. After the bounty of the night before, Spike's stomach had been unusually silent but there was space for a whole lot more and his body told him he still needed it. The Slayer held her hand out for the mug. "There's plenty more."

"Let me."

He picked up a bag from a generous tray full and the Slayer slid her mac'n'cheese out of the microwave onto a plate to make room for his cup. "D'you want some Weetabix? I think Giles left some here."

No doubt about it, one of them was quite, quite insane. He was toying with the idea of asking her straight out why on earth she was offering a vampire breakfast cereal when she grinned. Apparently this Slayer found him worryingly easy to read.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice. I'm not the crazy vampire that liked to put stuff in his blood."

"Stuff like... Weetabix?"

She nodded. "Maybe you only did it for the grossout factor. You'd dunk stuff, croutons or those weird British cookies Giles used to go nuts over. Anything that made us go 'eurgh'. Except not you. Maybe you're the non-gross twin. I phoned Willow while you were skulking in the basement, did you hear?"

Spike shook his head. "Only sounds."

"She wanted to know how long it's been since you saw me, from your point of view."

Well it looked like the question and answer portion of the day had arrived. A vague idea of what was going on would be nice, but he was dreading the process. His memories of the last few years were not something Spike wanted to hash over in any detail and it didn't sound like he wanted to hear hers either.

"Three years, near as I can tell. Was Autumn when they picked me up, remember that for sure, and that was only a week or two after I last met... fought you."

"You said in the car you went to LA. Was that then?"

He nodded warily, ducked his head and rushed out an answer. "Then I came back here to have another crack at trying to kill you. That's when I was nabbed."

Buffy just nodded. Maybe he'd been lucky and she'd never heard about the Angel torture, or just wasn't inclined to bring it up. Spike sure wasn't going to mention it.

"I think we're safe to assume that everything up to that point was the same. You came to Sunnydale with Drusilla? Crashed my parent teacher night? That worked out quite well for me, by the way. I got a horrific report, even though it was me who put out all the doilies - Principal Snyder took this completely irrational dislike to me just because of all the fighting and suspicious behaviour. But mom ungrounded me for fighting you."

"She hit me on the head with an axe," the vampire remembered. "Quite a lady."

"Yeah. She died a while back. Then you cured Dru and I put you in a wheelchair, then the deal with Acathla, then you went to Brazil and Dru left you for a chaos demon. You came back and told us about it and if you don't remember that it's because you were very drunk."

"I do recollect. Slightly. Kidnapped your little pals, I was very drunk." He had the grace to look embarrassed, though how making a shit faced prat of himself was worse than the wholesale slaughter and general evilness he couldn't have said.

"You somehow persuaded mom to make you cocoa, you always did win points for sheer cheek. In this world, after you got your chip you escaped, tried to kill Willow, that's when you found out you couldn't bite people. Then a week or so later you just turned up, expected us to fix you."

And that made all kinds of sense to the vampire. There was no such thing as demon solidarity and vampires were generally considered the black sheep of the family, with little loyalty to their own. One hint of weakness and they'd be on him, fighting for the privilege of dusting a master vampire. Unable to fight back he'd be an easy trophy. With Dru gone who else could he possibly turn to for help? That's what white hats were for, there was a strange kind of logic to it, he could see why he'd believed they'd take him in and his other self had obviously been right.

"Uh... sorry?"

The Slayer laughed. "We chained you up in Giles' bath tub and made you wear Xander's old Hawaiian shirts so maybe it evens out. I had an idea about Dawn, by the way, and why you don't remember her."

"Yeah?"

"She was kind of... inserted. It's a very long story, mystical entity turned human by monks, etcetera, just a couple of years ago. We all remember her - you used to remember her - from before that, but they were fake memories. So somehow that stuff isn't in your head, and the part where she was really real you don't remember anyway."

Spike tried to sort that out, nodding warily.

"You remember Acathla? You came to my house?"

Another nod.

"But you don't remember Dawn being there?"

"No."

"See in my memory she came down the stairs in her pyjamas, asked you if you were my new boyfriend. But it's my memory that's wrong there, it's just a spell and it really happened the way you remember."

Despite himself Spike was starting to drop his guard. Soon, inevitably, they'd get on to harder subjects but for now it was taking conscious effort not to be drawn into the pretence of casual chit chat. Three years with no free conversation whatsoever and he'd nearly forgotten what a naturally verbal creature he was, it was getting harder not to join in with her nostalgia, the habit of silence slowly getting broken down.

And Spike was desperately curious, who wouldn't be? To know how she remembered him and curious too about her mysterious mystical sister. The girl he now assumed was Dawn, an assumption backed by the photos on the mantle, had been instantly noticeable. A little girl in a varied collection of demons tended to stand out. Spike had been pressed into service that day, unchaining the new, unprocessed prisoners and herding them in to pens, and to his senses at least she'd seemed completely human. And compared to the cowering and shackled demons around her she was unworried; when she'd first spotted Spike her eyes had widened in surprise and excitement but not the slightest trace of fear. She'd seen his keys, held out her hands and imperiously demanded that he unchain her.

Maybe it was simply the obedience training kicking in, or maybe being on the receiving end for so long had taught him a compassion usually absent in vampires. It seemed strange that any amount of training could drum out the instinct to want to kill. The panic in the air from the massed captives was enough to make Spike quiver but the girl had seemed oblivious, talked continuously as she'd hustled him into taking her chains off and pulled him away from where he should have been standing towards an exit. He'd not taken in a word of what was said, just a vague impression that she was jumping back and forth between anger and excitement, and getting frustrated when he didn't react as she seemed to expect. She'd been surprised when he'd pushed her out of the door on her own and there hadn't been time to explain why he couldn't leave, or that if she stayed an hour more she wouldn't be able to leave either.

It had been an impulsive, or maybe even automatic, act that had earned him a lot of pain and also brought him here. And counted for more, apparently, than whatever multitude of unforgivable sins she remembered him committing.

"So you’re thinking what? Something's been messing with my memory? That I'm really the same vampire?" The same guy that raped you, he added in his head and to him the answer was massively important but apparently her mind wasn't running the same way because she shrugged casually.

"Sorry. That idea pretty much fits in with all current theories. If you've got some weird amnesia then you might have forgotten her because all your memories of her are recent, even the ones that seem old. Or you've come from a dimension where she doesn't exist so you never got the faked memories added in. It would have to be something that happened after the point of you being chipped. Hey, maybe the army cloned you."

Spike was starting to get used to these apparently nonsense statements. "The army clone vampires?" he prodded gently.

"They put a chip in your head and made their own pet Frankenstein monster, who knows what other wacky shenanigans they got up to."

Oh. Spike realised he'd found the diverging point. The Slayer wasn't far behind.

"That's not how you remember it, is it?"

TBC

Chapter Nine
You're walking a different direction
From most people I've met
You're giving me signs of affection
I don't usually get
~ If We Try, Don McLean

"That's not how you remember it, is it?" Buffy asked, punctuating the question with a mouthful of orange gloop from her instant meal.

"Didn't notice any soldiers. Demons mostly and the humans weren't... army types."

"Huh. Two different Spikes, and they both get chipped at the same time by different groups? That's a bit hard to swallow, even for the hellmouth."

Her voice was laden with scepticism and Spike felt the need to defend himself. "I'm not lying!"

"I didn't mean to say you were. Just... something's fishy in the state of Denmark."

Spike smiled, he couldn't help it. There was just something endearingly unthreatening about this girl and right this second he couldn't believe he'd ever wished to hurt her. Couldn't believe that she was the same hard faced woman who's sneered at him in the shower and in his head he was already making excuses for her. How would he react, after all, to one of his attackers when he was in a position to exact revenge? It was a fairly simple answer, if he was Buffy, he'd be long since dust. Which made a few snide remarks in a sea of patience seem on the overly calm side of reasonable, when you balanced it all up. It was the facts that had shaken him so, he tried to tell himself now, her malevolent expression added on by his imagination.

"What? I can't quote stuff?"

"You can paraphrase stuff," he agreed diplomatically. "Slayer-"

"Buffy," interrupted same firmly. "Or is it not polite to call a girl by their first name till you've been formally reintroduced?" Buffy. He rolled the word around in his head and it felt strange, couldn't remember any occasion he'd said it out loud. Maybe to Dru, in a 'the new Slayer's called Buffy, can you believe it?' way.

"You're allowed to mock my name if you really have to," she added. "Everyone else does."

"No, it's a... it's an original name. Just not used to saying it, is all."

"You said once it brought a touch of classic elegance. I'm pretty sure you were being sarcastic."

"That what I used to call you then? This other me?"

Quite inexplicably the Slayer... Buffy... blushed. Faintly at first then rapidly rising to scarlet as she realised he'd noticed. "Yeah. Sometimes."

"Was one for nicknames," he agreed, having no idea where her sudden embarrassment was coming from and feeling the need to cover. "So, Buffy, did I live here?"

"Here in Sunnydale? Yes. Here in this house? No. With some more no, plus a side order of no."

Rushed into speaking by her awkward silence, the vampire hadn't quite asked the question he'd wanted to. Spike tried again, choosing the words oh so carefully. "But what was I doing here... I mean, I don't understand..." It was no good, too many things he couldn't mention, not enough facts even to start asking the questions. He trailed off. Hoped the Slayer would be able to fill in the blanks, or at least tell him enough about this reality to hang a question on.

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then the phone rang. Spike got the impression from the eager way the Slayer jumped up to answer it that he wasn't the only one not sorry to be interrupted.

"Hello?"

"Hey Buffy, I've had that brainwave. Do you have anything that belongs to Spike? I mean your Spike, that he left behind?" Though the girl on the end of the line was coming through too tinny for him to recognise, he could hear the words clearly and the Slayer's greeting of 'Willow' filled in the gaps.

"If belonging to can mean stolen from the fresh corpse of a Slayer, then yes." The current Slayer glanced at him as she spoke and Spike got the reference easily enough, for some reason, and impossibly, she had his duster.

"Please tell me you don't mean your corpse?" asked Willow through the earpiece. "Oh. Ewww, is that the coat? Did he... Okay, off topic. That should count. I was thinking you should do a location spell, I've never done one for a vampire before but I think I can adapt one, I'll get right on it."

"How will that help? I know where he is, I can see him right here in my living room with my magical eyeballs."

"But the spell will find the original Spike. If it shows he's right there in your house then they must be one and the same, if it comes out he's off the local map then we're dealing with something else."

Oh. Spike got it. That would be a firm answer of one kind. The vampire was suddenly not very sure he wanted to know.

"Okay. And you want me to do it?"

"Well you have the focus there, I mean the duster. You could Fed-Ex it to me, but I think it's going to be a simple spell. I'll do all the research, it'll just be a few ingredients and a little chant."

"Okay. I suppose Anya can help with the ingredients if I get stuck. Is Giles not back yet?"

"No. He called to say he might be staying the night in London and he'd call again when he knew - there’s been serious council stuff going on, some watchers have disappeared and a potential Slayer was found dead this morning. Stabbed. I told him you called and he said he'd get back to you but he... Did you say Spike was there? Can he hear me?"

Buffy glanced at the vampire, who nodded. "Yes and yes."

"Then I won't say what Giles said about him. I'll phone back with this spell, okay?"

********

Buffy was guiltily grateful when the phone rang. She wanted to figure it out, she really did, but she felt like she was trying to get her head round the impossible and it was high time to hand this problem back to bigger brains. Besides, Non-Spike was giving her a headache. He answered every question put to him but the mask that had slipped last night was firmly in place this morning and a meek Spike was just wrong, all kinds of unnatural. And far from relaxing he seemed to have gotten weirder. Buffy could only guess at his reasons for wanting to keep his little box of nasty toys; if anything he appeared jumpier and more uncomfortable than the night before. And it had got to her turn to be answering questions and that was never good. Saved by the bell.

It wasn't Giles calling - and that was both a relief and a disappointment - but an excitable Willow in full research mode. The witch outlined her idea for Buffy, and presumably Spike, who had been listening intently in the background.

"You get all that?" she asked him when Willow was off the line and he nodded. Buffy well remembered that he'd been trying to form a question but having escaped that conversation once she wasn't keen to jump back in. Helping Spike might be a noble and selfless plan when it just involved traipsing across state to rescue him, having to then talk to him and about her Spike was going a shade too far. And by now Buffy was hopelessly confused about which Spike she was talking to. They were different enough to make it easier for Buffy to consider them separate entities, but that didn't make it fact and things were rarely what they seemed on the hellmouth. New Spike, problem to be solved. Old Spike, something never to be thought about. Buffy liked it that way, she'd made a hobby out of not thinking about Spike this last summer, and how to get through that minefield of an explanation was a headache all to itself.

For starters, the sheer bizarreness of the last two or three years made for a complicated narrative. Buffy wasn't about to mention the former Buffy-obsession of a certain chipped vampire because... well she didn't want to. And seeing as that seemed to be the motivating force behind Spike's every action for the last eighteen months at least, it was a tricky issue to skirt. Especially as repeating any of his bad behaviour in the time before that was out too. This Spike seemed determined to stay scared of her despite repeated reassurances and Buffy didn't want to make him any worse. Maybe it was a conversation they'd be better off having on the move, and though it was still half an hour till dusk the Slayer could hide in the bathroom until then. Things were always clearer when she was staking vamps.

"I need to patrol," she announced abruptly, getting in before he mastered the formation of complete sentences and phrased a whole question. "You know, when it gets dark, so I'm going to get ready." And because her Spike would have been sure to point out the avoidance of that move she felt compelled to add: "You can come. I can fill you in on the last three years."

Just another obedient nod, which made Buffy wish she'd made that sound more a request than a royal command. "Have more blood, if you like. Watch TV, whatever."

It wasn't until she was changed and the shadows long enough to tempt out the first vampires that Buffy remembered the problem of shoes.

"I couldn't get you any boots," she explained to Spike as she walked down the stairs. "I didn't know the size and I wouldn't have had enough money anyway."

Okay, maybe that explanation would work better from the beginning. Spike had turned to look at her and seemed to be waiting for the point.

"There are no shoes that fit you," she tried. "For patrolling. You'll have to stay here and maybe Anya-"

"Black socks," interrupted the vampire quickly. "Won't show in the dark."

"But what about your feet?"

Spike shrugged. "Be alright. I'd like to come anyway if I may?"

"Up to you." Buffy picked a couple of stakes from her chest and the vampire followed, weaponless and a cheap scrap of polyester away from barefoot. Something had always bothered Buffy about Spike's feet. The boots had been fine, a big stomping part of the big bad image but naked his feet had always drawn as much of Buffy's attention as any part of him. He could stand in jeans and t-shirt but those ivory white digits had always reminded Buffy he was naked underneath. And her Spike had known it, known how she'd react when he wriggled his toes into places toes weren't supposed to go and he'd known, too, how the arousal and wrongness were too intertwined to be separated.

Lucky she'd remembered the socks and wouldn't be drawn to that particular memory as he padded silently behind her down the path. As if today wasn't unsettling enough.

"You don't have to keep doing that," he said suddenly as they turned out the gate and on to the pavement.

"Do what? Not make you patrol bare foot?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Well if you're not going to stick up for yourself I have to try and think of these things."

"No you don't," he said quietly. "Don't have to be nice to me."

Buffy gave him an exasperated look. "I'll bear that in mind the next time you get kidnapped by slave traders. Or would you like me to send you back?"

He shivered at the suggestion and shook his head, but still had to add: "Should. Didn't mean to help her."

Not really sure what they were talking about now, Buffy waited for more. His damn turn to carry the conversation anyway.

"You don't owe me anything, not really. She just... rushed me in to it. If she hadn't said anything I'd've thrown her in with the rest. You're being nice for no reason."

The body language of New!Spike was generally so submissive he was hard to read, harder still when he was talking to his feet, that ridiculously floppy fringe obscuring his eyes. Best she could tell from his voice, he thought this a weighty confession indeed.

"It'll wear off soon enough," Buffy answered lightly. "Sooner, if you don't stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"That's not... I didn't mean... Just, you don't owe me, that's what I was saying. Don't have to help me."

"Maybe not." The score between them was probably unquantifiable by now, a mutual debt. "Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm starting to get the impression you'd actually prefer it if I was mean to you."

He glanced up at her then, flashed that barely-there smile. "Just feels wrong. You wantin' me dust an' all."

"Did I say that?"

Another of those infernal nods that told her nothing. Buffy cast her mind back but couldn't remember the specific occasion. "Well I didn't mean it."

"'S okay, got every reason."

"Even so, I didn't really wish Spike dead. I wouldn't have said that if... he, you, would have known I didn't really mean it. You always knew. Not that you had any particular insight just, well you always refused to believe I meant it whether I did or not."

Buffy ran this back in her head and decided the whole sentence made no sense. They needed to name the different incarnations of Spike for ease of reference.

"If I'd known you were there I would have come to get you. Come to get Spike. It wasn't just for helping Dawn, not just that time. I would have moaned about it and made like I didn't want to but I would have come anyway."

"Why?"

If it had come from her Spike the question would have been an attack. Another go at trying to corner the Slayer into admitting she was in love with him. This Spike seemed genuinely bemused.

"I told you already, as much as I know. Because... we were almost friends. Allies. Something else. And that counts for something, even if we... we'd fallen out since. And you did save Dawn, another time that you don't remember and... I just would've okay? You can relax, I'm not going to suddenly change my mind and stake you."

"You're a good person. Don't think I'm not grateful."

"You've already mentioned the grateful," said Buffy awkwardly. "And I'm not, you know. Not really. Trying to be."

The vampire didn't say anything. A technique that had gotten more conversation out of Buffy in a day than the original Spike had managed in a year.

"You would have come for me, I think, Spike would have, and you had plenty of reasons to want me dead too. Maybe it works out fair in the end."

"Well thank you."

"You can stop saying that any time now."

"Sorry."

Buffy glared.

"Well I am," he added defiantly. Something about his misplaced courage made the Slayer laugh.

"That was nearly backchat. There's evil in you yet."

It was hard to tell behind that mousy curtain but she thought he shared her grin.

They walked on in silence for some time, crossing one small cemetery that was still free of evil this early in the evening. Around the end of the park and into the next graveyard, again, no fledges to provide a distraction. And because Spike wasn't her Spike and didn't push for conversation, badger her for answers, eventually Buffy had to bite the bullet of her own accord.

"I said I'd explain the last three years, didn't I? I don't really know where to start."

"It's okay. Get why you don't want to talk about it. Not to me."

Nope. Definitely not her Spike. It was an easy out and Buffy was tempted to take it. "You do? My craven cowardice is that obvious?"

The vampire frowned, shook his head. "I didn't... Don't matter, does it? Not my business."

"Cool! Did I mention how good the whole new and improved Spike thing is?"

It was a throwaway line that made him wince. A twitch that the Slayer misinterpreted, thinking of what must have gone in to the improving. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Again he shook his head, denying the need to apologise.

"Really. It's not true. It's just... well you're right, I don't want to rehash the last three years with you, they've not been very good ones for me. For you either. I was putting it all behind me, you know? And old Spike was one for the persistent questions. Let's find something to kill, that'll clear my head a little."

But there was nothing out to be killed, unless Buffy decided to stretch the usual rules and stake unruly teenagers. On to the third cemetery and the grandest yet, with the biggest Mausoleums and a sweeping gravel driveway. The crunch of flint under her shoes reminded Buffy of less well clad feet.

"Maybe we should go the other way, all these pointy little stones can't be nice."

"'M fine."

"But the Bronze wouldn't be any better," Buffy continued. "All that broken glass-"

"Stop worrying about my feet!"

She turned to stare at him, surprised to be interrupted and even more by his vehement tone.

"Sorry," Spike mumbled automatically, then seemed to stop and think. "No I'm not."

"Good," said Buffy dryly. "As long as that's settled."

"Well you told me to speak when I had something to say, and I did," said the vampire boldly. "I'd cut my damn feet up myself for the chance to be walking in the fresh air. I don't give a piss about the gravel; and I'd walk over hot coals for you."

This last was said with such familiar adoration that for a split second Buffy was convinced the vampire was pulling some elaborate scam, that he remembered exactly who he was and how he felt about her. Only the way he looked down when she met his gaze was different.

"Don't even think about it," she snapped, not quite sure what she was warning him against. The vampire bowed his head further in apology though he couldn't have known either.

"Sorry," he mumbled again.

"Are you sure this time?"

When he nodded seriously Buffy felt all kinds of bitchy. "Well you shouldn't be," she sighed. "You're as entitled to speak your mind as anyone, I suppose. It's just... weird. All the behaving and the politeness and... weird. You're supposed to say things I don't want to hear, it's like your... that thing with the currants? The one you're good at?"

"Raison d'etre?"

"That's the one. And I tell you to shut up and you take no notice, that's how it works, okay? Every time you take any notice of me you upset a delicate balance."

"Didn't want you to think me rude."

"I already know you're rude, Spike. It's you that's forgotten. And really it would be less disturbing if you took that up again. You shouldn't be grateful to me."

"Then you've got no idea of what you saved me from," said the vampire fiercely. "Of what it means to me to go a night without being beaten or whipped or buggered."

Buffy turned her head away with a grimace, Spike waited until she looked back before continuing. "The hell I shouldn't be grateful. To be fed. To sleep without manacles. To be treated with kindness."

"To watch Jerry Springer?" Buffy interjected, squirming uncomfortably and trying to lighten the mood.

"To watch telly," he agreed, "And know it won't earn me a day on the rack or a trip back to that place. To have hope that tomorrow won't be the same hell as yesterday. From the same person who should be glad... The person who knows damn well what I'd've done with you if you landed helpless in my lap. You shouldn't care about my feet, it's too much, I'm not worth..." He trailed off for a second and even Buffy could guess at the memory that had distracted him, but he pulled it together and finished his little speech with renewed determination. "You might not want a slave but you've got one. I'd do anything for you."

Buffy was aware she had to say something now. Something that wasn't a wisecrack. She couldn't just walk on in silence when it obviously cost him so much to speak. But she'd heard that line before, very nearly, different circumstances and different vampire but still Buffy remembered that damn song and the snowball of badness it had started. Losing the one place she'd felt comfortable since her resurrection had tipped the scales for a few hours between wishing she were dead and actively seeking that death. And had lead directly, to Buffy's mind at least, to the mountain of bad-and-possibly-spell-induced decision making that was that first kiss and a heap of misery for both of them.

Now Buffy was miles away from the suicidal ball of misery she'd been a year ago. She knew within herself she was healthier and happier, able to make decisions about her life in a way that had been impossible when she'd just wanted to be dead. And she certainly didn't need Spike to lean on, to make her feel, there'd be no repeat of the misery they'd dealt each other last year. But still those expressive blue eyes, looking at her with awe and worship if not yet love, well that panicked the Slayer. She didn't want that power over him, didn't want his happiness to depend on her because she couldn't ever give him what he wanted. And in that this Spike was no different to the last, and Buffy didn't have it in her to throw herself into another doomed relationship and she knew that look in his eye could lead to nothing but unhappiness for the vampire and trouble for her. Despite her best intentions both Spike's had a firm grip on her affections, she didn't want to make him miserable. But in one of those lovely catch 22's that plagued Buffy's life she didn't have the heart to stomp on him now and head that misery off at the pass.

He was still looking at her, doubtfully now, glancing under his lashes. Buffy threw back her shoulders some more as she turned to cut across the grass, opened her mouth and prayed the words wouldn't come out a squeak.

"So you like the fresh air, huh?"

Chapter Ten

But I know if the silence of night could be here
It would drift through my soul and calm all my fear
~ Falling Through Time, Don McLean

"So you like the fresh air, huh?"

"Yeah." And he really did. Taking huge lungfuls of scents that weren't cleaned or fetid or artificial, that was pretty good. Strolling, striding, with no chains to fetter his movements. Rediscovering the sights and smells and sounds and feelings of nighttime in the great outdoors.

Speaking his mind had felt pretty good too. At least, speaking his mind as much as it was possible to articulate the joys of not being thoroughly miserable. He'd made the Slayer... Buffy... uncomfortable, he could tell, it was the only thing that kept him from saying more, but that overwhelming gratitude had to come spilling out. He thought maybe she understood. Anyone who could spare compassion for an enemy must have seen their fair share of misery.

"It's been a while, you know. A long while."

"I get that. Well I don't, but I get antsy if I don't patrol every night."

They walked on in a silence that was mostly companionable. It was properly dark now but still no vampires were afoot as they slowly circled the town centre.

"I'm surprised you didn't sneak off last night for your 'fresh air,'" said Buffy, as they completed the last cemetery in the inner circle and moved on to hard pavement. There was something of a question in her voice but she looked normal enough at a glance.

"I did," he admitted. "Sat in your garden a while, looked at the stars, but it's not the same when you can't go anywhere."

"No, I meant, why didn't you take off? I... Hang on, why couldn't you go anywhere?"

"You have my charm."

"Are they bottling that stuff now?"

Spike registered her quip with a part of his mind but the rest was belatedly realising the import of the question. She asked because she didn't know.

"My charm. Badge of ownership." He pointed to the much hated green stone, nestling prettily in the dip of Buffy's neckline. "I get too far away from it, my chip goes off."

"This thing?" She yanked on the gem, thong digging into her neck as she pulled it out to a viewable distance. Spike was doing the maths even as he buried a smile at her puzzled squint. If she didn't even know about the necklace and she'd not chained him up, whatever she might have threatened then... Well he'd been wasting his time hoping she'd let him go; she hadn't even known she was keeping him prisoner.

"That nasty little demon in LA gave it to me. I didn't think... I meant to ask Giles what it was, I just forgot about it." She eyed him sharply, still toying with the necklace. "This sets off you chip?"

"Yes. Just insurance, mostly. I was always locked up."

"Well that's... weird. How could a stone possibly affect your chip?"

She frowned again, Spike could almost see her thought processes right there on her face. Knew he wasn't expected to answer and didn't have one to give. Unsurprisingly, no-one had ever explained it to him, he just remembered the debilitating pain every time he'd tried to run.

"You should have told me," Buffy said eventually.

"I assumed you knew." The fresh air must be going to his head, or the dizzying implications of this conversation, because Spike added cheekily. "I was right there when he explained it to you."

She grinned slightly. "There's your mistake. Always assume I know nothing, even the stuff you've already-" Her head shot up a split second before Spike registered the presence of his own kind. "About time!"

It was a wonderful thing, watching her fight. Spike ached to join in but watching was second best, restirring a hunger that she'd thoroughly doused this morning. She danced between the three hungry fledglings, predicting every move, more than a match for a dozen more. It was really no wonder he'd never managed to beat her; in all too short a time her opponents were dust and not one of them had landed a blow.

The Slayer... Buffy... brushed the dust from her clothing and stretched lazily. The turned back towards Spike, hands going up to the back of her neck. Spike found himself admiring her side-on silhouette and for a moment didn't notice what she was actually doing. She took a step towards him, the stone dangling from its untied leather ribbon.

"Spike," she asked carefully. "What happens when you bite people?"

Not sure what she was driving at and wary of her sudden seriousness, Spike went with the safe answer. "My chip goes off. It's like an electric shock I suppose only-"

"Okay. Just checking. That deal with the stone just seems strange, I was thinking it might be a different chip. Here."

She held out the stone. Spike stared at it. There was real freedom, sitting on her open palm and he was afraid to reach out and take it. Afraid the price was his marching orders. His hand must have moved of its own accord because there was the stone between his fingers.

"I didn't realise I was keeping you prisoner," said the Slayer quietly. After a second's pause she turned, started walking slowly down the verge to the gate. "Bound to be some more action at the Bronze," she called over her shoulder. "Are you coming?"

********

It was never going to be a challenging evening, fight-wise, but there were enough fledges scattered around Sunnydale's more popular haunts to make the time go quickly enough. Spike watched every fight, an oddity Buffy wasn't sure she should comment on. There hadn't been any epic battles, she'd certainly needed no assistance and he was not dressed for giving anything a good kicking but still her Spike would have leapt in regardless. Just for the joy of hitting things.

The vampire seemed to be improving, enough to make casual chit-chat at least, remark on the changes Sunnydale had undergone and even her fighting skill. She probably shouldn't push.

The deal with the chip was puzzling too. The necklace was helping explain some things, complicating others. It explained, for instance, how he was managing to stay so scared of her - from his point of view she'd been keeping him prisoner. But still it was one more detail that nagged at Buffy and made the whole thing a little surreal. Buffy was hardly an expert in magic or technology but she did know the Initiative hadn't used the former, and the latter didn't usually involve stones. Another thing to worry about when they established which Spike he was.

The phone was ringing when they got back to the house, rang persistently as she unlocked the door and was still ringing as she finally got close enough to pick it up. The message light was also flashing impatiently.

"Willow! Any luck with the spell?"

"All done and dusted. I left a message with the herbs you need and the chant a couple of hours ago. Have you been patrolling?"

"Yu-huh. Not much stirring though. So what's up?"

"Well I've been looking at other spells, actually. It looks like most incantations can be converted to work on a vampire, if you make sure to balance out their lack of lifeforce. There's one like... like a magic tracker, it would show if there was anything... like if someone had put a hex on him, this spell would reveal it."

"Like the spell you showed me when mom got sick?"

"Umm... not really. Spike would set that off anyway, being a magical creature. It's similar in principle I suppose, but this one is a lot more specific, it would show what spell, maybe even where it came from."

Buffy wound the telephone cord around her fingers as she digested that. "Sounds a little advanced for me. Can we wait and see if I mess up the locator spell first?"

"No. I mean, yes it can wait, but it is advanced, I think it would have to be me. And that's why I was calling. Giles is pretty sure that something is attacking the Watchers Council and Slayers particularly; he phoned and said he'd be staying in London tonight. And he thinks I should come home... to Sunnydale."

Oh. Buffy glanced around at Spike but he was out of sight in the kitchen, giving the illusion of privacy though Buffy was fairly sure he could still hear at least her side of the conversation. The Slayer had assumed Willow would be coming home but she'd not expected it to be so immediate and though she wanted to be welcoming she didn't quite know how.

"I won't come if you don't want me to," Willow continued hastily. "Xander's job finishes in a week or so, I could wait and then stay with him. Giles said... well I think he doesn't really want you there on your own with Spike. Emotional support, he called it, but I think he meant-"

"Come," Buffy interrupted. Emotional support sounded good, even if her watcher had probably wanted to say chaperone. She missed her best friend, had been a year without really, they'd not been close since Buffy came back from the dead. But the grudge Buffy had held over her resurrection had disappeared when she'd finally started to enjoy life again and it would be nice to spend time with someone both originally and currently human. "This is still your home, Willow; of course you should come here. Your room is still there, I didn't know if... you can swap with me if you like."

"Thanks," said Willow, sounding awkward. "I don't think I... whichever you like, I don't mind. I'll get online and book a flight. Are you sure, Buffy?"

"Yes! We miss you, Will."

"I miss you guys too. I'll call tomorrow with my flight details, okay?"

"Night Will."

Buffy dug out a notebook and pen, pressed play on the machine. Transcribing the spell was awkward, trying to jot down unfamiliar words to the speed of the tape, on the third time hitting rewind Spike came up behind her and took the pen from her hand, silently taking over. Buffy happily left him to it, fixing herself a snack before bed. "You want more blood?" she called from the kitchen, as the machine signals end of message.

Spike followed her into the kitchen as the machine bleeped again. Buffy ignored it, taking her second instant meal of the day from the microwave and replacing it with a mug of blood.

"Second. New. Message." Intoned the machine as Buffy sat down to eat; it was the long awaited lecture from Giles. He detailed the recent attacks on the Watchers Council, though they knew little more than a list of casualties and uncontactable watchers outposts. He segued straight into the dangers of aiding chipped vampires, with several pointed 'as you should know' comments, covering the deceitfulness of the species in general and the faults of Spike in particular. Reminded Buffy that her best use of time and resources would be to 'stake the cocky little bastard and try and forget he ever existed.'

With an apologetic glance at the vampire Buffy pushed back her chair, intending to cut the machine off but she was held still by Giles' voice, almost as if she could sense what was coming next.

"And I don't think I need to say that you won't be receiving my blessing should you resume physical relations with that unscrupulous shame to his gender. Stay away from that pillock, Buffy. You're worth so much better."

"End. Of. Messages."

There was a short embarrassed silence that Buffy didn't know how to break. She turned to take Spike's blood from the microwave to avoid his eyes.

"That the stuff you didn't want to talk about?" asked Spike quietly.

"Pretty much."

He reached over and snagged the mug from her hand. "I'm going to turn in, then, Slayer. If that's okay?"

Buffy nodded, relieved. "Goodnight Spike."

The vampire stopped in the basement doorway, but didn't turn around. "Did you want me to take off yesterday?"

She looked over at him in surprise. "I don't think it occurred to me that you might, sneaking off in the night isn't really Spike-like behaviour."

Spike ran harassed fingers through his hair, tried again. "I mean... You gave me the necklace. Would you rather I not be here in the morning?"

"No. Well yes." Buffy tried to smile, take the sting out of her words, but Spike wasn't quite looking at her. "You can leave if you want to, you don't have to sneak off in the night. But wait until Willow's had a poke around in your brain, yeah? Always fun, plus, it might be useful to know who you are, save you just getting kidnapped again. Besides, I've just brought all this blood. It would be rude, don't you think, to leave without drinking it?"

He nodded, half smiled. "Goodnight, Buffy."

Chapter Eleven
But I'm all tied up on the inside
No-one knows quite what I've got
And I know that on the outside
What I used to be, I'm not
~ Crossroads, Don McLean

Though he'd been sure he wouldn't, Spike went straight to sleep that night. Peeled off his muddy socks, downed the blood, stretched out on that lumpy old bed and dozed right off. Whatever the Slayer had said about chains yesterday morning was obviously just an empty threat, if she disturbed his sleep with manacles it was only in his dreams - a weird and unsettling collage of sex and real life worries that had culminated in a shotgun wedding with the Slayer’s little redheaded friend wielding the shotgun and the Slayer herself cheerfully planning a daytime ceremony.

It had taken more probity than a vampire should have left to walk out of that kitchen, and more still to offer to leave her home. And as Spike had walked down the stairs he'd fully expected the curiosity to keep him tossing and turning but a lack of sleep must have caught up, he knew nothing but his bizarre dream world until well into morning. A loud clatter overhead dragged him from sleep in the end and though he had no watch, the vampire could sense the bright sunlight that he couldn't see from his underground room. Though he must have had a good eight hours, Spike burrowed lazily back into his pillow, listening to what could only be the sound of a Slayer making breakfast, the occasional clang of metal and a single muffled curseword. Spike would happily have traded the solid meal he knew he'd be receiving to know what the team leader of the white hats had been about, taking up with the likes of him.

His side of it was easy enough to understand. She was a pretty girl, stood out even in a crowd of Californian pretty girls; and in movement she was absolutely entrancing. If she'd ever offered back in the day he'd not have said no, mortal enemies be damned. It was the idea of her offering that was harder to swallow. Maybe her watcher had got the wrong end of the stick, the dalliance he'd alluded to was nothing more than the attack the Slayer herself had told him about.

It was only twenty-four hours since he'd lain here unable to sleep and wondered if she was even real; maybe it was the drastic change in his circumstances but it felt like weeks. Like his mind was clearing after a long dream. Literally true, as well, and maybe the two were connected. Being permanently half starved must impair his ability to think properly and time had little meaning when you were strapped to a table, bleeding from every orifice and a thousand new holes.

He could realise it was over now, could grasp the fact that he was safe, but the future was still a huge and uncertain beast and he couldn't live off the Slayer's charity forever. He half wanted to go upstairs, enjoy the company, however quietly, while it was still on offer. Half wanted to hide away as far from her as he could get, before he got so attached to this enigma of a girl that he wouldn't want to leave when he was inevitably turned out. And all the time guilt, for the things he remembered doing to her and the things he didn't.

Couldn't remember being this indecisive in the good old days. In fact, could recall nothing but a century of charging in without a second thought for little details like consequence. He didn't know where this guilt was coming from. After all, the Slayer hadn't changed. Had forever been good and noble and unpredictable and he'd admired her back in the day, fancied her, liked her even, would have snapped her neck without a second thought and raped her too, if the mood was right. And it made perfect sense that he no longer wanted to, owed her far too much now to see her dead by his hand, but why he cared about a past full of doing the things vampires do was more than Spike really understood.

The bumping around upstairs stopped and Spike considered getting up but before he'd summoned the energy to actually move, the telephone rang. For several minutes Spike conscientiously didn't listen, but as Buffy's voice droned on in the background and she settled in for a long chat, curiosity overcame all else. Her side of the conversation drifted through the closed basement door loud and clear, when Spike put his ear to it.

".....you have to remember he's not the same vampire, okay? You can't...... No..... No!..... Well it's not his fault you stayed at Anya's last night..... Because I thought you'd do this and I was too tired..... No, of course he doesn't know, didn't you hear me say he doesn't remember..... Dawn! Please don't, you'll only scare him..... Yes, Spike! This is what I'm trying to explain... Well it was you that made me go get him in the first place... Okay, that's enough. It was an extra night at Anya’s, not banishment to Siberia..... Monday's tomorrow?..... I just forgot..... Dawn....."

Though Buffy was pausing more than talking, Spike didn't need to be able to hear the other side to guess either the other party or the subject, and from the tone of the Slayer's voice it wasn't an equable discussion.

"..... I'd forgotten that stupid car; you know I can't drive when there're other cars getting in the way. Couldn't Anya..... Oh, okay. I'll try..... He's still a vampire, Dawn, it's kinda sunny..... Okay, okay, when he wakes up..... Dawn, have you forgotten I'm unemployed..... But Anya can't..... We'll talk about it when I get there. Bye."

Spike gave it enough time to appear coincidental before opening the basement door. The Slayer gave him a cheerful good morning and filled a mug for him, setting the timer before returning to her own, er, breakfast. Spike thought it might have been some kind of omelette but it was hard to tell.

"Dawn was on the phone a little while back," said the Slayer. "Anya made her go into the Magic Box at 5 a.m. this morning because she had a delivery due. They reopen in a week and she's been working all sorts of odd hours. Dawn's pretty peeved at me so I said we'd go over in a little while, is that okay?"

Spike nodded. Seeing as a good half of that statement made no sense to him, there was little else to do.

"I've got Anya's car, which she wants back, so you can dive in the back with a blanket or something. That's what Dawn does, when I'm driving. Anya's got one of those little tourist picture maps of the town centre that shows the Magic Box, and she says everything we'll need is stocked up already, so we can do the spell there. And if you're there too, we can see for definite whether or not the spell is detecting you."

Spike nodded again - it seemed all that was required of him - and retrieved his mug from the microwave. There was something brisk and business-like about her manner this morning that discouraged questions and Spike was more or less resigned to not asking any. He had no right to pry if he wasn't 'her' Spike and maybe less if he was. And even though he suspected she would try and tell him if he asked, there was something disarming about the way she brazened it out.

Spike wondered if she knew how very transparent she was. One overly chirpy good morning managing to convey 'what answering machine message? I'm in no way avoiding anything and I dare you to comment on my Stepford wife smile, so there.' Transparent and unnecessary. As if she couldn't just tell him to shut the fuck up and mind his own business.

In the good old days, Spike might have had good fun with someone who put their insecurities on such prominent display. Before he killed them. Seen how quickly that brisk, plastically sunny attitude would melt away when he started with the crude questions. Not an option now, of course. He owed it to this girl to keep quiet. Owed her anything she damn well wanted. And beyond that, Spike was a little afraid of what the answers might be. Bad years for him and for her, she'd said, and Spike had enough bad years of his own to remember.

In a way this dance was reassuringly familiar. Aside from her rows of shiny white teeth he might have been back in Victorian England, politely avoiding all talk of the elephant in the room. He was more than willing to play along with the illusion of comfortable acquaintance.

So Buffy finished her mangled breakfast undisturbed and got up to tip the plate in the sink. "If you want seconds now would be a good time. I've got to get to Dawn before she actually turns into Anya, which would be scary. And I've got to take her shopping later, school starts back tomorrow and-"

"I'm good, thanks."

"Okay." Buffy twisted a tea-towel between her fingers that she seemed to have picked up for the express purpose of twisting. Looked him straight in the eye with unnerving suddenness. "You so much as threaten my sister and I'll make the last three years seem like a picnic before I dust you."

"I wouldn't-"

"I know. I think I know. Just... it's best to be clear about these things, right?"

Dishcloth discarded, Buffy headed out of the kitchen. She paused in the doorway but didn't turn around. "That said, it cuts both ways. As long as you keep your teeth out of people you're safe from me, whoever you turn out to be."

********

From under a blanket the journey to the Magic Box was a series of random hops and emergency stops to Spike, other cars evidently abounding. When Buffy finally cut the engine, he wasn't sure if they'd stopped or crashed until he heard the click of the car door. Then the mad dash over the sunlit pavement, ratty blanket smoking at the edges, Spike caught a vaguely familiar glimpse of a vaguely familiar shop and then they were inside. The blond that greeted him he was fairly sure he'd never seen before, and she certainly wasn't human, but the Slayer wasn't reaching for the nearest weapon so he returned her cheerful hello.

"I'm Anyanka," she said perkily. "You used to know that, but Buffy said you'd forgotten everyone. I would give you a hug, but I've noticed she doesn't like displays of perfectly normal and platonic emotions. Despite what she says, I think she's still angry about the time we had intercourse on the table. You and me, I mean, not me and Buffy. Would you like to shake hands instead?"

Obediently, warily, Spike held out his hand, not daring to look at the Slayer standing just out of sight to his left. Not for the first time recently, Spike found himself bearings free, wondering what crazy world he'd landed up in where the Slayer was on speaking terms with so many of her mortal enemies. He hardly had time to consider the demon's bombshell before they were interrupted by another voice.

"That table over there," said the teen coolly, pointing towards the partially stocked shop floor. "I watched, you-"

"Dawn!"

This would be Dawn then. He'd have recognised her anyway, cleaner now but undoubtedly the same brazenly confident girl that had caught him off guard in the slave compound. The Slayer gave her sister a look that would have had Spike backing away if it had been sent in his direction; she marched straight past Spike and dumped his leather coat on the table in question. He'd heard her say she had it, of course, but seeing it in front of him was another matter altogether. Proof positive that the Spike she'd talked about really had existed. And had once been him.

"Dawn, never say another word. Ever. Anya, the explaining is worse than the hugging, I suspect you know that."

"We've been waiting for hours," whined the human, unrepressed.

"And you had nothing better to do than think up embarrassing opening lines?" The Slayer was clearly trying to pretend he wasn't there, leaving Spike standing awkwardly just out of reach of the light from the windows. On a mere day's acquaintance the vampire could recognise that defensive set of her shoulders.

"Yes, actually," Dawn spat. "Getting ready for my sophomore year. No, wait, I'd need to be at home for that. Instead, I get offloaded onto Anya while you play nursemaid with a vampire you've never even met before. And even though he's all 'unstable' now, I have to share a house with him while you cross your fingers and hope he doesn't eat us while we're sleeping. But that would save you buying me any school stuff, wouldn't it?"

Though he couldn't see Buffy's face, Spike was fairly sure he could hear her eyes rolling as she answered. "He can't bite people, Dawn. He's still got the chip."

"That didn't stop him trying-"

"Dawn!"

"Fine! But it's not my fault he did Anya on live TV. And it was that table."

The more Spike learnt about this world the more he learnt to be glad that he was missing most of the details.

"For crying out loud," said the Slayer. "You'll scare him."

"I don't think a vampire is likely to be scared by the idea of a one-night-stand," chipped in the blonde demon. "He didn't seem-"

"He's standing right here." Three heads swivelled towards Spike in surprise. "And he's... a little scared," the vampire added.

There was a second of silence. Anya was the first to respond, stepping forward and clapping her hands. "Let's get right to the spell, then. I've prepared the circle already."

"Buffy," Dawn whined. "Shopping. I go back to school in, like, eighteen hours. We need to hurry." The Slayer glared at her sister, who kept right on pouting. "I've been here hours. And I thought out way more embarrassing comments than the whole table thing," she threatened.

From the look on the Slayer's face, they had the potential to be very embarrassing indeed, but she didn't immediately cave. "I've got about forty dollars left in my bank account, Dawn. It's not going to take all that long to spend."

But the teen was already assuming victory, scooping up her handbag and taking a few pointed steps towards the door.

"You can borrow the store credit card," said the demon with a sigh. "Dawn has been helping; I suppose she's owed some financial compensation. And do you realise your vampire isn't wearing any shoes?"

"He's not my-" But the Slayer seemed to give in to what Spike had already realised. Arguing with either of these females was an exercise in frustration. "That's very kind of you," she amended.

"Oh it's not. I'll mark it down as a watchers expense, and they come out of Giles' share of the profit. The items I can't add to the insurance claim, of course."

Buffy took the proffered card warily. "Wouldn't using this be like... stealing from Giles?"

"Well in the end it works out more to be stealing from the government. Or the Watchers Council. And they both should be paying you anyway, as you're the one girl in all the world who does all the work."

"Okay. When you say it like that, I have a duty to spend."

"So how is the job hunting?"

Buffy grimaced. "I've been a bit busy. Besides, Doublemeat paid my wages again last week. I think it's their way of making sure I never come in and ask for my job back. You know, when they've finished rebuilding."

"You did make quite a lot of mess with the Secora demon; I suppose they find it cost effective. You're welcome to come and work for me, even though you attract large and destructive demons and aren't very good with the customers. I have very good insurance."

"Thaaanks."

"And you could pick me up some things while you're out. I'll get you a list."

Anya headed behind the counter and the Slayer gave Spike an apologetic glance as Dawn tapped her foot impatiently in the doorway.

"We won't be long," said Buffy. "You'll be okay here?"

"'M sure I'll be fine."

"You can't kill Anya either," she added quietly. Spike would have liked to assume she was joking but she put her hand on his arm and looked up at him, quite serious. "She can be really annoying but she means well. Most of the time. Just... try and put up with it."

"Can't hurt her, remember," replied Spike, going with the safe answer again. "Not that I would."

"Well the chip wouldn't work on Anya, she's not actually human. But if you snap her neck in a moment of anger I'll be annoyed." Buffy softened the words with a grin and added: "I'd understand, but I'd be annoyed."

It took a second for her implication to sink in, when it did Spike frowned. "Can't hurt demons either. Whatever the hell she is."

"Are you sure? I mean, have you tried?"

"Of course I tried. D'you think I let them do this to me and never tried to fight back? The chip works on demons."

"Oh." She opened her mouth to say more, but Anya was returning with the promised shopping list and Dawn's impatient tapping had become more of a stomp. Spike didn't need her to speak; it was obvious from her warning and the surprise on her face that in her memory at least he'd been able to hit demons.

"We'll do the spell as soon as I get back," she said instead. She took her sister out before something blew and Spike was left to wonder.

One more nugget about what life here had been like for him. One more answer and one more mystery. And another check in the column headed 'who the fuck are you'. Spike remembered and clung to the Slayer's earlier quid-pro-quo. He had no choice but to keep his teeth out of people and it was no hardship, once not feeding would have been torture but maybe his body had adapted to its meagre diet because now the only time he dreamed of sinking his teeth into people was in nightmares.

Her Spike could hurt demons, which made him wonder why he'd even needed to throw himself on the Slayer's mercy. Maybe the Slayer was a demon, like all her kind she hit his senses on a level that wasn't human, no reason his chip couldn't pick up on that too. And it would explain how he'd managed to attack her. But no, Spike mentally corrected himself. If he'd been able to kill her he surely would have done, and she'd not have left him with an invite into her house, let him sleep in her basement, if she hadn't felt protected.

He'd just have to hope that someone would fill him in at some point, before his brain exploded with queries. He wasn't left to mull long, the blonde demon was back in front of him, smiling with a painful enthusiasm.

"You look like you need cheering up. Would you like to count the money?"

********

For Buffy, a trip to the mall would have been a nice opportunity to forget all about vampires and spells and old hurts. To do shopping with someone else's money and relax a little while. But she could tell just from the way Dawn closed the car door and the aggressive seatbelt fastening, that her sister wasn't ready to drop the subject of Spike for shopping just yet. Best to get that conversation over with, Buffy thought, as she slid behind the wheel with a sigh. At least, unlike Spike, Dawn could see the mortal peril Buffy's driving placed her in and that might make her reasonable.

"So, you wanna tell me what all that was about?" she asked, lurching out into the fortunately empty street.

"What?"

"You know perfectly well what, missy," said Buffy in her best mom tone. "That whole being-a-brat thing you had going on in there."

"Maybe I wouldn't be a brat if you would behave like an adult."

Maybe. Though Buffy suspected her sister could find reasons for brattiness under almost any circumstances. Still, in the interest of a peaceful life Buffy went with an apology.

"I'm sorry I forgot your new semester was starting. It's been a busy week and the days have just blurred together, I didn't even know it was Sunday. Are you going to hold it against me forever, or just the next decade?"

"I don't care about that."

"Why do you hate me this week, then?"

It was the wrong question to ask. She could immediately see Dawn adding 'not understanding me' to Buffy's rap sheet of sisterly crimes. "Spike!" she answered crossly.

"Spike?"

"Yes."

"You told me to rescue him. There was planning, remember? So I went and rescued him, just like you told me, and now you're pissed at me?"

"Yes."

"Right. And were you just sharing the hate with Spike, or do you have some well thought out explanation for-"

"It's not funny, Buffy. He tried to rape you and now you're all 'lalala, be nice to him, pretend he never hurt us, don't mention all the bad things he did because we might hurt his little vampire feelings.'"

Most days Buffy still missed her mother, but sometimes she simply missed not being the adult. It was so hard not to descend to Dawn's level and bicker like they might have done eighteen months ago. Instead she fought for the patience of a parent.

"He saved your life. And I don't know about you, but I place some value on your life."

"I would have gotten out of there somehow. And last year, that other time he saved my life, you were all 'one good deed doesn't change the fact that he's an evil vampire.'"

"Well it doesn't but... I don't think he's even the same vampire, what's the point in hating him?"

"What was the point of hating him last year when all the time you were making with the sweaty?"

Buffy gritted her teeth and gripped the steering wheel tighter, leaving Slayer sized finger prints in the molded plastic. "There wasn't a point. It was wrong. And I really don't see what it's got to do with now."

"It's exactly the same."

"How?"

But Dawn just pouted mutinously so Buffy quietly gave up, changed the subject. With a little coaxing, and the reminder of the store card safely in Buffy's pocket, the teen was soon happily chatting away about her wardrobe and stationery needs. It wasn't until Dawn mentioned school shoes and Buffy remembered the boots she was supposed to be buying that the sulk returned.

"We could buy him some flip-flops?" suggested Dawn meanly.

"Or, I could just phone the Magic Box and find out his shoe size," suggested Buffy with yet more forced patience.

"Ten and a half," Dawn answered automatically, then glowered as Buffy raised a surprised eyebrow. "What? Why shouldn't I know his shoe size? We used to have actual conversations you know. When you were dead," the teen added, rather cruelly. "Not that he remembers."

"Oh! You're jealous."

"Yeah, 'cause I want some retard following me around like a puppy. If it wasn't for me he'd still be there, you know."

If it wasn't for you getting kidnapped, again, Buffy finished in her head. But she decided that was another thought a parent would probably keep to themselves. And she could hardly deny the puppy comparison. She’d made the same analogy in her own head, the way Spike slunk around after her looking like he expected to be kicked.

"I'm sure he's suitably grateful," she tried. Wondered from the way Dawn harrumphed if she'd hit the nail on the head. Certainly the teen lapsed into silence. It was going to be another long day. Buffy clutched the credit card and the wheel and prayed a few shiny baubles would improve her sister's mood.

Chapter Twelve
The Angels are lost in the city of stars
The wise men are down on their knees
~ Magdalen Lane, Don McLean

Buffy watched as Spike picked nervously at his finger nails. Every so often this stopped being sufficient distraction and he'd wander along the back counter, standing awkwardly in a slightly different part of the shop. The vampire had hardly been relaxed to start with but the spell seemed to have him even more on edge and Buffy wasn't sure why - the Slayer had long ago accepted she was never going to be the most perceptive of people but today that irked her. She longed to set him at his ease if only to cease the mindless fidgeting but she couldn't fathom exactly what was bothering him.

After five minutes of Buffy umming and ahhing over the spell, Anya had taken over impatiently, much to Buffy's relief. Armed with a tourist map of Sunnydale that showed the town centre in minute detail and Spike's neat transcript of Willow's spell, the vengeance demon sat in the middle of her sand circle, trying to clear her mind as Spike paced.

His duster sat in a neatly folded pile by Anya's crossed legs. Spike had appeared fascinated by his erstwhile second skin, one eye often on the garment like he longed to ask a question and Buffy could guess what. But he didn't ask, and even if he had Buffy wouldn't have explained how he'd come to leave it at her house. His silence saved her the effort of lying.

He asked a question now though, breaking in on Buffy's thoughts. "What if the spell shows I'm in Alaska?"

"It's a map of Sunnydale, Spike. It doesn't show Alaska," put in Dawn snidely from her perch on the counter.

"If it shows you're not in Sunnydale it would mean you're not the Spike who left that coat here," said Buffy, with a brief and mostly resigned glare at her sister. "That's all it would mean."

"Could we have a little silence," said Anya sharply. "I'm going to chant."

And chant she did, a short verse of rhyming gobbledygook, to Buffy's ears at least. The end result was a neat hole burnt into Anya's map. The Slayer leant over to check.

"Well unless there's another Spike hiding in the basement, I'd say that was fairly conclusive," she confirmed. "On the bright side, there's not going to turn out to be two of you." Anya opened her mouth and, anticipating a comment about how two Spikes might be no bad thing, Buffy rushed to continue. "Now we just have to find out why your memories are different."

Another bright side, Spike was finally standing still. Stock still, regarding Buffy carefully. The Slayer didn't know how she felt herself, except that now the answer had come she could be fairly sure she'd been expecting the other one. Feeling all eyes on her, she tried to keep her mind on the practical conundrums but Dawn obviously wasn't thinking the same way.

"So, are we allowed to hate him now?" she asked coolly.

Buffy saw Spike turn his eyes briefly towards her sister, flinching under the force of her glare.

"Only if you forget he just saved you from a fate worse than death," replied Buffy in a voice she hoped conveyed the threat of groundings. Just to be certain, she changed the subject. "Hey, it explains why your hair is only half grown out."

"It is?" Spike started tugging on his overgrown locks, trying to pull his hair down in front of his eyes so he could see for himself.

"You look silly," put in Anya, rising from her magic circle. "And slightly effeminate."

"She means girly," Dawn corrected. "And stupid."

Buffy coughed. "Helpful suggestions?" she asked pointedly, with another glare for Dawn.

"Maybe he's been in a hell dimension for years?" offered the teen half-heartedly.

"Wouldn't my hair grow in another dimension?" Spike glanced so timidly at Dawn as he spoke, so patently afraid to contradict her, that Buffy decided she couldn't hate him for really being Spike after all. He might be the same evil vampire underneath but the annoying parts were all still absent and besides, Dawn was doing enough hating for the both of them.

"Does vampire hair grow slowly?" asked Anya.

"Spike touched his roots up, like, every week," said Dawn. "He was such a woman."

"I think it must be some kind of spell," said Buffy firmly, determined to keep this conversation to the research matter at hand.

"Stasis then," said Dawn. "Your hair doesn't grow in stasis."

"So say bad science fiction films."

"And vampires aren't science fiction?"

"No, they're... myth. Stasis isn't a real thing."

"It would be the wrong way around anyway," said Anya sensibly, and Buffy gave her a grateful smile. "He's not lost three years, he's just re-written them. And the hair might be irrelevant. Someone else could have dyed it, or maybe it stopped growing because he wasn't feeding well, you shouldn't base all your theories on that."

"Can we base all our wild speculation on his hair? 'Cause I think 'theories' is over-dignifying."

"Stasis is wild speculation, alternate dimensions are theory," said Buffy.

"It could even be something to do with the chip itself," said Anya. "Everything seems to change from when he had it put in."

"Could be," agreed Buffy. She opened her mouth to mention how Spike had said he couldn't hit demons, but for some reason shut it again. She didn't want it to be anything to do with the chip, the chip was an ethical knot that she'd rather leave well alone. "But I'm still thinking spell. When Willow gets here-"

"What!" If Dawn had been irritable before she was furious now. "When did that happen?"

"Umm... Last night?" Buffy took a guilty step back from the wrath of Dawn. "Giles said she was ready to come back and-"

"...and you just forgot to mention it."

"Again, there's been a lot going on here," Buffy defended. "And I was focusing on your clothing needs," she added weakly. "It honestly slipped my mind, okay?"

"And will she be staying in my home too? There's going to be two psycho killers-"

"That's not fair, Dawn."

"Well I don't like people who try and kill me!"

That was a point hard to argue with. Though Dawn had sometimes managed, when Buffy had used that very line to justify her antipathy to a newly chipped Spike. 'Pfft, that was months ago' had been Dawn's response, if she remembered rightly. But bringing up past arguments would only make Dawn madder, especially if they proved Buffy right, as would getting pedantic about the difference between 'trying' and 'threatening to'. No doubt about it, next time she was reintroducing a temporarily evil former best friend into the household she'd have to plan ahead and use a little psychology.

"Xander will be back in a few days," she appeased. "Willow can stay with him then if you really don't want her at ours." Oh the joy to come. Xander hating Spike, Anya hating Xander. Dawn's tantrums were probably a kindness, breaking her in gently. If it wasn't for the torture she might have envied Spike his memory loss.

"And what about Spike? If I don't want him there?"

"Well Willow can fix him, and he can go back to wherever he was before he got his brain melted." Before Xander gets back from L.A. and I have to have this conversation all over again, Buffy added silently. She spared a sympathetic thought and glance at the vampire in question but he was looking at Dawn, expression carefully guarded.

"She'll be here tomorrow, Dawn. You don't really want me to throw them both out on the streets, do you? Maybe Anya-"

"No," said the vengeance demon bluntly. "And she's not coming in my shop either. Nothing is going to spoil the grand reopening."

"A few days," said Dawn grudgingly. "Now can we go? Unless there's going to be donuts. That cheese-burger from the mall is ancient digested history, y'know?"

Buffy looked outside at the darkening sky and nodded. "I'll just get all your shopping out of the car. No offence, Anya, but I never want to see that thing again."

********

Momentarily left alone with Dawn, Spike wrapped his arms tightly around himself and stared at his socks. But he could sense the girl approaching and when she was close enough for him to feel her body heat the vampire was forced to look up.

"Spike. You sleep, right? You. Vampires. You sleep?"

He hesitated, nodded.

"Well, I can't take you in a fight or anything, even with a chip in your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all... touch her... you're gonna wake up on fire."

Piece said, the girl turned on her heel. Spike hugged himself tighter.

********

The walk home might have been perilously awkward but, inspired by the fear of uncomfortable silence, Buffy remembered the gossips of Dawn's last school year. One tactical mention of the former favourite Janice and the teen was off on a rant far removed from vampires and witches and literal killings.

Unbeknownst to Buffy, Dawn was finally ready to be distracted. Lacking the self-awareness of an adult, she didn't fully understand her own reasons for threatening Spike, or the uneasiness his silent response caused in her. Like Buffy two days earlier, she'd expected Spike to be pleased to see her, even though she wasn't about to let herself be pleased to see him, and had let it hurt when the vampire had barely glanced in her direction. As she could hardly blame Spike for his amnesia that hurt spilled over into more rational grievances, which had led to her controlled outburst. And instead of shocking him into attention the vampire had accepted the threat as his due, serving Dawn a side order of guilt to go with the hurt. It was all so confusing.

Dawn had enjoyed planning Spike's rescue with Anya, being part of the in-charge team who made decisions while her usually bossy sister had taken an antipathetic back seat. It was a nice change from playing gooseberry to the competent Scoobies and even nicer not to be the person in need of a rescue, but it didn't look as if anyone was about to thank her for her part. Worse than the total lack of gratitude - Dawn had been relegated straight back to gooseberry. If it hadn't been for Dawn, Buffy would never have gone to rescue him and it wasn't just that she expected thanks, the girl had expected herself to be the only person on his side. Instead, while she'd been dumped on Anya, Buffy and Spike had once again formed their own little club that left her excluded.

Still, Dawn's sulks couldn't make her impervious to Spike's condition. He'd lost the starved look that had so shocked her in LA and his cuts and burns, the ones not covered by the T-shirt at least, had faded to old scars already, but the personality was entirely absent. The meekness not an act to impress her sister as Dawn had wanted to believe but a real lack-of-Spike. In fact, Dawn was forced to conclude, maybe she was being unfair. And she resolved to be nicer to the vampire, despite the provocation of Buffy being nice to him too.

So she let her sister divert the conversation to school, and when the chatter ran out Dawn moved up the pace, walking ahead so she wouldn't even have to look at Spike. Vampire and Slayer followed her silently.

********

Buffy fixed dinner for her and Dawn as soon as they got home, and they were sitting down and eating before she realised Spike had not followed them into the house. She could sense him nearby, though, and was grateful for the time alone to think once Dawn had shovelled down her food and disappeared upstairs. She cleaned up meticulously after dinner, deliberately delaying patrol, not quite ready to talk to Spike.

Buffy could no longer defer serious thought until after the spell. Unless Willow's spell-casting skills had slipped considerably Spike was most definitely the same creature that had spent three confusing years in Sunnydale, despite all evidence to the contrary. And presumably, sooner or later, he would revert to the vampire that she knew. Two days ago, she'd just wanted him to go back to his normal, obnoxious self so she could kick him out with a clear conscience but since then things had got more confusing. In fact, Buffy paused with the thinking to indulge in a brief day dream of never fixing him at all. Ignorant herself of the intricacies of magic, Buffy was nonetheless confident that Willow could fix whatever had been done to the vampire but it would have the distinct disadvantage of turning him back into Spike.

And okay, Buffy wouldn't really leave him in that state for the sake of her own quiet life, but it did make her warier of her interaction with him. This Spike could see a threat in the slightest thing but her Spike could take a broken nose as a come-on, which made conversation a tight rope. For both their sakes her Spike needed to give up on his Slayer obsession and taking him in like this could only fuel the fire, if he ever remembered. Not taking him in would have been cruel beyond what Buffy was capable of. This evening even hating Spike seemed a distant and unobtainable dream.

When the last dish was dried she found him sitting on the porch steps, contemplating the sky.

"Getting more of that fresh air?" she asked conversationally, sitting down beside him. He didn't turn his head.

"Maybe I shouldn't stay here," said Spike abruptly.

"That's your choice," Buffy answered carefully. She hardly wanted to order him to stay, a mere day after telling him he was free to leave, but it made much better sense to Buffy to keep him where Willow could fix him. Whatever Buffy's personal preferences, and she wasn't sure herself, he was safest here. So she kept her voice casual as she asked: "Any particular reason?"

"Your sister doesn't want me here. Don't want to cause trouble between you."

"We're sisters, fighting is our natural state. She's only acting up."

"Because I tried to kill her?"

"What!" But the plaintive confusion in his voice stopped Buffy's anger rising too far and she remembered Dawn's words earlier. "You don't mean recently, do you?"

The vampire shook his head. "I don't know. I don't remember, do I?"

"Dawn was talking about Willow earlier. She meant Willow tried to kill her, not you."

That got his attention; the vampire turned his head to goggle at her. "Are we talking about the same person here? Cute little redhead with a penchant for dungarees?"

Buffy couldn't quite stifle a smile at his obvious astonishment. "That's the one. Only she's more with the flowing tie-dyed look now. There was this thing back in May, someone killed her friend and she went a bit crazy. She didn't really try to kill Dawn, she just said she was going to, but seeing as she'd just killed two other people we kinda took her seriously "

Spike let out a whistling breath through his teeth. "Last time I saw her I was waving a broken bottle in her face, and she was mostly cowering."

"It's probably best if you don't try that again," said Buffy dryly, "She might vaporise you. So, are you staying?"

He hesitated, uncertain. "Dawn was just being a brat," Buffy said again. "Half of all that was getting at me for making her stay at Anya's, and the other half... Well I told her she had to be nice, so she made an extra effort to be horrible. If I'd thrown you out she'd be sulking just as much."

"She hates me," said Spike bluntly.

"No she doesn't. Well... only half the time. You should have heard her a few days ago, all 'you have to go and rescue Spike'."

He raised a sceptical eyebrow. Maybe it was just because she knew who he was now, but Buffy could have sworn she saw the old Spike in that familiar expression. Indeed, his eyebrows had been strangely inactive over the past two days and maybe, subconsciously, that was a part of why Buffy had managed to convince herself he wasn't her Spike at all, that and the silence. Those eyebrows lent his face expression enough to convey sentences with a single glance and he just wasn't Spike without it. And though Buffy tried hard to convince herself there could be nothing erotic about an eyebrow, still that familiar look caused a tremor that Buffy tried hard to label learned behaviour.

"Dawn will be fine," Buffy said as the silence started to stretch. "And you're a vampire - you can tough out a few slammed doors, right?"

He shrugged. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure. And if she scares you then you can patrol with me, she'll be in bed by the time we get back. And Willow will be back tomorrow, hating her will take up most of Dawn's time."

The vampire smiled, an amusement without malice or mockery that definitely wasn't familiar from the old Spike, but still, an expression Buffy was coming to like, and he fell in with the idea of patrolling easily enough. "Not that I'm scared," he added hastily.

"Then you really don't remember my sister," Buffy joked, and was rewarded by another smile. "I was going to ask you to come patrolling anyway. I thought we could maybe find a vampire for you to punch, see if that chip really does work on demons now. Is that okay?"

He agreed, as Buffy knew he would. Spike seemed to have lost the ability to really argue with anyone. The Slayer trusted that the spell they'd done was correct, but aside from the occasional moment or mannerism she was having a hard time really believing the results. For all the talk of slavery and alternate dimensions Buffy couldn't imagine anything that could beat the communication out of Spike but there he sat, meek and mild and agreeing with everything she said.

"It'll all be okay when Willow gets here," Buffy said aloud, though the lie was more for her benefit than Spike's. He nodded again, as if he believed her, though if one little location spell had him dancing around on hot bricks she could only guess at what he really thought about having a powerful witch poking around in his head. Still, if he could pretend to believe everything was okay, Buffy could too.

"I'll just go and tell Dawn we're going, and I have the whole 'good night’s sleep, important new school year about to start' mom lecture to deliver. You can try your boots on while you're waiting, they're just in the kitchen. And if they don't fit, you can consider that Dawn's first revenge, because she picked them!"

Chapter Thirteen
I don't want you to pledge your future
The future's not yours to give
Just stand there a little longer and let me watch while you live
~ If We Try, Don McLean

"Hit me."

Spike turned to blink at the Slayer. They'd been walking for an hour now in silence and the girl had obviously been deep in thought. Occasionally, to Spike's well-concealed amusement, moving her lips in time to the sentences running through her head. For a second he assumed she'd spoken unconsciously, but she turned to Spike and repeated her command. When he continued to gape at her she rolled her eyes.

"I'm starting to hate that look," she said with some asperity. "I haven't gone crazy. I don't mean, like, break my nose or anything, just hit me."

"Uh... No."

The Slayer looked stumped. Opened her mouth and shut it again, gave him a look he could have sworn was annoyed.

"This some kind of test?" Spike asked tentatively.

Buffy nodded. "That's right, a test."

"Did I pass?"

A snort of exasperated amusement from the Slayer. "I won't know until you hit me, will I? Besides, it's not really a pass or fail test." She stood in front of him expectantly. Spike hesitated.

"Why?"

"Because we've been patrolling for nearly an hour and we haven't seen a single vampire for you to punch. We're supposed to be testing your chip, remember? It's not a trap," she added impatiently when Spike continued to stare at her. "I'm not going to hit you back. I just want to know if your chip goes off."

The vampire curled his hand into a fist but couldn't quite bring himself to strike. It had been a good long time since Spike had hit anything at all but the swift and vicious punishments were seared into his memory. Conditioning that ran deeper than a few words of reassurance.

"My chip didn't work on you?" he asked, stalling as much as curious.

"Cellular suntan," said the Slayer with another of those explanations that explained nothing. "I'm still human," she added defensively, glared him down as if she expected him to argue.

"Was that a no?"

For a second Buffy glared harder and Spike took an instinctive step back. His nervous movement seemed to recall the Slayer to herself, and she rubbed a hand over her eyes with a sigh.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting how much you don't know, and that one is a touchy subject. No. Your chip didn't work on me. It didn't work on vampires or demons or robots. I'm not sure about animals - I never asked, and after the whole kitten poker thing I didn't really want to know. It's not like I'm the sworn protector of kittens. Would you just hit me already, before I ramble myself into some kind of tongue injury?"

Spike tapped her lightly on the arm and Buffy gave him a withering look. "That wasn't a hit. I've squeezed pimples harder than that."

Bracing himself for the shock he was sure would be coming, Spike punched her shoulder. Nothing happened. Spike stayed braced, couldn't help but expect retaliation of some kind, but the Slayer merely nodded as if confirming something she knew all along.

"Nothing, huh?"

Spike shook his head. The girl must have picked up on his unease because she put a calming hand on his arm. "It's alright. It shouldn't have gone off really, if it didn't before. This is just research, okay?"

She held his gaze until Spike nodded, though it wasn't okay, not from any direction. Much as he might wish the last three years had never happened it wasn't settling, not being able to trust your own mind and your own memories. And, as per usual, nothing made sense.

"Why didn't I kill you?"

The Slayer raised her eyebrows. "Did you miss the part where I'm stronger and faster and generally cleverer than you? C'mon, there've got to be some fledges you can hit around here somewhere."

She started walking again. Her normal response, Spike was realising, to almost any question. But this was his past, apparently, and he had to try and make some kind of sense of it.

"I mean," he tried again, "why didn't you stake me when I tried to kill you?"

"You didn't. He didn't, whatever. That is, you did, but not when you could so... I don't know." The Slayer grinned wryly at her own jumble of words. "I'm not helping any, am I?"

"I guess it's another of those long stories," said Spike diplomatically.

"Oooh, yeah. I'll try and give you the synopsis, you'll just have to say if it all sounds like nonsense.

"Your chip did work on me, at first. It never worked on other vampires but you didn't know that when you came to us, I suppose you'd only tried to bite people. And you did try and kill me a couple of times. You totally sold us out to this nuclear Frankenstein and... Well I don't know why I never staked you for that, to be honest. You just made like you'd never done a thing wrong and... you got away with it. And there was another time, you thought you'd got your chip out but you hadn't and... I might have staked you that time, but I was busy."

Spike was taking in this sudden flow of solid information with rapt attention that was having a noticeable effect on the speaker. The Slayer increased her pace a notch, as if to escape her one man audience, and the phrase 'I was busy' had a distinctively defensive ring to it. With sudden insight Spike realised he'd hit another sore spot with his 'why didn't you stake me' question; it was obviously something she'd asked herself before.

"Clearing up the mess you and Harmony made, mostly," the Slayer added, a touch snidely. "We needed a doctor and she'd beaten him up."

"Harmony?"

"This bimbo vampire you-"

"I remember who she was, just... wow."

"Yeah. You and Harmony. There was a plan that never had a chance. And afterwards it was kind of funny, you'd been all 'grrr' ready to bite me and... zap! You should have seen the look on your face, like Wile E. Coyote when he's realised he's run right off the cliff. You don't stake Wile E. Coyote, do you? Just laugh at him when he's foiled by his own stupid dastardly schemes."

"I made such a crap villain you couldn't be bothered to dust me?" summarised Spike. He felt like he should be bristling at this insult to his big bad self but nothing was coming; if all that had kept him undead was the crapness of his villainy then who was he to knock it?

"Something like that. You were... comic relief. Like Warren and his nerds until they, y'know, actually killed someone. And it should have gone the same way with you - sooner or later you'd have got the chip out or managed to kill someone instead of just trying to and then I'd have... dealt with you. Except you pretty much gave up on the whole evil plan thing and started helping - actually helping, not just for money. There was... you remember what I was telling you about my sister? That's when... There was this thing after her, a hell god, and she tortured you, this hell god, but you didn't tell her who Dawn was."

"That's what you meant when you said you owed me?"

"Yeah. Partly."

"Might be you're reading too much into that. Tell a body what they want to know and they've got no reason not to off you."

Buffy smiled slightly and shook her head. "That's not how it was," she said with a confidence that spoke of details omitted. From avoidance or for the sake of a simple narrative, Spike had no way of knowing. "There was other stuff and... Right. Wait. I'm getting off the point. Then I died, last summer, and a couple months later Willow brought me back from the dead."

"Willow?" Spike couldn't help but interrupt. He knew enough about magic to know that bringing someone back from the dead in a fit state to be walking and talking was very heavy stuff. Very heavy, dark stuff. "And we're still talking about the Willow that's popping back over the Atlantic to fix my little memory problem? She flying coach or broomstick?"

"Plane," Buffy answered automatically before catching herself and giving him a look. "And she's cut way back on the black magic."

"Still, reckon I'll be minding my manners when she turns up."

She gave him a disbelieving look. What felt like a liberatingly free tongue to Spike was obviously still unusually polite to the Slayer, then. He'd been making great efforts to be himself but it didn't come natural nowadays, the urge to wound, even with words, not returning with his confidence.

"I'm riding right over the part where you couldn't get any more polite. After I came back from the grave your chip didn't work on me, 'cause of the cellular suntan, but by then you'd stopped trying to kill us anyway so I never had a reason to stake you. And I guess, now, your chip not working on me just means it can't be the chip you remember which means.... Okay, which means we'll have to ask Willow what that means, because I don't know. But we should still find a demon to test it on."

Which means the chip that I remember was nothing more than a trick, finished Spike in his own head. Out loud, he said: "I don't remember Sunnydale ever being this quiet - looks like you really cleaned the place up."

The Slayer frowned. "I wish I could take credit, but... It's always quiet in summer. The big evils never start rolling in until the beginning of winter at least. But this year, the last couple of weeks, it's almost been eerie. There've been fledges and the odd little demon, the really stupid kind of evil, but not much of it. I even went to Willy's while I was looking for Dawn - the Alibi Room, do you remember? It was like there'd been a mass evacuation according to Willy, every evil thing finding a better place to be."

"Same people that took me, you think?"

"Maybe. Except, again according to Willy, they were going of their own free will. And if it was because they were frightened of those slave traders then one of them would have told me about it, right? I mean I virtually dissected this town looking for Dawn and... nothing. Even Clem... Do you remember Clem? No? I guess you didn't meet him until after the chip. He's a... a something I can't pronounce, he's living in your old crypt at the moment and he doesn't eat people. He said, and I quote, 'the air's just gotten scary, man.' Hey, if we can't find anything better you can always hit Clem."

But another twenty minutes of plodding in silence and, in the seventh cemetery of the night, they eventually turned up the promised fledgling. It felt strange to be fighting again, strange but not bad. Though even with Spike still under-weight, the newbie hardly gave him a real fight and the Slayer staked the hapless fledge as soon as she was satisfied his chip wasn't going to fire.

"Looks like everything's normal," said Buffy, dusting off her hands. "From my point of view, that is. Let's see if we can make it three for three. Do you have your necklace?"

A rhetorical question, presumably, seeing as he couldn't go anywhere without it, but Spike hesitated and he knew she saw it. He could follow her way of thinking just fine; if the chip didn't work as he remembered then there was a good chance that neither did the necklace. But still, it was a symbol of freedom more potent and solid than the right to vote. At least, that's what it had become since it found its way into his own possession and ceased being an invisible chain that made all thought of escape hopeless.

The Slayer's mouth quirked up in a knowing half-smile that wasn't unsympathetic. "Don't worry; I'm not going to wrestle you for it."

But Spike was already digging in his skin tight jeans pocket for the little stone. Perfectly sensible plan, after all, logical; and his symbol was nowt but a pebble if it didn't work. Besides, it was very hard to say no to the girl; just the way her laughter lines crinkled when she smiled made Spike want to give her everything she might possibly want.

The vampire firmly trod on that thought, the years of incarceration must have driven him sentimental. Still, he couldn't help but smile back, softly, as he placed the stone in her outstretched hand, and the effect on his companion was immediate and disturbing. Her eyes widened as they met his and she pulled her hand back sharply, flushed and flustered.

"I'll go this way-" she started quickly, looking away. "No, wait! You should be the one moving in case it really does work. Just go out of range, or, you know, until your chip goes off. I'll stand still."

Spike opened his mouth, not sure of what he'd done to offend, but unsure how to frame the question. Buffy stared steadily at the ground while he hovered until her natural impatience reasserted itself. "Well go on then!"

So obediently he went, a tad confused but that was nothing new. Spike jogged right across the graveyard and a good deal further before the last doubt was erased from his mind - the chip wasn't going to fire no matter how far he got. Maybe there should have been a temptation to keep right on going but Spike didn't feel it, and it wasn't a thirst for answers that sent him running right back to the Slayer.

It wasn't until he could see her standing where he left her that Spike could admit he'd been afraid she wouldn't be. It wouldn't make any sense for her to ditch him on patrol when she could just send him packing, but then fears were rarely rational. She looked up expectantly when she heard his footsteps on the grass.

"Nothing, right?"

Spike shook his head. "Nothing. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"I was pretty sure. I went out, remember? To get blood, yesterday, and I was wearing this. I figured you'd have said something if your chip had been going off the whole time."

Casting his mind back to yesterday Spike wasn't so sure. She'd seemed eager enough to hurt him that morning and if she'd set the chip off he would have assumed it was deliberate, punishment for a rape he didn't remember. And he wasn't sure he would have blamed her. But he would have been unconscious by the time she returned, so safe to say she would have noticed. It wasn't an anomaly that had occurred to Spike before and if he'd thought on it any he would have assumed she'd simply left the thing behind.

"So this really is just a pretty stone," the Slayer continued. "Does this mean I can keep it?"

Spike looked at her in surprise. It was the first time since he'd been here he'd seen a real flash of the shallow valley girl he remembered pre-chip. The girl who liked shiny things. She misinterpreted the look on his face and hastily back-pedalled, throwing him the stone. "I totally understand if you want to smash it or something. Bad associations and-"

"Keep it," he interrupted, tossing the jewel back to her with a smile. She looked pleased, and though it went no way towards paying her back for rescuing him from hell, Spike was pleased that she was pleased. "It goes with your eyes."

It was enough to ruin the moment. The Slayer didn't return the stone to her neck but shoved it into her pocket with a mumbled thanks and started walking again. Briskly. This time, the vampire had an inkling of what he'd done wrong. Shouldn't even be noticing the delicate grey/green colour of her eyes; he could understand why she didn't want even a hint that he found her attractive. And he was trying hard not to. Well, not not find her attractive, exactly, because the Slayer was undeniably attractive to anything that's taste ran to human females, but Spike was trying to squash the feelings that had him constantly looking.

So he followed her quietly as she did a quick sweep of the town centre, and didn't try to reengage her in conversation. Tried plenty to guess what she was thinking, but knew she wouldn't turn around and stake him for one poorly thought out comment. It should have been enough, but it wasn't.

Two minutes past the Magic Box, Buffy remembered the international call she needed to make to Giles. She cited poverty as the reason for using the Magic Box phone but Spike suspected she just wanted to be away from inhumanly sharp ears. He could hardly begrudge her the privacy and didn't argue, even when she sent him home to her sister alone and unprotected.

********

Dawn had finished the ritual of digging out schoolbooks that had been forgotten over the summer and was as ready as she could be for the start of a new term - considering she'd missed the end of the last one due to the murder of one friend and the murderous rampage of another. She was putting the Oxy-10 touches to her beauty routine when a sharp gust of wind caught the door, banging it open against the dresser. The teen glanced up in annoyance and jumped to see Spike leaning casually against the doorframe.

"Fuck off!"

Dawn's sharp greeting came more from irritation at being caught unawares and showing it than any real hostility to Spike, and she would have regretted it but the vampire didn't seem to mind a bit.

"Tsk tsk, Bit. What'd your sister say, she heard you using language like that?"

"Are you gonna run and tell her?"

The vampire smirked; it wasn't a nice expression. "She ain't here."

A threat was perched at the tip of Dawn's tongue, the typical 'you'd better not have hurt her' fare, but something stopped her speaking. Maybe that sudden, clenching fear that he really had hurt Buffy. Packed off out of the way to Anya's, Dawn had hardly spent much time with Spike since his latest trip to the vet, but the difference between new Spike and old had been so marked even a self-absorbed teenager had to notice it. That difference was gone. The mousy brown roots still showed, but his hair was slicked back to his head and the bad boy duster had been reclaimed, hiding his weight loss and replacing the costume of nervous diffidence.

"She had something more important to do. Sent me back home to you all on my lonesome. Now isn't that trusting?"

This time there was no mistaking the threat in his tone, the mocking undercurrent. He took a step into the room and despite herself Dawn shrank back. He saw it and smiled.

"What's the matter, Niblet? Your sister knows I'd never hurt you."

And Dawn knew that too, didn't she? She didn't know why her fingernails were digging into the palms of her hands, why her mouth was suddenly too dry to make the expected flippant retort. Because Dawn had never been afraid of Spike. Not from the first time she'd seen him, sitting awkwardly with her mother in the sitting room. Not when she found out what he really was, not when he was tied up and angry in Giles's apartment, not even when she spotted him amongst her captors on that nightmare trip to LA, even though by then the trust she'd had in him should have been shattered.

But right now, something was wrong, wrong, wrong.

"What did you call me?"

"Niblet?" Spike repeated with exaggerated surprise. "I'm sorry, what would you prefer? Snacksize? How 'bout walking, talking, happy meal?"

If he hadn't been standing between her and the door, Dawn would have bolted then. In all the time she'd known Spike she'd never before seen that look directed at her. The look that promised a slow and painful death for his personal entertainment. The look she'd seen him give a hundred different demons right before he ripped them to shreds with hands and teeth. But she couldn't run, and Dawn was too accustomed to the threat of death to panic or scream; whatever Spike's intentions he couldn't physically hurt her. She folded her arms in front of her chest and pretended confidence she didn't feel.

"You can't touch me. You've still got a chip, remember?"

There wasn't even the pretence of sincerity in his wounded innocence. "But Dawn, I'd never try and hurt you," said the vampire through his smirk. "And of course my chip still works. I'd never lie about a thing like that, would I?"

His voice just invited her to ask, but Dawn knew better. Moved to her second line of defence. "You hurt me, my sister will kill you."

But Spike just smiled wider. "Maybe."

"What have you done to her?"

"Nothing. Well, nothing recently. She's just popped over to the Magic Box is all. Maybe it's not her I'm interested in. Maybe I've had my fill of that bitch. Already know how she screams when I hold her down and fuck her. What about you, pidge? You a screamer?"

He took another step into the room and Dawn hopped over the bed, finding it more important to keep distance between herself and Spike than to conceal her fear.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Me? I don't remember, do I? Don't remember you, don't remember trying to rape Buffy. Don't remember what a whiney, snivelling brat you are or how I ever put up with you. No, wait, I remember that bit. It's because I was fucking your sister blind every night. Just about made it worth listening to hours of you droning on about your stupid friends and their stupid clothes and stupid boyfriends. Course, that well's run dry."

"And you think faking amnesia is the way to get her back?"

"Back? Oh, no. I didn't think that. Tried every perversion going already with your sister, there weren't nothing she wouldn't do. It all gets old in the end, doesn't it?"

As surreptitiously as possible, Dawn picked up her flashlight from the bedside table. It wouldn't make much of a weapon against a supernatural being but it was all she had to hand, and Dawn was still trying to tell herself she wouldn't need it.

"Could be I just want revenge," mused the vampire. "Or fresh meat. So, how was your summer, Summers? You let any of those high school boys take a poke?"

Another step towards the bed and Dawn, but he was still between her and the exit. The teen tilted her chin and tried for defiance. "None of your business."

"Oh, but it makes such a difference. Virgin blood tastes so sweet. Almost as good as Slayer's blood. Feels so sweet too, virgin cunts. So tight it hurts to rape 'em, but the nice kind of pain, y'know. For me."

Well screw what she had to hand. Dawn reached down and yanked open her bedside drawer, not caring he could see just what she was doing. She took out a bottle of holy water. He took another menacing step forward.

"Make such a lovely gift for your sister, too. Nothing says thank you for dumping me like a mutilated corpse."

One more step away from her bedroom door and by now Dawn was desperate enough to take the risk. She threw the bottle of water blindly as she ran, heard it smash as she rounded the corner onto the landing. The girl didn't pause to listen for footsteps following her down the stairs as she raced for the front door, but Spike's mocking laughter rang in her ears.

Chapter Fourteen

And they envy him the sunshine
And they pity him the chill
And they're sad to do their living for some other kind of thrill

There was still a light on at the back of the Magic Box, presumably Anya and more last minute preparations. So Buffy took a few moments of peace and quiet, sitting on the steps outside.

Patrolling with Spike had left the Slayer shaken. She tried hard to pretend it was an old fear, a hangover from old Spike. Patrolling with Spike had always left her shaken. From the early days of feeling she had a predator at her back through the complete metamorphis to predator-she-was-kind-of-sleeping-with, even the idea of Spike was outright stressful. His obsession with her could seem so terrifying at times that Buffy had never let herself dissect it properly, scared of what it was he saw in her that attracted him so.

So yeah, spending three hours in his stimulating company had been kind of a trial last year. Fighting, working up adrenalin, knowing she should be disgusted by his very existence but all the time confronted with the eye-pleasing reminder of just how good he was at making the world fade away. And sometimes the shaken feeling he left was physical, on the nights she gave in to those animal urges. On the nights she was strong, went home and tried to play the good sister and happy friend, the shakage was emotional. Temptation so strong that it frightened the Slayer - and if there was something wrong with her that made her catnip to Spike then how much more must be wrong since she came back from the dead and found that attraction returned. Gradually coaxed out with clever dead fingers and entirely unnatural sex.

Whichever way the night was going to end up, patrolling with Spike, since that fateful kiss, left Buffy full of self-doubt and self-hatred and generally, thoroughly, shaken. Because she wanted him and the oblivion he offered.

This new kind of shaken wasn't the same thing at all, no matter how she tried to convince herself. Buffy'd noticed, academically of course, that he was still totally jump-worthy. Even without the duster and the come-get-me body language that went with the look, those finely chiselled cheekbones framed with an effeminate new hair-do, there was no denying the hotness that was Spike. But nowadays Buffy could notice the jump-worthy and not want to jump. Or need to castigate herself for the dirty impure thoughts.

Contrary to what old Spike might have said of her, Buffy wasn't a complete nymphomaniac - it wasn't the high she had craved, just the escape from life. Sometimes her weakness was even more prosaic; it was simply easier to say yes than no. This year's Buffy had left behind the darkness she'd brought back from heaven and time and distance meant she could see her affair with Spike for the crutch it had been. Something she'd maybe needed at the time but certainly not something she was still tempted by.

So this was definitely a different kind of shaken.

And it wasn't the chip's lack of reaction to her either. That much Buffy had expected and that 'research' mostly just confirmation for the Slayer. She'd already added up the coincidences and anomalies in her own mind, and while her mathematics were more instinctual than logical, such were Buffy's usual thought processes and she was sure, with Anya's confirmation of Spike's real identity, that Spike's idea of the chip had to be nothing more than a construct.

That was the big stuff Buffy ought to be worrying about, if only she could get his tender smile out of her head.

Her Spike never smiled. He smirked and grinned and pouted and curled his tongue but genuine expressions of simple happiness, not so much. Chinks in the big bad image, Buffy assumed, to be surprised out of him by unexpected resurrections or in moments of weakness. Lucky for her, it turned out. Not that her Spike hadn't had a few very effective expressions in his arsenal - there was no-one who could let their eyes roam downwards in more suggestive a fashion or make a grown Slayer blush with a twitch of his eyebrow - but he'd never made her feel such affection. If she ever slipped in an affectionate direction, her Spike could be relied upon for a crude comment that would shatter the mood.

New Spike had a way of smiling at her like he just... liked her. In a way it made Buffy feel like an imposter. She was under no illusion that she'd ever really been a friend to the vampire, even when he'd been a friend to her. However much her Spike might have professed to love her, he couldn't have liked her, not after the way she'd treated him, but this softer Spike smiled at her with an affection she couldn't help but return.

And affection was a dangerous thing. Scarier even than the passionate attachment her Spike would have preferred, more of a weakness than falling in love. Falling in love, after all, went virtually hand in hand with doing crazy things and who had control over who they fell for? If Buffy thought she was falling in love with Spike she might have found her feelings easier to excuse. But Buffy had outgrown falling in love - been there, done that, got the bloodstained T-shirt and was too wise to go there again. Wouldn't now give her heart without her head unreservedly seconding the proposition and Buffy's head laughed at the idea of Spike as suitable heart-giving material. Even if she could ever fall for his not inconsiderable charms, duty came before love, she'd learnt that much from Angel.

Affection was more insidious, harder to lock out and deny, and Buffy was uncomfortably aware that it had led her away from her duty tonight. At the very least, affected her decision-making. Letting Spike go home alone was hardly cautious, but she'd been so eager to be out of his company to clear her head that she'd acted like a person rather than a Slayer. She didn't even know for sure his chip still worked at all, if he took it into his head to hit someone and it didn't work, anyone he killed would be on her conscience - because of all that affection. But that's how it was if you made friends with evil things. Friends meant ties and loyalties which would inevitably be split in possibly world-ending scenarios.

And it would be so easy to smile back. Buffy might have admitted, under torture, that she had a far softer spot for the vampire than she'd ever have let him see. It was easy to hide that spot when Spike made a hobby out of pissing her off, she was damned if he'd break through her defences now by inexplicably forgetting what a jerk he could be.

With a start, Buffy realised she'd been sitting outside the Magic Box long enough to carve a doodle into the pavement with the now-blunt point of her stake. Eventually though, she had to go in. There were many good reasons for a serious chat with Giles, most of them not Spike. That would just be the hardest part.

********

When Giles' ancient red telephone rang, there was a good deal of excavating necessary before he could answer it. The Watchers Council, he was certain, was keeping something very important from him so instead of staying in London to research, he'd 'borrowed' any books he thought might be pertinent and brought them back to his flat, where he could research undisturbed and unobserved.

There was a downside. He'd pilfered enough books to fill his rusty old car and slow it to a crawl on the journey home and now his cramped flat, already largely library, was filled to bursting with old books and the dust they'd collected over the years. In fact, so extreme was the overpopulation of books that Giles was starting to think fondly of Willow's computer, no bigger than a weighty magazine but able to access more information than contained in the Bodlian. Willow herself had caught the coach to Heathrow a couple of hours ago and was already sorely missed; Giles was only one person and he'd be dead of old age before he could read every printed word his living room now contained. The witch had a naturally tidy way of working that, after years of researching together, gelled well with Giles' own methods.

But after the girl had exhausted every internet lead she'd managed to dig up, Giles could no longer justify keeping his assistant. Two months in the coven and another reacclimatizing herself to life in Giles' flat but Willow had yet to take the biggest steps in her personal journey to recovery, and he thought she was ready. Ready and maybe needed. Her research skills might be invaluable to Giles but Buffy, alone at the front line, would soon need her more if Giles' worries proved justified.

And if he hadn't already decided it was time to send Willow back home, news of Spike's return would have tipped the balance. Giles might have laughed when he heard about Buffy's liaison with the vampire - the way she'd confessed as if it were the end of the world, in the midst of a genuine apocalypse, had seemed humorous at the time - but since then, from Dawn and Xander, he'd heard details considerably more disturbing. Much as he might trust Buffy when it came to protecting humanity, she didn't seem to be able to protect herself with the same ruthlessness, but even Giles had been surprised to hear she'd been letting the vampire stay in her home. His first instinct had been to leap on a plane but with six potential Slayers already confirmed dead, he was forced to focus on the greater threat and the greater good. Sending Willow was the next best thing; she could at least cure whatever ailed the vampire and send him on his merry way, seeing as no-one but Giles seemed inclined to stake the bastard.

When he finally found his telephone, under the table and obscured by the probably-not-relevant pile of books, it was Buffy on the other end apologising for waking him up. This, Giles had learnt, she did as a precaution every time she phoned, the girl being completely incapable of mastering time zones. She gave him a short and, Giles suspected, selective recap of everything that had been going on in Sunnydale since Dawn's reappearance and adroitly shifted the conversation to Willow before Giles could put forth his own opinions on the subject of Spike. In return he told her about the Council's new enemy, what little they knew with no survivors to tell tales, and the slow and stubborn reaction of the Council.

And then, because he couldn't help it, he gave her the lecture. All the ways in which Spike was bad and bad for Buffy in particular, and all the horrible things that could happen if she let her guard down. His Slayer listened politely, or quietly at least, but when she finally spoke it was in her 'humouring Giles' voice and he knew he'd had no impact.

"Look, Giles, I really will-"

Over the fuzz of the transatlantic call Giles heard the familiar tingle of the Magic Box bell and the almost as familiar crash as someone or something flung the door open with more force than strictly necessary. And almost as if he'd caused it, with his warnings to his charge, he heard Dawn's voice announce: "Buffy! It's Spike! He's gone evil again!"

There were indistinct noises of movement and less piercing voices that Giles couldn't make out, and for a few seconds he thought Buffy must have put down the phone, her voice more distant as she soothed her sister. The teen was almost incoherent with rage or fear but her stuttering accusations were clear enough to Giles that he wished he could spend the time flying back to Sunnydale to make sure the Spike situation was dealt with thoroughly. Moments later the Slayer's voice was back on the line.

"I've got to go, Giles. I'll call you tomorrow when Willow gets here."

"Buffy, did I hear-"

"I'll call you tomorrow, Giles," Buffy repeated grimly, and then there was just the hum of the dial tone.

Chapter Fifteen

The Slayer's house was in near darkness when Spike returned, one lone lit upstairs window telling him the sister had probably retired for the night. Still, Spike didn't feel like making himself at home in the living room. He'd survived too much to fall prey to the Slayer's rampant protective instincts, or be staked by a PMTing teenager, best to strenuously avoid the girl altogether. From inside he could hear voices, or rather one voice, too faint through the floorboards to make out what was being said. Presumably this was one of the marathon phone conversations American teens were famous for.

He nuked some blood as quickly and quietly as he could, and was retreating into his underground guest room when he heard footsteps on the stairs. They were loud and hurried and the vampire ducked out of sight and pulled the door closed behind him. The girl didn't follow him into the basement much to Spike's relief; the footsteps paused for a second as a handle turned with a click and then the front door was slamming behind her. The relief was short-lived when he considered what the Slayer's reaction might be on coming home and finding her sister absent but Spike didn't fancy his chances ordering the girl back into the house. And despite what his eyes and nose and sixth sense told him, the girl wasn't human and could presumably handle herself.

It was a long hour later he heard the front door open again. The Slayer's clear voice ordering her sister straight to bed let Spike know right off who was there.

"Are you going to stake him?" he heard the teen retort. At least, Spike assumed it was Dawn, though her voice was lacking the snide antipathy she'd displayed earlier in the day it was still familiar. Younger though, smaller, her tone more suited to a question such as 'are you going to tell?' Her sister paused long enough before answering for Spike to grow worried.

"I hope not," Buffy said eventually, the words so soft they barely made it through the basement door to Spike's eager ears. "Now go to bed, you've got a big day tomorrow."

The girl's footsteps were still tapping up the stairs when the basement door opened and the Slayer appeared. She stood at the top of the stairs and stared at the vampire a long moment, until Spike was almost wriggling with uncomfortable feeling. The tension built and built, but when she finally spoke it wasn't the earth shattering revelation Spike was beginning to suspect but a simple question.

"Have you seen Dawn?"

Spike blinked. "Didn't she just come in with you?"

"Earlier," the Slayer clarified, her voice carefully even. "Did you see her when you got home?"

"No. Heard her go out. Should I have stopped her?"

But Buffy had lost interest in his answer after the negative and to Spike's bafflement was dragging his fold out cot out from its position against the wall. Puzzled, the vampire ran his eye over the earth floor, half expecting some kind of trap door, but the Slayer kept dragging the bed towards the opposite wall. Obligingly, Spike caught the far end of the frame and helped shove it into place. Unnerved by the girl's strange and silent behaviour, he went with a joke.

"This really the time for a bit of feng shui?"

Buffy smiled grimly but didn't answer. She abandoned the bed for a stack of cardboard boxes along the cluttered east wall, rooting around until she finally pulled out a long coil of heavy duty chain. She flexed the heavy links between her hands as if testing a weapon as she turned back to Spike, and despite himself he shivered.

"Dawn says she saw you. That you went upstairs and... spoke to her."

"She's lying!" Spike blurted.

"I don't think she is," Buffy answered slowly. She lifted one shoulder diffidently in a lopsided shrug. "But then I didn't think you were, so what do I know?"

"I wasn't. I'm not."

"I believe you. Are you seeing my dilemma here?"

"Uh..." Spike was seeing the dilemma okay, but he wasn't seeing a solution in rearranging furniture and the Slayer's new weapon was an unsettling thing. Spike knew all manner of unseemly uses for it and none at all that might count as anyway good if you happened to be him.

He could hardly expect the Slayer to take his word over her own sister and Spike briefly wondered what he could have done to the girl to make her want to bring this down on him. The sense of vertigo that had started with Buffy's ominous pause as she'd talked to her sister was rapidly growing - Spike could almost feel the rug being pulled out from under his feet. The tension such that the natural urge to run was almost unconquerable, even though the Slayer was between him and the door. In the larger sense, she was standing in the closest thing to a safe haven Spike had and there was nowhere to run to.

"I'm sorry," said the Slayer softly. And she did indeed look regretful, but it didn't stop her from stepping towards Spike, chain in hand. "But I have to be sure."

Spike took an involuntary step back, and damnit all if she wasn't making him feel guilty, the girl looked so uncomfortable. And surely she wasn't intending to beat a confession out of him? Spike had been here long enough to realize that a spot of Slayer torture would damage her more than him. And Spike couldn't confess - he wasn't even sure what he was supposed to have done Three years of conditioning told Spike quite plainly what to do - keep quiet, take the punishment and hope to survive it. But three days of living had shown him merely surviving wasn't always worth it.

"You wanna be sure, Slayer, best you stake me now."

The girl rolled her eyes and caught his arm, propelling the puzzled vampire backwards until his legs hit the bed. "Don't be so melodramatic," she snapped. "It's only until Willow gets here and we can make sure you're... safe."

The Slayer leaned past him and threaded the chain through an iron hoop that was set in the wall. A few things fell in place for Spike, so quickly he couldn't stifle a laugh. The Slayer's serious demeanour and general air of regret, coupled with the conversation he'd overheard, had spooked the vampire to all sorts of dire conclusions, realising she only intended to chain him up was a tremendous relief. But his sudden, slightly hysterical, good humour earned him another searching glare from the Slayer.

"Are you going to fight me?" she asked sharply. "Because, kinda determined here and-"

"No!" Spike sat on the cot, held up his hands obediently for the shackles, and tried to explain himself in a way that wouldn't offend his gaoler. "I thought... that is I didn't... I just worked out why you moved my bed," he concluded lamely.

"Well I wouldn't make you sleep on the floor." She still sounded irritable, avoiding his eye, but she fastened his manacles carefully, left them so loose that if she hadn't fattened him up so much the last couple days he'd have easily been able to slide his hands out. And when she was finished she sat down next to him with a sigh.

"This gets weirder and weirder," the Slayer complained.

In another lifetime Spike might have pointed out it was her idea to start with the bondage, but he refrained. Girl looked harried enough without poking fun at her, didn't want to make her think he blamed her for chaining him up. If anything, he'd blame the little sis for making up tales about him.

"I am sorry," she said again. "I know I promised. But I can't... I don't take chances with Dawn."

"And I'm a risky proposition. Don't blame you, Slayer. Attacked you in your own home last time, didn't I?"

She got up swiftly, eyes narrowed in annoyance, and Spike wondered what had possessed him to bring that up.

"Who told you that?"

"You did. You said... In your bathroom... Remember?"

"Right."

And like that she was gone, leaving Spike cursing his big mouth. Neither of them noticed the key to his cuffs was sitting on the ledge by Spike's head.

********

When Dawn had burst into the Magic Box with her dramatic declaration, Buffy's first thought was, predictably, 'what have I done?'. And her conscience, already uneasy, quickly told her she'd sent a potentially very dangerous vampire home alone to her defenceless little sister, and this was All Her Fault. And as she'd listened to Dawn's garbled account of their conversation her conscience helpfully added that he could be anywhere by now and, if what he'd hinted to Dawn about the chip was true, doing anything.

Immediate action was obviously required. Hunt Spike down and make sure he wasn't killing again. And hope the hunt kept her too busy to think too hard on what the 'making sure' might entail. That plan was knocked on the head when they got within sight of the house and Buffy could sense Spike - right where he ought to be.

Dawn, in another of those one-eighties Buffy was coming to expect, had subtly defended the vampire for most of the walk home. She'd chattered hopefully about brainwashing spells and split personalities, had alluded to Willow being able to fix him, and not once, until they'd placed Spike and the Slayer herself stood down from battle mode, had Dawn admitted the possibility of imminent stake-age. Buffy couldn't blame her, she didn't want to believe Spike could ever be a threat to Dawn either, and not just because Spike must know that hurting her sister would be the cruelest way of hurting Buffy herself. And he hadn't hurt her, a big point in his favour, maybe the only point. But that didn't change the hard truth - if Spike was dechipped and running round Sunnydale there was only one possible ending.

But there was Spike, in her basement. Whatever else addled his brain right now Spike wasn't stupid. He must have known Dawn would go rushing off for the cavalry and to stay in her house, after threatening the Slayer's sister, was beyond stupid. Out and out suicidal. So Buffy allowed herself to give her sister's hopes some credence, maybe Spike was a problem that could be fixed with research rather than slayage.

Though now, lying in her bed, Buffy had no idea how. Her head hurt from trying to believe so many contradictory facts simultaneously.

If Spike had been faking amnesia for the last three days, Buffy would eat her hat. If Spike, the one she knew, could stick to an intricate plan with patience and some grade A acting, Buffy would wash that hat down with the rest of her wardrobe and the closet she kept it in. But he'd known things he couldn't when speaking to Dawn.

If Dawn had still been hostile to the vampire, Buffy might even have considered that she'd made the whole thing up. She was willing to believe almost anything if it gave her a rational explanation and Dawn had wanted him out of the house. But the teen had been so shaken, and at the same time so eager to deny that Spike could really mean her harm, that it was easy to see she was just as worried as Buffy. When she'd checked on Dawn after her shower, her sister had been relieved to hear Spike didn't even remember talking to her, and voiced no objection to 'that psycho killer' still sleeping in their basement. And Dawn wasn't stupid either, she must have known Buffy might stake him, even in the midst of a fearful sulk she wasn't capable of murder.

And the Spike she'd just chained up, the one she couldn't imagine threatening her sister, well he'd known things he shouldn't too. So now even Dawn's more inventive theories were nixed one way or another. If there were two Spike's running round, a-la Xander and the rod of split personalities, they would have met and killed one another when her Spike returned to the house. If the vampire was suffering a severe case of Jekyll and Hyde, then how had he known what happened in Buffy's bathroom? And if he remembered perfectly, if it was all an act, then why couldn't Spike have said something more convincing than claiming she'd told him?

Her brain kept going back to that stupid little lie in the basement. Buffy had been more irritated than suspicious until that moment, had assumed Dawn or Anya had been filling him in on things they couldn't understand. If it had been a slip, then why try to cover by saying the one thing she knew wasn't true? If it wasn't a slip, if there was some innocent explanation, then why lie at all?

And Buffy knew he wasn't faking. Her Spike, the non-meek version, might have had the brass balls to threaten her sister then sit in her house as if nothing had happened, but she was sure he didn't have the acting ability to be anything other than the cocky aggravating bastard he was. Or the reason. Afraid her wishes might be blinding her, Buffy forced herself to consider the possibility that this was all some crazy scheme of Spike's, but if so it was utterly senseless. And went against every single thing she knew about the vampire. She couldn't dismiss the possibility that Spike might have left Sunnydale wanting her dead. But to imagine him coming after her in such a convoluted way, for no discernable benefit, well that was bizarre even for a girl who lived on the hellmouth. And if this was a plan of Spike's, it involved a degree of self-mutilation Buffy didn't like to think about.

No-one knew better than Buffy the lengths Spike could go to if he thought the reason good enough, but there was no reason. If he'd wanted revenge he'd had opportunity. And if this was his weird stalkerish way of worming himself back into her good graces, he'd have left her sister well alone.

An hour of tossing and turning and objective thinking brought Buffy to the conclusion her instincts had reached immediately - the whole idea was nonsense. Something Else was at work here. And Willow would have to work out what that Something Else was, because Buffy had given it her undivided attention and a good portion of her beauty sleep and she had zip.

If Willow had been hoping to ease herself gently back into Scooby life, she was in for a rude shock when she landed on American soil tomorrow. The problems Buffy was planning to dump in her lap were piling up thick and fast. But shifting the burden didn't help Buffy sleep. Willow wasn't here now and however Buffy tried to twist it, Willow wasn't responsible for the vampire chained up in her basement.

The Slayer refused to feel guilty about that. Spike could be dangerous and not even know it, and he was indisputably out of his right mind. Anything could be about to happen and precautions had to be taken, if only for Buffy's peace of mind, to mollify her sense of duty. She'd bolted all the doors and windows to guard against a second Spike - though bolts might not prove a barrier they would at least make enough noise for an early warning system. But Buffy couldn't go to sleep if there was even the remote possibility that Spike might sneak upstairs and kill her sister, whether he was aware of doing it or not.

But then, she couldn't sleep anyway. And if it wasn't guilt keeping her awake then at least a certain empathy for the vampire she'd chained up. He'd seemed to take her sparse explanation at face value, hadn't objected to the shackles, but he must be wondering what she intended to do next. Wondering and worrying. And it wasn't like Buffy had clearly explained herself, not least because she'd no clear idea herself what was going on. She'd not wanted to talk to him, not at all really, right then, so soon after thinking about killing him. But it would ease his mind if she shared what she did know and possibly, if Buffy managed to ask the right questions, Spike might even have some answers for her.

And if she wasn't going to get any sleep anyway, she may as well unchain him. Spike couldn't very well go on a killing spree with her sitting right there in the living room. And okay, maybe she felt a tiny bit guilty. Buffy had the kind of conscience that could simultaneously blame her for not staking a vampire and not being kinder to him.

So two hours after getting into bed Buffy gave up on sleep and got up again, got dressed. She was opening her bedroom door when a noise froze her in her tracks and, listening hard, she heard the unmistakable click of the basement door closing. The Slayer was still frozen on the spot when the front door banged shut behind Spike.

Chapter Sixteen

Never knew the words you said were true
Never thought you said just what you meant
~ Empty Chairs, Don McLean

When Buffy heard the sound of the front door — the previously barred front door that could only signal Spike's exit — she'd been frozen in shock. When she got it together to chase after him and found him not twenty yards from the house fighting a small pack of hooded demons, her primary feeling was relief. Of course he must have heard the demons and gone outside to deal with them; the Slayer gave herself a mental ticking off for not thinking of such an innocent explanation when she'd first heard the click of the door.

She didn't have time to ponder how he'd gotten outside. Spike wasn't fighting well, his movements slow and awkward, outnumbered and outarmed. Buffy didn't waste time on analysis before wading in to join the fight. And for the next couple of minutes, all she could see were the demons she was punching. Her opponents were many and armed with knives, but they lacked the strength to stand against a Slayer and damaged as easily as humans. And they didn't seem interested in a do or die stand; after an embarrassingly short scuffle they fled, though they were a dozen to two, leaving behind just one corpse.

The demon was even less intimidating in death. Pasty and thin under its cowl, eyes desecrated in a way that was disturbingly familiar to the Slayer. Spike was nearly doubled over, leaning against her neighbour's fence and clutching his stomach, but with great effort he straightened himself out as she approached.

"I'm okay. Good to go." The vampire waved her away with a hand and took a few tottering steps down the sidewalk.

"Whoa there, soldier." Buffy caught his shoulder and turned Spike to the direction of her house. It was a sudden enough movement to upset the injured vampire's precarious balance and Buffy found herself taking his weight. "The stoic bravery is all well and good," she joked lightly, "but you're going the wrong way."

Spike looked at her suspiciously, as if he might like to argue that point, but allowed her to lead him back to the house in silence. Buffy gave him little choice, half carrying him as she was, and even so the vampire was limping badly. They had to step around the hooded demon corpse on the slow journey to Buffy's front yard and she took another long look as they went past. It could almost be human, apart from the lack of eyes, and Buffy could've sworn she'd fought them before, though for the life of her she couldn't place the fight. Yet another mystery on which to set Willow to work; the demons could be coincidence and nothing to do with Spike's oddities. Given the notable lack of nightlife in Sunnydale recently, though, Buffy definitely thought they were worth investigating.

The vampire was quite deliberately not looking at her as Buffy propelled him in through the back door and into the kitchen. He kept his eyes on the floor as Buffy carefully peeled his hands away from his stomach, didn't react as she ripped his T-shirt open to look at the wound. There wasn't much left to rip, a knife had carved the diagonal of a Zorro logo across his shirt and the skin beneath. The lips of the wound were gaping grotesquely, as if Spike was preparing to turn completely inside-out, and now she could see a second stab wound in his side, smaller and deeper. Reaching for the first aid kit, Buffy offered the vampire some blood but he shook his head.

"You just stick me back together and I'll be off, yeah?"

"I'll be off?" questioned Buffy. "Is that British slang for 'not leaking intestines'?"

"Leaving," translated Spike flatly. "Departing. Exiting. Going. Trespassing no longer on your hospitality."

His voice was strangely hostile considering Buffy had just saved his ass — again — and the words not at all what she wanted to hear. But when she glanced sharply at the vampire, he was still looking at the floor, clutching tightly at the kitchen counter for support and definitely not well placed for an escape attempt.

"I think not," answered Buffy with forced lightness. "Especially if you want to be taking your innards on that little stroll."

She started rooting though a jumble of gauze and bandages for something big enough to repair a bisected vampire, but her attention was dragged back to Spike as he exploded.

"Well bugger what you think!" Spike met her eye then, face hard and determined and a little desperate—Buffy almost flinched from the sudden wash of unpleasant memory. "If you can't make up your bleeding mind I'll think for myself, thank you very much. You tell me to fuck off then you wanna play Florence - well screw you, Slayer, I'm not a fucking stray dog! You wanna keep me around for the next kicking then best you get an urn to keep me in!"

Buffy was stunned speechless by this doubly unexpected assault. The same vampire who had let her chain him up without a word of protest was now screaming at her for no reason that Buffy could see. And he didn't sound like either of the Spikes she'd grown used to. In fact, he sounded like Dawn in one of her more dramatic snits, one short rant away from bursting into tears and wailing about the unfairness of life. She could only watch as Spike gritted his teeth against the pain of his wounds and forced himself upright.

"So what do you say? You want to finish this?"

Buffy waved the roll of surgical tape at him. Pointedly. "Do I look like I'm gearing up for a fight to you? You've gone completely- Oh. Oh!"

A sudden flash of inspiration sent Buffy racing for the basement door, but a flick of the light switch proved her brainwave false. There was no sign of another, meeker Spike waiting patiently in the basement, only two open manacles lying on the cot.

"Sorry," she said absently as she walked back into the kitchen. "I just thought for a second... Never mind."

Spike's little tirade had shocked the Slayer but it was still impossible to see him as a threat as he squared up to her unsteadily under the fluorescent kitchen lights. He looked so pathetic that she couldn't even manage to stay angry. He was either dangerously unstable or just as confused as Buffy herself and she didn't know which, didn't trust her own judgment; she just wanted to get him safely back under lock and key for Willow’s inspection. With stronger manacles, obviously.

"There was this one time Xander got split in two," she explained, mostly for something to say that wouldn't inflame the vampire further. "Dawn reminded me earlier. There were two Xanders, one had all his good traits and the other... I was just checking your better mannered self wasn't... y'know. You don't really want to fight, do you?"

The vampire slumped back against the counter with a defeated little sigh. "No. Course not. Just..."

"It's okay, I get it." And Buffy thought she did. She'd promised he wasn't a prisoner, after all, and gone back on that promise. She could hardly blame him now for being angry or for not wanting to trust her, though whichever way she twisted it he wasn't quite making sense. "But you have to understand it's not safe. I can't risk-"

"S'alright, Slayer. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you. I just want to split before the sun comes up."

"And let me list the ways that's not going to happen."

Spike gaped at her, actually gaped, as if he'd expected her to just let him walk. Buffy was starting to wonder if they were even speaking the same language. "I'm sorry," she said, a little acidly. "Were the chains not a clear enough message for you? It might not be fair, Spike, but you're staying put until I've figured out what the hell's going on around here."

"I know what's going on. Clearly, I've driven you right ‘round the bend. And I'm mighty sorry for it Slayer, truly I am, but I can't take it back and I can't even remember, so this mindfuck's a waste of time, don't you think? Just get it over with. Do your fucking job because I'm getting tired of your shit!"

"My shit?" Was it really only hours ago Buffy was mourning Spike's lost ability to really piss her off? Looked like he just recalled exactly how to push her buttons. The Slayer went from puzzled and largely sympathetic to incensed in a split second. "My shit! You mean like busting you out of your little vampire brothel? Or saving your ass outside just a minute ago? Or maybe you mean taking you in and trying to be nice to you even though you're such a... a..."

And there the Slayer had to stop, finding there was no word in her vocabulary sufficient for Spike at that moment. She was so indignant she could hardy form words at all. For three nights Spike had kept her awake, worrying about him, mostly, what he might be feeling instead of what he might be up to. She'd felt guilty for chaining him up, though he was proving her quite right by being crazy and unpredictable. Even when he'd started shouting she'd tried to keep her cool, put herself in his shoes. This complete lack of gratitude was a slap in the face.

"What's happened to you is not my fault. I'm trying to help, when really, my job description begins and ends with the killing. You threatened my sister and you still get the benefit of the doubt and I should... I should... stake you!"

"That's what I said," interjected the vampire softly.

"Well I guess you're right then. Of all the..." But his quiet words had taken the wind out of Buffy's sails. Spike might be an ungrateful and crazy bastard but he was looking no happier than she felt. "Do you really want to be dust?"

"Can't stay, can't go. Only leaves the one option, really."

"Why can't you-"

"Guys!" Buffy whirled around to see her sister in the doorway, pyjama-clad and rubbing her eyes sleepily. "It's like, four o'clock in the morning — what’s with all the yelling? And, eew, Spike! Shouldn't that stuff be on the inside?"

The vampire put a self-conscious hand over the gash across his stomach, where blue-pink ropes of intestines were trying to escape into the big wide world.

"Sorry Dawnie," said Buffy, catching her sister's yawn as she spoke. "Spike went crazy... er. More crazy."

"So you thought you'd disembowel him? 'Cause - majorly gross. And should you really have all those guts? You don't digest stuff, right?"

Spike didn't answer, but switched his wary gaze to the younger girl and Buffy took the opportunity to corner him with the surgical tape. Despite his bravado of earlier, the vampire winced as she pulled his hand away for a second time and gave no argument as she tried to close the wound.

"There were demons," said the Slayer for Dawn's benefit. "Like monks, with knives. There's something bugging me about them, I do wish Giles was here. Anyway, Spike went out to fight them, or went out and... How did you get out, by the way?"

Spike narrowed his eyes at her and for a second Buffy expected more yelling, but it didn't come. Maybe, she mused, this was a new hybrid Spike, half old evil vampire, half new kicked puppy.

"You let me out," he enunciated slowly and clearly. "You told me to leave. You were quite emphatic on that point."

The Slayer digested that as she finished her rudimentary first-aid with a few strategically placed strips of tape. It was either a stupid lie or another clue, and Buffy had so many clues she felt like she should be able to make some sense of them. But the jigsaw pieces didn't fit, didn't even resemble each other. Really, she needed Giles' brain, because Buffy's own was still trying to figure out the demons she'd chased off earlier. The ones that had seemed far keener to be fighting a vampire than a Slayer. That had seemed so familiar.

Trying to look at the big picture made her head hurt. Like staring at a Magic Eye and seeing only dots. Every individual point was swimming in front of her eyes and she couldn't see even the outline of a pattern.

********

Getting stabbed had cheered Spike up, just a little.

After the Slayer had — in no uncertain terms — turned him out, there'd only been an up to go, really. At least during that brief fight Spike had been in control of his own destiny. He'd been rusty, and stabbed, and it was looking to be a very short destiny indeed, but he'd definitely been in charge of it. Then the Slayer had saved his arse again. And Spike was grateful she'd stopped looking at him with that trembly-lipped venom, but as far as the saving thing went, he'd rather resented it.

Bitch was doing a number on his head. All smiles and concern, luring him in, waiting for the second he started to feel comfortable, safe, then bam!, there was the seething hatred. And maybe she could flick the switch back a minute later and pretend nothing had happened, but Spike couldn't. She'd suckered him in good with her solicitous attention then flayed him with mere words and as much as he might deserve it, Spike wasn't stepping back on that rollercoaster, not even if the alternative was a staking. He'd just faced death, after all, had been resigned, more or less. Didn't have a better plan or a better option, was the sad truth. Hell had to be better than this.

Trusting the Slayer had been a big mistake. Putting his trust in anyone or anything was a mistake; hoping, even — because Spike was all out of bounce, had lost the resilience to pick himself up after each disappointment. But hope was a hard thing to deny and everybody, even vampires, it turned out, wanted to believe in something. So Spike had been letting himself believe that she genuinely cared for him, that it was the moment in the shower that had been the anomaly, that he'd made more of it in his head than the reality of a brief bad temper. Even while his conscious mind had been bracing for impact, a part of Spike had put his faith in Buffy.

So no, he wouldn't be suckered in again. Except he kinda was. Sitting in her kitchen ten minutes after saying his forever farewells to the Summers' residence trying to tell himself that her patching him up meant something, when really he knew it meant she’d just swallowed her revulsion long enough to stick the fake smile back in place. Wasn't even doing it on purpose, far as Spike could tell. He'd been right the first time - he'd driven her clean ‘round the bend. Got the stupid notion into her head that she was obliged to help him, had repressed the hate so hard it was like she didn't even remember screaming at him in the basement. That couldn't be healthy. And Spike couldn't stay where he was causing so much harm, where he was so little wanted. Where the perils of hope lurked around every corner.

So Spike had put his foot down - time to end this one way or another and maybe it was best for both of them if she'd just bloody well stake him. But damnit all if she hadn't ignored him. Okay, there'd been a little shouting, Slayer'd seemed indignant that he was growing his balls back, but hardly the fatal showdown he'd been expecting.

And now he was sitting, bemused, in the middle of an impossible domestic scene while the two sisters bustled and bantered around him. It was all so enticing. There was nothing Spike wanted to do more than sit and soak up the company, let himself feel at home here, like he hadn't fallen for that trick twice before. The last straw came when the youngest finished boiling her potions and handed him a mug of steaming chocolate. Spike was stuttering his thanks before he remembered he'd had enough of this insanity and enough of pretending it was normal.

"Are you people all on drugs?" He demanded, and the words came out louder and harsher than he intended. The Slayer pulled her attention away from the first aid box she'd been repacking and took a protective step towards her sister.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're both bloody schizophrenic! If looks could kill this little'un would've melted me into a puddle this afternoon - now she's bringing me cocoa!"

The two girls exchanged a quick glance and the youngest shrugged. "I think the word is 'ambivalent'," the Slayer answered for her sister.

"And you!" Spike continued. "One minute you're chaining me up, next you want me out of your town and off your fucking plane of existence, now you're patching up my boo-boos as if you didn't hate me down to the last molecule of dust. Ain't right, Slayer, but you're both chattering away s'if everything's fine and dandy - and you say I'm crazy!"

The Slayer was keeping herself carefully between her sister and the vampire, but her indignation of earlier was lacking. She cocked her head on one side and gave Spike a puzzled stare. "You are crazy," she said firmly. "And besides, I think you might be imagining us."

"That's what I thought at first," he snorted. "But you know what? I'm not this fucking twisted."

"You're not imagining me," put in Dawn. "I'm sure I'm really here."

"No," the Slayer corrected. "Not now, before. He said I told him to leave but I didn't. I chained him up to stop him leaving. And there was this other thing that he said... that I said... But I didn't. So it must be-"

"But didn't you chain him up? He imagine the key?"

"I don't know! Maybe it's... magic? It wasn't me, that's the point."

"And then this 'magic' turned itself into Spike and came and threatened me?"

"Maybe," returned the Slayer defensively. "It would explain how he was wearing his coat when it was still at the Magic Box. Or maybe you imagined-"

"That's so lame! We live on the hell mouth and your best guess is imagination?"

And just like that Spike was invisible. He watched from the sidelines as the two girls argued back and forth, half sisterly bicker, half serious debate. Slayer was saying she'd never thrown him out, he got that much, but Spike was withholding judgment until they reached some kind of conclusion. He wasn't about to let himself feel safe when it might still turn out that the Slayer was just gone in the head. The vampire didn't really understand why the need for debate at all, he could see one perfectly simple solution, but still he joined in.

"She left the key behind." His words interrupted Dawn's list of imps and goblins that could shapeshift and reminded both girls he was still there.

"What's that?"

"When you chained me up, you left the key behind. When you came back you just pointed it out, I unchained myself."

"Buffy?"

The Slayer shrugged, somewhat abashed. "It's possible," she conceded. "The key part, anyway. I don't remember what I did with it, so... But that just proves my point — no one let him out. He imagined me."

"Buffy! You say that word one more time and I swear— This isn't Narnia, you know. And if you never unchained him it could be a ghost. They can't touch stuff, right?"

"Not currently dead," the Slayer pointed out. "And if I were a ghost, I don't think I'd want to spend my after-life messing with Spike. Why would any ghost want to haunt a vampire?"

"Well duh, why do ghosts haunt anybody? And didn't Angel have ghosts that one time? When he went a bit crazy?"

"He wasn't forget-who-he-was crazy. And they weren't ghosts..."

The Slayer trailed off into a thoughtful silence, leaving her sister to carry on the argument single handed. Spike let her rattle on about manifest spirits and glamours and every other idea that popped into her busy little head before pointing out the obvious.

"Why do you care?" he asked bluntly. This speaking-your-mind thing was proving addictive and Spike was beginning to wonder how he'd done without for so long. There was a certain freedom in giving up. When you hit bottom you couldn't make things any worse by running your mouth.

Dawn rolled her eyes in her patented 'duh' gesture before answering. "Well, Spike, sometimes the evil things that pop up in Sunnydale are evil. They try and destroy the world, which is bad, and—"

"So slay me. Any other Spikes pop up giving you lip, slay them too. Sooner or later you'll all be Spike free and happy."

"But you'd be dust," the teen objected, for all the world like that wasn't something she'd proposed herself several times. The Slayer herself didn't seem to be listening at all, taking an absent-minded sip of her cocoa and staring into the middle distance.

"Yes," Spike agreed patiently. "I'd be dust. Problem solved."

The girl opened her mouth but no words came out. Didn't have an argument for that one, apparently. Spike met her eye evenly and waited for her to agree.

"Verruca!" Buffy announced, startling the vampire.

"Verruca?" questioned Dawn.

"Yes. No. I mean Eureka! I mean, by Jove I think I've got it. Or something." She smiled smugly at her sister. "I've figured it out."

TBC....

Chapter Seventeen

Two expectant pairs of eyes stared at Buffy, eagerly awaiting her revelation. Buffy backpedalled.

"Not everything," she qualified hastily. "I have no idea what's wrong with you, Spike, or how you've exchanged three years, or why-"

"Maybe you could cut to what you do know," interrupted Dawn, of course, impatiently. "'Cause all the stuff you don't know could fill an encyclopaedia."

Spike was just waiting quietly, gazed fixed on her, but Buffy could see his every muscle was tensed. And she could see every muscle, the T-shirt she'd ripped earlier now just a couple of twisty ribbons of cotton that concealed none of the half healed wounds that peppered his torso. Combined with his fight or flight body language, it gave Spike the air of a well toned street urchin and Buffy had to resist the urge to reach out and touch, to reassure. Instead she took a deep breath and launched into explanation.

"It was what you said about Angel's ghosts," she said to Dawn. "Only they weren't ghosts, it was this thing, it called itself the First Evil. And it had all these scabby minions that killed all the Christmas trees - that's what those demons were! Bingers or Bringers or something. The ones that stabbed you," she added to Spike. He carried on staring, fixed and unreadable. "So if its groupies are out in force, then all our ghosts must be this First Evil, right? It was like a ghost, it couldn't touch stuff, could walk through walls, that sort of thing. Only it could look like any dead person, so maybe the Spike in your room wasn't Spike at all. Did he touch anything?"

"I don't think so," Dawn answered doubtfully. "It was kind of leaning... But Spike's not dead he's, y'know, undead. And why would some big First Evil waste its time trying to make me pee myself?"

Buffy shrugged easily. She had to admit the list of things she didn't know was still by far the longest. But her what-she-did-know list had acquired an item that wasn't directly contradicted by something else she knew and that was worth a Eureka, Buffy thought.

"Do I look like an evil mastermind?" she said aloud. "I don't know what it wants, that's Giles's department. And it can do vampires. Angel said it was people he'd turned, and even himself."

"But Spike's ghost was you, right? You're not even undead. Could it do you?"

"Well if it did, then it must be able to. And I refer you again to Giles."

"But it talked like Spike. How did it know everything that-"

"Dawn! I don't know, okay? I don't know anything else, so stop asking questions. You're totally ruining my Eureka moment."

"But you know Spike's not evil?"

Buffy glanced at Spike. His blue gaze was still levelled at her, so unmoving Buffy was tempted to click her fingers, make sure he was still there with them. "Spike's a vampire," she answered her sister when Spike didn't speak for himself.

"But apart from that? He's not you're-about-to-stake-him evil?"

"No," Buffy answered firmly, hoping it was true. Only Spike could say for sure just how evil he was, but he seemed to be waiting her answer as eagerly as Dawn. They could all do with some reassurance on the staking issue, Buffy not least of all. "No, he's not. So I think it's time you were getting back to bed, Missy."

"And there's going to be no more fighting? Because I don't want to start a new semester with bags under my eyes."

"No fighting," Buffy promised rashly. "Goodnight Dawn."

"Night Buffy." The teen put her empty cocoa mug in the sink and paused by Spike, who was still leaning against the kitchen counter. He straightened nervously and flinched when she flung her arms out, but if Dawn noticed she went right ahead and hugged him anyway. "Goodnight Spike. I'm glad you're not evil."

It was a sweet little scene, from Dawn's hasty exit to the stunned expression she left on Spike's face, and Buffy couldn't help but smile. Leave it to her little sister to always do the most unpredictable thing. "Are you okay?" she asked softly, when she thought Spike had been gaping long enough. Hadn't said a word, in fact, since he told Dawn they'd be better off if he was dust. At the sound of her voice Spike snapped his mouth shut and turned back to her.

"I think so," he answered slowly. "Was kinda nice, actually. Haven't been hugged in... Well. Not ever."

Buffy laughed. "I was going for a broader overview, but... One moment at a time, that's fine."

Spike almost returned her grin. "I'm okay. Confused. Do you mean to say it wasn't you that said... That told me to go? You left that key by accident?"

"Yes and yes. Only we're going to pretend that last part never happened, because I could never be that monumentally stupid."

"So you'll be wanting to chain me up again," said Spike. "I'll-"

"No," Buffy cut in. "And I didn't want to. It was just a precaution. Well, a waste of time, seeing as I left the key behind, but you know what I mean. Besides, I think we should have a conversation. If you're not too tired."

Inviting Spike to sit down and have a chat. Top of the list of things Buffy never expected to do, especially with the subject matter she had in mind. But it had to be done. Buffy hadn't lied when she said she had no idea what the First Evil wanted, but she could see what it had achieved - Spike skewered by a bunch of minions and very nearly staked by Buffy's own hand. So safe to say, whatever its nefarious plans, Spike figured somewhere in the mix. Which made the obvious first step, research-wise, was to find out what it had said to Spike. And judging by the things he'd been saying, she needed to know for other reasons too. That didn't make it a subject she was eager to broach.

"And I think you should have some more blood. That cut will heal faster."

He didn't actively protest, so Buffy took a bag out of the fridge and heated it up. He didn't say anything at all, in fact, except a muttered thanks when she put the mug on the counter beside him. Buffy sat herself at the island and wondered where to start, but her brain wouldn't wander far from the sight of Spike in front of her and his myriad of wounds. In the end, she decided this conversation would never get started while she could see so much of Spike and went to get him a new T-shirt from the bag in the basement.

"You were distracting me," she explained as he looked at the shirt she'd thrown him. "That cut," she added hastily, "not your... chest." Spike blinked, gave her a slightly doubtful look, but he put the T-shirt on. Buffy decided it was really time to get to business.

"So do you want to start? I know you can talk more than you've been letting on."

"I'm sorry," said the vampire instantly. "Shoutin' at you and... 'M sorry."

"Don't even. It's been messing with your head, like it's trying to make us fight. That's why I need to know what it's said to you. If it's spoken to you before."

The vampire smiled humourlessly. "Has someone who looks like you spoken to me before? Plenty. I tended to assume it was you."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "This could turn out to be quite the headache. When I chained you up, earlier, we were both real then, right? Well you said, um... about that thing in the bathroom... that I told you, but I didn't. So we should start there."

Jump in at the deep end, get the worst over with. Spike flinched and looked away, but it was too late to take it back.

"Not something I want to talk about either, buddy. When did I... It. When did it tell you that?"

"First morning. When I took a shower."

Spike wrapped his arms tightly round his half bare torso as Buffy waited for him to go on. "And?" she prompted. "What did it say?"

"Just that. Just told me what I did. And I'm so sorry Slayer... Buffy-"

"Don't!" The word came out so loud and sharp it startled even Buffy. She held up her hands in a gesture half apology, half defence. "You don't know that. You don't know you're sorry, you don't even know who you are. You're fake. It's got nothing to do with you." So much for detached demon research. She wanted to explain but didn't know herself why his apology grated on her nerves. Buffy took a deep breath and fought to sound calm and detached, though she couldn't feel it.

"I don't want to talk about that, okay? It's not important... I mean... relevant. It's not relevant. I just want to know what it said, then we can work out what it's up to and then we can go stomp on all its evil toys. It's talked to you most. It must have said something."

Spike gave her a long, measuring look and for a moment Buffy thought he was going to argue, couldn't decide if that was good or bad. Then he nodded, conceding. His effort at detached and businesslike was better than Buffy's.

"I don't know if I can remember its exact words. Should have known something was off, really, you - it - just appeared. I was... um... taking a shower and you - it... What are we calling this thing?"

"The First Evil. Or maybe it was Primordial Evil. 'It' will do."

"Well, it... It made some crack about my dick. Then it said something about not feeding me, that you shouldn't have fed me, I looked better skinny. And that it was going to chain me up. That you should chain me up. It was just being... Well, mean, really."

"Meaner than me?" It was halfway to an apology for snapping, but Spike didn't take it.

"Yes," he said blandly. "Then it told me how I raped you. How I deserve what happened to me. And then-"

"Whoa. Rewind. That never happened."

"It didn't?"

"No. Not... Is that what it actually said?"

"Yes. No. I... I think it said violated. I violated you. That you were injured, I held you down and... Is it not true?"

"No!" Spike looked so hopeful that Buffy was tempted to stop there, but the words kept coming. "Not really," she amended. "I mean strictly speaking, I suppose it is. The holding down part. That is... You tried. I kicked you into the wall."

"Well good for you." But the vampire slumped a little, the hopeful look vanishing. His eyes were darting around the kitchen again, anywhere but on her, finally focusing on the pack of cigarettes still sitting on the counter. "Do you mind if I..."

Buffy followed his gaze, finishing the question for herself. "Outside," she answered. "We can talk outside."

Spike swept up the pack and headed for the back door without looking at Buffy. She paused before following, glad of the break. This could almost be hell, and the only thing stopping her from throwing in the towel was the thought of how much worse it must be for Spike, able only to guess at what Buffy was consciously avoiding. He was leaned against the porch railing, sucking so hard on a newly lit cigarette his cheeks hollowed.

"Do you think its whole evil plan is to just 'make me talk about stuff I don't want to talk about'?" Buffy asked flippantly as she settled against the wall opposite Spike. "Because, if so? Evil's really gone downhill since your day."

"I'd say there's probably a bigger agenda," Spike responded morosely. He tilted his head back and blew a stream of smoke up into the air. "Couldn't say what though."

"No. Me either. I like to think you would have stopped."

Spike flicked an eyebrow in her direction at this non-sequitur. His eyes bored into Buffy as if he was translating all she wasn't saying directly from her brainwaves; then the corner of his mouth twitched into a sardonic smile. "Then you're deluded, love. Raped and murdered my way across four continents and I didn't ever stop. You should know better."

"Maybe I do know better." Perverse though it was to be defending old Spike to the new, he'd hit another of Buffy's buttons with his patronising tone. "I was there, you know. All you know about it is what that thing told you, and I don't think It had the purest of motives. So I know better than you. And it wasn't like you're thinking. It wasn't... Well I guess only Spike knows what was actually going on in his head but I think... if you could've got it into your stupid head that I really didn't want you then you'd have stopped."

He chuckled. A bitter sound. "I am Spike. Been in my head more'n a century. Might have forgotten a thing or two but I remember what I am."

"You don't. You changed."

"Vampires don't change."

"No," Buffy scoffed. "Of course not. You're just exactly the same as the day you first rolled into Sunnydale. That's... that's just.... Bollocks!"

"Bollocks?" Spike took a last drag of his cigarette then tossed it across the back lawn. "Did you just say bollocks?"

"That's what I said. Jeez, look at you, Spike. Are you seriously trying to tell me you're the same vampire you were five years ago? Because I remember a little less apologising and a little more trying to kill me."

"Well I'm grateful-"

"That's bollocks too! We saved you from the Initiative last time and do you know how grateful you were? Not one bit. But after you fell... since then you changed. The Spike from five years ago wouldn't care what he'd done, and I can see that you do. And that's good, I suppose, I hope you feel really bad about it when you remember what happened. But right now, it's pointless, and annoying, you shouldn't even know about it. And we have bigger things to worry about. I'm not deluded. I know you're evil, I know you can't stop being evil, I know you can't be human but you are different. It doesn't- Are you laughing at me?"

Spike shook his head. Pulled a second cigarette from his pack and struck a match. "Little bit," he answered finally. "Not at you. Mostly. Just the part where you're completely cracked." Buffy's ire must have shown on her face because Spike waved a hand hastily and shook his head. "You're right," he corrected. "I don't even want to kill you and that's pretty different. But come on, Slayer. Tell me this isn't a bizarre and hilarious world where we can be standing here having this conversation?"

"Bizarre, I'll give you." But Spike hadn't quite succeeded in wiping off that infectious grin and it drained the tension out of the air. Unconsciously, Buffy relaxed against the wall of her house. "I worry about you sometimes," she said, smiling. Spike nodded seriously.

"I'd noticed. It's the damnedest thing. So tell me, what the hell did I do to ever deserve you? Because I only remember being evil."

"I'm not yours," Buffy answered snippily. But it felt like a cease fire and, bizarre though it may have been, the Slayer felt more normal than she had all summer. Maybe there was something to be said for talking. Spike looked like Spike again, finally, and only now that he'd relaxed could Buffy feel how much his nervous tension had been affecting her. "And is there any chance we could stay on topic? Just for five minutes?"

"Was you wandering off on that tangent, kitten."

"Kitten!" Buffy glared and Spike neither flinched nor apologised. Definitely moving towards normal. Except for the part where, inexplicably, Buffy didn't want to punch him for the stupid pet names.

"Fine. Buffy. Where were we?"

"First Evil. What It wants. Odds on any impending apocali."

"Right. Well it didn't tell me to go blow stuff up, nothing like that. Didn't seem to want anything at all, 'cept make me feel a bit shittier."

"And this isn't a grudge thing? You haven't been going around calling the First Evil a nonce or a nance or one of those weird British names?"

"Not that I recall," said Spike dryly. "Though what I recall has a three year hole in it."

"So It didn't say what It wanted. What did It achieve?"

"Just made me more wary of you, really. Was starting to think you were a bit bananas."

"Maybe that was what It wanted. What It said to Dawn sure made me more wary of you. Do you think there have been any other times?"

"Just tonight, I think. And that was just more of the same. With a side order of 'I'll dust you if you're still here come morning.' It wanted me out of here."

"And outside its minions are waiting. So did It want you dead or alive?"

Spike shook his head. "They jumped me, I fought, they stabbed. Couldn't say if they were going for a kill or a capture. Didn't see a stake, though."

"Me neither." Buffy huffed softly and tapped the back of her head against the brickwork in frustration. "Stupid First Evil. Why can't It just raise an army and end the world like a regular villain? My brain isn't used to all this thinking."

"Sorry."

"Did you summon It? No? Shut up then."

He grinned slightly. "Reckon I've given you a heap of headaches one way or another, Slayer. I can be sorry if I want."

"Last week my sister was missing. For two days. I'd take a poxy little headache every time." Buffy shuddered despite herself. The last three days had been too busy for dwelling but the growing panic as she'd searched for Dawn and found nothing but blind alleys wasn't a feeling Buffy would be forgetting any time soon. "It just doesn't make any sense. Why's It coming after you? There are vampires everywhere. There were scores of vampires at that place. What makes you so special?"

"I'm here," offered Spike. "You got any other vampires living in your house?"

"No. So you think It just has a philosophical objection to vampires and Slayers working together? Its mission is to keep the species separated, like a white supremacist?"

"That must keep it busy. Once a millennium."

"I guess not. Well I hope Willow didn't fry any brain cells with all that black magic. She's really going to need her thinking cap when she gets here. Maybe I should warn Angel too. It went after him the last time it was here."

"Angel? You mean... Angel's not dust?"

"Not three days ago. Not unless it was The First answering his telephone, and it can't touch stuff. Do you remember him being dust?"

"Yes. No. That is, I don't remember him dusting, I don't remember how... But I was sure he was gone. So... Dru?"

The question was studiedly casual, but Buffy suspected Spike knew he wasn't fooling anyone. "I haven't exactly kept tabs on your ex, Spike. But she was in Sunnydale a couple of years ago. Maybe a year and a half. And she left intact as far as I know."

He exhaled softly. "I remember her dusting. She was there when I got took. I don't know why, it didn't... She was just there, and then she was dust."

Condolence was almost automatic but Buffy quashed it. Had bigger things to worry about than his evil ex. "So it wasn't The First that told you that?"

Spike shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that's only spoken to me the two times. I think I'd've noticed, with hindsight It wasn't very subtle. Not so much like you at all."

"Enough like me to fool you twice. And It might come back, with added subtlety, so if I pop up and give you any strange orders, you should touch me."

Spike raised an eyebrow at this instruction and Buffy blushed, though she hated herself for doing so. Spike smiled at her embarrassment and when Buffy glared at him he started to laugh, wincing as the movement tugged at his new wound.

"You know what I mean," she snapped. "And if your stomach falls out I'm not patching you back together."

"Sorry Slayer," he answered, uncontrite.

"Well then. I should go and call Angel. And Giles. He researched this thing last time around, maybe he'll have more to go on. And... Is there any way of telling you to go to bed that you're not going to turn into an innuendo?"

"Probably not."

Buffy shrugged. "Then I guess we're officially back to normal. Go to bed. Long day tomorrow."


TBC...

Chapter Eighteen

Everyone's juggling and everyone's acting
With smiles of greasepaint three feet wide
Everyone's caught on a carousel pony
One time around is a lifetime ride
~ Circus Song, Don McLean

When Spike awoke the sun was high in the sky and the house was empty. He could tell at once - that strange background humming of white goods, but otherwise silence. Which meant, Spike presumed, that the littlest Summers was at school and the eldest already departed for the airport and he'd slept through the morning routine of two noisy young women. He stretched slowly and concluded that a long heavy sleep had done him the world of good. And by Spike's calculations he had a few more hours alone. The Slayer had been quite emphatic when she declared she'd be taking the bus to meet her friend at LA International.

Spike was not eagerly anticipating the arrival of the witch. Seemed she'd moved on a great deal from the tasty, nervous teenager he remembered and he'd had more than enough of people poking around in his head. Also, a day with no serious upheaval would be a very nice thing and Spike didn't need any vampire sixth sense to tell him that today would not be that day.

Last night's revelations were enough for him to be mulling over for a week or two, but Spike wasn't in the mood for mulling. He nuked some blood, put the telly on and surfed the daytime soaps until his brain shut down and time lost all meaning. By the time the back door rattled open, Spike'd more or less resigned himself to be the show-and-tell for another day, even if he didn't feel the need to get up and greet his fate with enthusiasm. But the voice that drifted in after the sound of the door closing was male and only vaguely familiar.

"Buffy?"

Not being Buffy, Spike held his peace. He heard a thud, then the kitchen door, and then the voice again, louder now. "Willow? Dawn?"

The Slayer's other sidekick, he realised. His brain wouldn't provide a name right then, couldn't recall if he'd ever known it, but it gave Spike a face. The face of another American teenager not old or wise enough to be tangling with the forces of darkness, last seen unconscious. For a split second Spike's instinct considered the options for concealment in the living room, but then his brain caught up and he pulled himself together. If the boy was still close enough to the Slayer to wander into her house then he'd presumably seen Spike much more recently than Spike had seen him and would know he was defanged.

The name - Xander - came back to Spike on seeing the floppy brown hair. The boy froze in surprise when he spotted Spike. He stared, blinked, and stared some more.

"Slayer's gone to the airport," Spike supplied helpfully. "Be back soon, her and the witch."

"You... What... You!"

"She knows I'm here. S'alright."

Spike watched the young man with a good deal of curiosity as the blood drained from his face. It had been a long time since Spike had managed to cause fear in anyone or anything and he was tempted to bask awhile but training and a very practical desire not to piss off the Slayer won out. "Still got the chip," he added, remembering how Buffy had been reassured by that piece of information. "Completely harmless." He only realised his mistake when purple took over from white as the dominant colour on the boy's face - what he'd taken for shock was in fact fury.

"You!" It was an impressive amount of venom to fit into the one syllable. Spike took a swift step back as the boy came further into the room.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Slayer said to-"

"Shut up!"

The furious command for silence brought out a Pavlovian response in Spike, snapping his mouth shut, but a second later he opened it again. Well fed and welcomed, the conditioning was getting weaker by the hour.

"You asked me a bleeding question, mate. How would you like me to answer, interpretive bleeding dance?"

Another step back, but the boy wasn't coming for him. Too late, Spike realised his destination was Buffy's weapons chest.

"I can't believe you'd be stupid enough to come back here."

"Look... Harris, right? It's not-"

"Shut up!"

Maybe 'fury' wasn't quite the right word, either. 'Murderous rage' might be closer to the mark. Murderous rage now holding an axe and coming straight for him. Spike dodged, and a rickety lamp took the fall in his place.

"Shit! You've got-"

Another swing, another dodge, and this time the back of the sofa took the brunt of the blow. Spike looked from the blade to the formerly-expensive-looking upholstery in horror.

"Slayer's gonna have a fit-"

Turned out, furious people weren't all that concerned with the furniture. Spike should have remembered that; he'd started enough killing sprees of his own. This time when the axe came towards him, Spike grabbed the handle, to save himself and the one lamp still standing. There was a brief and one-sided tussle before Harris let go suddenly, leaving Spike unbalanced and unprotected against the fist that ploughed into his nose. The chip fired and Spike reeled back as Harris cursed and cradled his knuckles. Spike rubbed his head and struggled to right himself.

"I hurt your fist with my nose?" he complained. "How the fuck is that fair?"

But the boy wasn't interested in the vagaries of Spike's chip either and, deprived of his weapon, he switched tactics. He grabbed one fistful of hair and one of T-shirt and pulled. Spike let himself be dragged past fragile knick-knacks but dug his heels in when he realised they were heading for the front door.

For the first time it occurred to Spike to be afraid. Strange maybe, after three years living in fear, but the Slayer'd told him he was safe and the girl had a way about her that was hard to disbelieve. And being hacked to death by a child having a tantrum was not high-up on the list of things that kept vampires awake at night. But if the chip kept firing every time Harris bruised himself on his face Spike would soon be too unconscious to defend himself. And it was plain to see there was no reasoning with the boy. Spike tried anyway.

"If you would just let me explain-"

A vicious punch to the stomach cut Spike off, driving the air out of his lungs and making speech impossible. At least the boy was aiming for softer targets and the chip stayed silent. A few more punches before Harris found another weapon - it didn't surprise Spike to realise the Slayer kept a cudgel behind her front door - and the blows went from inconvenient to painful. Spike gave up his hold on the door frame, twisting free and leaving behind a fistful of hair, but there was nowhere to go next. The stairs were cut off by the sunlight streaming through a landing window, kitchen likewise impassable, Harris shoving him away from the living room. Each punch and push moving Spike inexorably closer to the front door and a dusty introduction to the California sun.

********

A half hour after Buffy had loaded a distraught Willow onto the bus home, the girl was still shaking. It had taken a half hour more to get her to the bus stop, make any sense of the near-hysterical rambling. All Buffy's explanations and reassurances on the long bus ride from LAX to Sunnydale and the young witch was still nowhere near calm as they disembarked at Sunnydale's urine-scented bus depot and started the final leg of their journey on foot.

"But it was her, Buffy. The way she spoke, the words she used, the way she ducked her head and let her hair fall. Everything."

"Apart from the way she told you to kill yourself," said Buffy firmly. "That wasn't Tara."

"No," Willow conceded miserable. "Unless-"

"No unlesses. You know Tara wouldn't come back from the dead to tell you to kill yourself. It's just the same pathetic overrated ghost that's been messing with Spike. Of course it would look like Tara. That's how it gets you to listen."

"But she knew me, Buffy. She knew everything about us. Tara and I."

"She - It - knows all of us. It made Dawn think it was Spike, right down to all his stupid nicknames. This is good, really. Now we know it doesn't want you using magic, so that's like a clue. Magic must be the key to defeating it. You make it take its true form and I'll beat it to a bloody pulp. Easy."

Willow managed a watery smile at her friend's scraped-together peppy confidence, but the fear never left her eyes. Buffy struggled to hide her own disappointment. The weirder life got the more Willow's return had seemed like a lifeline, but it was obvious now her friend was only just keeping her own head above water. Whatever healing might have taken place in England had had the scabs ripped open by The First's untimely appearance.

Buffy's feelings about this latest big bad were veering into distinctly personal territory. It had messed with her boyfriend, not something that Buffy forgave easily. Three years on, the thing that stood out in Buffy's mind was the miracle that had saved him but she hadn't forgotten how easily and expertly The First had played Angel. And it had threatened her sister - capitol offence number two. Nearly tricked her into staking Spike, upset her fragile best friend, made her have a whole heap of conversations she'd much rather have avoided and given her one hell of a headache. Buffy wasn't quite sure how The First tied in to the sister-kidnapping-demon-slave-ring thing but until she knew otherwise It would be taking the blame for that too. But by far its worse crime was having no corporeal head that Buffy could rip from its body and squish like an overripe tomato.

"Knowing it wasn't really her doesn't make it better." Willow cut into her friend’s vengeful thoughts softly. "And just because it wasn't Tara doesn't mean it wasn't right."

The Slayer shuddered at the implication. "It was wrong."

"I don't mean... The killing myself thing. But I am dangerous, Buffy. I nearly killed you. I nearly killed everyone. And she - it - was right. I could do it again."

Buffy pursed her lips, knowing Willow was right, but unable to articulate why she was also wrong. They'd turned this subject every which way on the bus ride home and she had no more reassurances to offer, except the one that secretly made the Slayer feel safe. As Willow was unlikely to find another Tara, she was unlikely to lose another Tara. Reassuring, to the people who'd witnessed Willow's grief, but not exactly a consoling thought to share with Willow. Their interminable journey was nearly at an end, anyway, as they turned in to Buffy's front garden.

"It's not just the magic, anyway," Buffy said. "It's trying to split us up. Make it so we don't trust each other - don't trust ourselves. We just need to stick together. That's what Giles said too, right? Do the magic with other people, that it's safer. Work as a team. Not let The First distract us with petty squabbles."

Buffy put Willow's case down on the front step and opened the front door. Xander and Spike stared back, in a passable imitation of an action photograph. Buffy, more than used to the cosmic joke that was her life, didn't really appreciate the humour. She gritted her teeth, tried and failed to maintain her upbeat smile and motivational-speech mode. "We've got to make sure we don't get distracted fighting each other. Wouldn't you agree, Xander?"

She didn't give him time to disagree, snagging the sleeve of his T-shirt and yanking Xander upright, surprising him out of his death-grip on Spike. They both looked vaguely guilty for a split second, before Spike straightened his features into neutrality and Xander remembered his anger. Hardly missing a beat he turned his anger onto Buffy.

"I can't believe you let him back in you house. What he did... I can't believe you haven't staked him. What-"

"'Hi Buffy, how are you?' 'Oh, mostly fine. Being haunted by primordial evil, you know how it is. Yourself?' 'Well, I've taken up that kill-first, ask questions later thing that works so well for the bad guys. Hey Willow, fancy seeing you here.'"

This last at least got Xander's attention, before Buffy strained her sarcasm muscle, as he finally noticed Willow, still standing in the doorway. He dropped the anger long enough to greet Willow with traditional welcome-home-from-foreign-climes enthusiasm. Buffy couldn't help but feel that some of that effusiveness was aimed pointedly in her direction. It was a very short break before Xander resumed the let's-stake-Spike-now lecture. Every other sentence, Buffy noticed with a wince, was one she had used herself.

Spike was standing half to attention against the wall, just out of reach of the sunlight, wary but not cowed, eyes on Buffy as Xander ranted. Intentionally or not, Buffy suspected his lack of reaction was driving Xander to ever-greater heights of tantrum. Willow still hovered uncertainly on the threshold, looking very much like Buffy felt. Her eyes flickered tentatively to Buffy for her cue and Buffy shrugged. Xander had covered the dangers posed to humanity in general and was moving into distinctly personal territory before Buffy decided that enough was enough, shouldering past Xander to put Willow's bags in the living room. If she put a little Slayer strength into the shouldering then she justified it with all the bitchy replies she could have made but didn't.

"...and after Angel you'd think-"

"I get it," Buffy interrupted, as calmly as she was able. "You have issues with Spike. We all have issues with Spike. Willow fixes him, he leaves, voila, no more issues."

"How can you possibly 'fix' evil? Gonna soul him up? Get yourself an Angel replacement complete with apocalypse?"

"Not the evil thing. Spike has amnesia-"

Xander snorted with disbelief, and Buffy conceded he had a point. Her life seemed to be one long list of unbelievable.

"You have no idea what's going on, Xander. Couldn't you at least let me catch my breath before judging? Maybe, I don't know, listen?"

"I'm listening. And do you know what I'm hearing? I'm hearing that helping this... this rapist is more important than your friends. You've got him in your house, with Willow, with Dawn-"

Anger flared over Buffy's weariness. "Don't you dare! You're the one making Spike more important than our friendship. I haven't seen you in two months and I don't even rate a hello, because Spike is so much more important. To you. It's been a really long few days, Xander, and I don't really need this. Stay and listen, or go away."

"Now you're picking a vampire over me?"

"I'm picking peace and quiet over this! Dammit, Xander, I can't throw him out in the sun. He saved Dawn's life."

"Well maybe you should stop letting her get nearly killed!"

Both still lingering in the doorway, Willow and Spike winced in sympathy. Buffy glared and Willow opened her mouth to intervene but Xander got there first.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I just-"

"Hate Spike so much it turns you into a blithering idiot?"

"I worry about you," Xander corrected. "There's something wrong that you could... Yeah, I hate him. Can you really blame me?"

Not really. Not if she was being fair; if she remembered Jesse and six years since of learning to hate. Having that fear and loathing reinforced at every turn. That didn't stop her privately wishing Xander had been delayed in LA just a day or two longer.

"I don't understand why you don't. How can you have him here after... I don't understand."

"Maybe we could make coffee and I could explain?" Buffy offered silent gratitude as Willow left her ringside seat to link her arm through Xander's, tugging him gently towards the kitchen. "I can do that, mostly. The explaining thing."

Xander hesitated. Deflating, ranted out, but looking very much like he didn't want to leave Buffy and Spike alone together. "Would you rather I made the coffee?" Buffy prompted.

Xander managed a watery smile. "You threatening me now?" he joked lamely and Buffy managed to smile back, mostly with relief as Xander allowed himself to be led away.

"Don't think he likes me much," Spike deadpanned.

"No."

"That another of those things you don't want to talk about?"

"No. That's a whole six years I don't want to talk about. You slept with his ex-fiancée, and then there's that, well..."

"The Thing?" Spike suggested.

"Yeah. And there's Angel issues. And the whole vampire thing, which is fair, really. It's not like you haven't tried to kill us all once or twice. And then, well, you're not exactly, um..."

"I'm an aggravating bastard and I get on his wick?"

"Also a factor," Buffy agreed. "You have a remarkable talent for annoying people even when you're trying not to be evil. And he doesn't have a long fuse where you're concerned."

"It was the axe that gave it away. Speaking of which, there may have been an accident or two with your furniture. Sorry."

Ten minutes later Buffy and Spike were still collecting the last of the broken glass when Willow came back in. She nodded toward the door and reluctantly Buffy followed her silent directions. Xander was in the kitchen, building a sandwich from the unlikely ingredients he'd scavenged from Buffy's fridge.

"Hey Buffy."

"Hey."

"Willow said I had to start over so... It's nice to see you, you're looking good. Still a little on the skinny side. You want a sandwich?"

Buffy allowed herself to relax slightly. Xander's grin was a pale imitation of his old, irrepressible smile, but it was there and Buffy struggled to respond in kind. "Don't you think I face enough dangers already?" she quipped.

Xander shrugged. Added a second slice of bread and licked the mayonnaise off his fingers. "Some things are worth the risk. So, I'm a little late. Do I get my hug anyway?"

Silently thanking Willow, worker of miracles, Buffy threw herself into a Xander-sized hug with some enthusiasm. "I just worry about you, Buff."

"And you hate Spike."

"And I hate Spike," Xander agreed, releasing her. "But quietly, because Willow threatened tears if there were any rows. So I'm going to pretend he's not here, until he isn't any more. Just, please tell me this is about solving the mystery and getting the bad guy? I think I can cope with that."

"At least seventy percent," Buffy reassured. "Xander, he's-"

"No! Don't tell me. Don't say he's changed or he's sorry or- We're doing the elephant-in-the-room dance here. Heavy on the denial. Lying, if necessary. Can we do that?"

It wasn't exactly perfect, but a world better than Buffy could have hoped for after their first acrimonious exchange in the hallway. Maybe, Buffy realised, she wasn't the only person who'd matured since the year from hell. "We can totally do that. Denial is virtually my middle name. I missed you, Xand."

"Missed you too, Buffster. I really did."

"It's been so dull this summer. No Scoobies, no evil."

"LA's dull too. In a well-paid way. But..."

"You needed to get away?"

"I really did. It all got kind of crazy for a while there. But I've recharged the old evil-fighting batteries, and- What the hell was that noise?"

Buffy groaned. "My guess? Dawn's home. And she's spotted Willow."

"Ah. Little bit of residual anger there?"

"Just a tad. She hasn't got the whole yellow crayon history to fall back on." Reluctantly Buffy took a step towards the kitchen door, but Xander stopped her.

"It's my turn," he said. "And I've got novelty on my side. Not even one of Dawn's sulks can withstand the charm of LA anecdotes."

"Fashion based anecdotes?"

"Fashion, and even the occasional minor celebrity. I took notes especially." Xander picked up his sandwich, bussed her on the cheek on his way past. "You stay and hide. Longevity's all very well but we don't want you to be the first Slayer in history to go grey."

"Thanks Xander."

Apart from the excited squeal that greeted Xander, all was quiet long enough for Buffy to walk back into her living room without bracing herself for more drama. Xander had been right, Dawn was eagerly interrogating him on his time away with no energy left over for ignoring Willow or worse. The ten minutes that followed were the closest Buffy had come to normal for a week. Small talk reigned until Buffy's front door opened yet again and Anya appeared, with manacles. She cast a brief, disdainful glare over Willow and Xander, but addressed Buffy, holding the manacles aloft.

"I found these in my glove compartment. I thought you might want them back. They're very high quality and could be very useful for-"

"Keep them," Buffy interrupted hastily. "Really. Call it a thank you gift for lending me your car."

Anya shrugged. "Okay. But I think you might need this."

She held out the pamphlet Buffy had been given with her newly purchased vampire. The handy diagram on the front made Buffy shudder.

"Thanks Anya. But I don't think I can read that."

"Well I think you should. There're a few chapters that are very enlightening."

To Be Continued...

Chapter Nineteen

And for the first time I'm discovering The things I used to treasure About you. ~ Winter Wood, Don McLean

When Buffy returned from patrol Willow was sitting on the back porch, reading. Her studiously bent head gave the house an illusion of calm and Buffy allowed herself to relax a little more. None of the windows were smashed and Willow was neither bleeding nor veiny, a better result than she could have hoped for when she left - fled - earlier. Still, she couldn't help asking: "Does this quiet mean everyone else is dead? Because I wouldn't blame you, really."

Willow looked up and gave her a weak smile. "It's okay. We all survived for an hour without you playing referee. Xander went home but he'll be back in the morning, to pick Dawn up. He's starting at the building crew at the school. Apparently they have a high staff turnover."

Buffy snorted. "Right over the Hellmouth. Who'd've guessed?"

"There's no ticky box for 'mystical convergence' on the health and safety assessment plan."

Buffy sat down next to Willow and wriggled out of her patrol shoes. "So you're out here escaping the wrath of Dawn?" she guessed. "Has she been bad?"

Willow shook her head, red locks falling down to conceal her face. "Not by, y'know, teenage standards. Mostly just ignoring me, which is best, I suppose. I don't really know what to say to her now we've done the whole 'sorry about saying I'd turn you back into a big ball of energy' thing."

"That's a bit of a conversation killer," Buffy agreed. "Hard to follow."

"I really scared her," Willow said, so low it was almost a whisper.

"Yeah. And hurt her feelings."

"And that's worse, right?"

Reluctantly, Buffy nodded. "I think she's dealing with the ending the world thing better. Who hasn't wanted to do that? And she loved Tara too. She's just..."

"I said a lot of stuff." Willow admitted, when Buffy failed to sum up Dawn. "I knew just what to say to hurt her, to hurt all of you. And some of it's so close to being true I don't know how to... unsay it."

"I have many platitudes about time being the great healer," Buffy tried to joke. "Some of them are even true."

Willow smiled again, but it wasn't genuine enough to completely drive out the thousand-yard stare she'd arrived with. "Giles beat you to it. I've already heard every platitude under the sun, and some he made up. And I can't complain, can I?" Willow shook herself. "That's not why I'm out here, anyway. She's watching TV with Spike, they seemed okay without me. She is okay with Spike, right?"

"Hopefully. I've gambled on that one already." It was a decision that itched at Buffy, though no more than any decision that allowed Dawn out of her sight after dark. Statistically, she told herself firmly, he was no more likely to suddenly turn homicidal than any of her human friends.

"I wanted to read this," Willow explained. She waved the handbook and Buffy flinched back from her brief glimpse of the cover illustration. "I thought I'd better go somewhere Spike wasn't. His face, when Anya walked in with it earlier... Well, it would have been funny if it wasn't so..."

"Stomach churning?" Buffy supplied.

"Yeah. I think even Xander felt a little sorry for him. A little less furious, at least."

"It's a bit of a shock, isn't it? I was pretty angry myself, when I... Stupid vampire, making me go and rescue him, after everything. It took me a while to realise."

"You're allowed to be angry, Buffy."

"Angry is nice. Angry is easy. Now I feel responsible, and I don't even know why. It's not like what's happened to him has anything to do with me. But he's so broken."

"We got used to him," said Willow. "We might have treated him like a vampire but really, we got used to him being part of the gang. A really annoying part. Like Anya."

"Hey," Buffy objected, half-heartedly. "This summer, Anya's been all of the gang."

"Sorry." Willow wrapped her arms around her knees and Buffy realised Spike wasn't the only one she felt responsible for beyond all reason. What she'd meant as a joke had obviously come out as a dig.

"She's still annoying," Buffy conceded, bumping Willow's shoulder with her own. "So's Spike. But they're..."

"Ours?" Willow finished.

"I don't want them to be," Buffy said. "Anya's doing god knows what, probably wreaking vengeance left and right, and I just try not to think about it too much. And I want Spike gone, I really do, but I can't just throw him out when he's got no-one else."

"There's nothing wrong with compassion, Buffy. Nothing wrong with having feelings."

"Sometimes there really is. I can't, not feelings for Spike. Hell, even the feelings for Anya are dangerous, and what I feel for her is usually just irritation. Do you remember how we met her? She nearly ended the world as we know it. One wrong wish granted and she could do it again, and I just have to hope she won't, because... She's not a vengence demon in my head, she's Anya that runs the magic box and has a money dance and is really quite good at managing Dawn and kind, sometimes, even if you'd half like to throttle her. Which won't sound like a hell of a good excuse when I have to explain why there's dead people everywhere. And Spike. I feel sorry for him. I owe him. I'm... Kinda fond of him. But under it all he's still the guy who kills people because they annoy him, or get in his way. Or for fun."

Willow shrugged. "These things aren't exactly logical, Buffy."

"They are if I say they are. New rule: All emotions shall be subjected to a strict logical process. Any that don't conform, they're out."

"That'll work," Willow agreed dryly. "Denial, where would we be without it?"

"We need to work on that 'out of sight, out of mind' thing," Buffy agreed. She nodded toward the pamphlet Willow was still holding. "So, is there an out-of-sight in sight? Anything in there that I need to read?"

Willow may have picked up on the dread in her voice because she shook her head. "I mean yes, there's stuff in here that you need to know, but I can give you the edited highlights. It's pretty... There's stuff in here that no-one needs to read, ever. I couldn't... I skipped quite a lot of it, I don't think I've missed anything important. I'm nearly done."

"So, highlights? How about a quick and easy solution?"

"To the Spike problem, or the demon slave ring problem?" Willow asked.

"How about we start small? Fix world poverty first? Solve the Middle East crisis, answer the millennium problems. Build up to Spike slowly."

"It might not be all that complicated. There is good news. It's magic based. In theory - after adequate research and consulting with Giles, obviously - I think we can... well, I'm pretty sure I can get Spike back to how he was. I mean, they haven't removed part of his brain, or anything, there's nothing been done that's irreversible."

"You can explain later how that's a good thing."

"No amnesia means no responsibility," Willow answered. "Logic, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"The spell I was telling you about on the phone, that should tell me for sure. If you, I mean if Spike... Giles has checked it over, and it's not invasive, not really, not like mind-reading or something."

"And you'd be okay, doing that?"

"Yeah. I can phone the coven, if you like, for... insurance. But it's tiny magic, not changing anything, just looking. It's not dark, veiny stuff."

"That's not what I meant. It's just, this morning..." You were flipping out on me, Buffy didn't quite say. Willow shrugged.

"Maybe you were right. And if we're going to need magic to fight The First, this is about as safe a place to start practising as any."

"And then you could undo it?"

"Maybe. Probably. If the first spell shows what I think it's going to show. As best I can tell, they're all linked. They've probably cast a different spell for each vampire that's been brainwashed, but all the same spell, if you see what I mean. And they probably all use the same focus. A stone, probably. Whoever did this has to be pretty powerful, Buffy. To take over a person like that, not just wipe their memories but change them, that's big magic. Huge, dark, veiny magic."

"But the spells are all in a stone? What if there was no more stone?"

Willow grinned slightly. "You really want to smash something up, don't you?"

"Oh yeah. Can I do that?"

"No. Well yes. Not really. First, it would have to be a powerful stone, a diamond probably. I don't think even you could smash one of those. And it's the lynch-pin of their whole opperation, it's going to be heavily guarded."

"Could you destroy it with magic?"

"Um, again, yes in theory, no in practise. To destroy something remotely, that I've never seen? Huge magic. And, by definition, destructive magic. I don't, I wouldn't..."

"Veiny Willow?"

"Maybe. Also, these people have to be pretty powerful, Buff. What was done to Spike wasn't exactly floating a pencil kind of magic; they're at my level. And if I can trace their spells..."

"They can trace yours."

"And I'm not exactly up to a sorcery duel. That would be very bad. The really not good kind of bad. Besides, we have no idea how many times they've used it. You undo it, you're also releasing an unknown number of really pissed off demons. And I'm... I'd be scared, going up against these people. Is that really the plan?"

Buffy snorted. "There is no plan. Dawn was all for it. 'We have to stop the evil demon kidnappers'. But I notice she hasn't said a word about it since we got Spike out. I don't know if we can. They're human, right? At least some of them. I can't go around decapitating people. Not even these people. On the other hand, if it's the First that's behind it all... Do you think it is?"

"No," said Willow reluctantly. "This is... These people, they're making a profit. We're talking big business. And this," she waved the pamphlet again, "This is pretty foul, but it's the professionally produced kind of foul. If Walmart was evil, that's the kind of organisation we're talking about."

"You mean Walmart aren't evil?" But the joke was flat even to Buffy's own ears and she shook herself. "So how does any of this help Spike?"

"Well, Spike's here. And willing. I mean, presumably. If he was okay with the spell, I should be able to take it off him. Again, working hypothesis only."

"And that wouldn't affect anything else?"

"I don't think so. I don't think they'd even know. I mean, if someone were to check up on Spike, specifically, they could probably tell he was no longer being controlled, but without Spike, they couldn't put it back, or probably even find out why. And there's no reason anyone should check, right?"

"Well, if they haven't noticed I've stolen him by now, they're probably not going to. And just to be sure, Spike would remember the last three years and you'd not be veiny?"

"Um. I think. It's breaking a spell, but that's different to destroying a power source, it's not the same kind of-"

"I think you'd better break it down into veiny/not veiny for me."

"Not veiny. As sure as I can be. As for Spike, I think so. But I really can't conceive of a spell that could change a person that much. I wouldn't even have thought it was possible. There's no guarentees."

"But there is a workable plan. In fact, I think I like this plan."

"You do?"

"Totally. You fix Spike, Angel can worry about the evil Walmart people - it's his territory after all - and I'll... I can fetch pizza. Pizza is essential to any plan."

"You can save your strength for the First?" Willow suggested.

"Exactly. And won't that be fun?"

"So how was patrol? Any luck?"

Buffy shook her head. "You'd think someone closed the Hellmouth and forgot to send me the memo. Not a vampire to be found. I swung by the Christmas tree lot where the First Evil stashed its minions last time but it's all abandoned. Haven't spotted any dead trees, but... Well, it would take more than a day or two to check every tree in Sunnydale. There's got to be a better way."

"Plus," Willow added, "if it had any sense it would set up shop somewhere there was nothing growing in the first place."

"If it had any sense it would stay out of my town. And it would stop trying to destroy the world, or whatever its stupid evil scheme is. That makes no sense, anyway. There's tons of evil here. This whole planet is one big Atrocities'R'Us. The human race deserves a runner-up medal at the very least, and then there's all the demons that live here. The First should be applauding our efforts to keep this big old factory farm of evil going. It should be on our side."

Willow blinked. "You've been thinking about that, haven't you?"

"Maybe just a little," Buffy admitted. "I've had lots of other things to not think about. And I live in hope of a Big Bad that could just be reasoned with."

"And pigs might fly."

"No!" Buffy yelped and covered her ears with her hands. "Don't say things like that! Have you forgotten every rule of the Hellmouth? Do you really think what we need right now is flying pigs?"

"Metaphorical pigs, Buffy."

"That's what you think when you say it. Then it'll turn out there's a whimsical-speculation-granting demon in earshot and metaphorical pigs are bound to be the most evil kind. Don't you think life's enough like a really weird soap opera already?"

"Actually, I think you could do with some light relief."

"You'd think amnesia and teenagers would count. Turns out, they're only funny when they happen to people on TV. Evil's really quite amusing by comparison. Do we know what it's evil plan is yet? Did Giles call?"

"No and no. But I think there's some league-of-evil rule about ending the world in September. Aren't you supposed to save that up for May?"

Buffy groaned. "If it's going to hang around all that time I'll be ready to end the world myself by April. It is my turn." Willow didn't respond and Buffy shrugged. "Little early to be joking about that?"

"You can. It's probably best if I don't."

Buffy leaned back, stretching shoulder muscles she could never quite get the tension out of. Willow sat quietly next to her and like Spike, there was something essential missing. Some energy, some indefinable but constant thread of Willow-ness that linked shy nerd and confident witch. "I miss that."

"The world ending?" Willow asked.

"No. Just... being able to joke about stuff. Even the really awful stuff. It was you and me and Xander against the world and Giles was always right there and dependable, and Spike was there to be mocked, and Dawn was Mom's problem."

"And your boyfriend turned evil and we had to go to school and there was a weekly tragedy-"

"Okay, okay. Maybe I have a little nostalgia going on there. But we were always solid, the three of us. It felt like a constant. We messed up over and over, but we always bounced back. And we laughed about it. Sometimes. After the fact."

"We got old?" Willow offered.

"We're twenty-two." But it was a weak counter and Buffy knew it. Didn't include the extra years grief and trauma added to a person. "I'm sorry. I'm just getting maudlin. I didn't mean that you should just forget Tara. I didn't-"

"I know what you meant." Willow slipped an arm around her friend and Buffy almost flinched. It seemed an awfully long time since hugs and casual touches had been a part of her life. But when she let herself relax into it the comforting warmth of Willow's half-hug it didn't feel strange at all. "You know, Xander said he'd be back in the morning."

"You said that already."

"We could have a Scoobie meeting. The whole gang. We could even invite Anya. Well, you could, she's not speaking to me. We could make pancakes. Maybe call Giles, put him on speaker and drive him nuts with our collective immaturity? It would be just like old times."

Buffy ran this idea through her head. It sounded surprisingly appealing, if unlikely. "And Dawn can glower and Xander can glower and Anya can glower and Spike can be confused," she felt compelled to say.

"They just need a good example. And none of them can resist the lure of making Giles sound all indignant and British. We just need to fake it long enough and maybe it'll be real again."

"I can't help feeling we're doing this wrong. I should be be comforting you."

Willow shook her head. "You can't bring Tara back. I think I proved that quite conclusively. But us? Maybe that's something we can fix."

********

"Dawn's turned in," Spike said, before Buffy had a chance to ask. "Patrol okay?"

"Dull and unhelpful," Buffy summarized, settling on the couch beside him. "Dawn okay?"

"Just fine. Or, completely schizophrenic, depending on how you look at it. Apparently we're best friends now that the witch is back. I heard quite a lot about that."

Buffy tried not to wince, and deliberately didn't ask what else Spike might have heard a lot about. "Willow's been researching," she said instead. "She thinks she might know what's wrong with you. She thinks it's fixable."

"There's a cure for being a vampire now?"

"No. But it seems there's a cure for you not being as evil as you're supposed to be. We're totally not thinking too hard about that, in case my brain encounters a fatal error."

"No thinking. Check."

"I'm totally offloading the problem onto Willow," Buffy said easily. "Moral dilemmas and all. I mean, she's good," she reassured, "when she's not trying to end the world. And if she does the end the world thing, that totally solves the problem, right?"

Spike smiled. "Such an optimist. Always looking on the bright side."

"That's why you love me."

There was a moment of silence as, far too late, Buffy tried to swallow those words back down. When she dared catch Spike's eye he looked amused, and Buffy got the distinct impression he was trying not to laugh at her."

"S'okay, Slayer. Think I'd worked that out for myself. Only thing that made sense. And how could I not? You're-"

"Leaving now!" Buffy announced, with a near squeak of alarm as she jumped back up. Determined to at least get out of sight before succumbing to the need to bang her head against a hard surface.

"Buffy. I won't-"

"Sleep. Sleep is very important. We should do that now." And with only a token effort at pretending she was doing anything else, Buffy fled.

Chapter Twenty

Can you remember what I was? Can you feel it? Can you feel my pain? Can you heal it? ~ Crossroads, Don McLean

You may notice this chapter is missing. That's because I didn't write it. Have notes and summary instead.

Spike POV. Next morning.

Spike wondering if maybe he has a soul now, if that's why he feels so different. He tries to talk to Buffy about it, but she thinks he's trying to talk about the whole 'Spike loves Buffy' thing and shuts him down. He's left with the incorrect impression that Buffy knows he has a soul now. That that was one of the things she didn't want to talk about, that that was how they became kind of friends/involved. That's an important point. Reiterate. Spike thinks he probably has a soul now, once it occurs to him it seems obvious. He feels so different. He assumes Buffy must know. After all, she's helping him, right? He's uneasy, wishes she would talk to him.

********

Scooby breakfast. Buffy POV There are tensions, duh, but less shouting than Buffy had predicted. She realises how much she's missed having a houseful of people, noise and bustle and bickering all around her. Realises how much she's moved on from last year when she couldn't stand to have these same people around her.

Willow explains the spell that has brainwashed Spike. And presumably all the other kidnapped demons. Explains how it co-opts a victim's own experiences and fears and weaknesses to make them think they've been in the same hopeless, helpless situation for years and so kills the will to fight back. Makes them think they've tried that already and failed, and been punished for it. In Spike's case the chip was his weakness so that's what he remembers, with a few tweaks to suit the agenda of the demon slave traders. Willow theorises that remembering his, albeit rocky, relationship with the Scoobies might have caused him to hold out hope for a rescue and that's why he's forgotten them. Likewise why the spell made him think Angelus and Drusilla were dust. She's sickened by the extent of the mindfuck but has to be reluctantly admiring of the cleverness of the spell.

They phone Giles. He has a little more news of the First Evil, that more potential Slayers and Watchers have been disappearing. How he's considering sending the remaining potentials to Buffy for protection. He approves the detection spell and in theory the fixing spell, though he favours the staking plan himself.

Xander and Dawn leave for school. Anya just leaves, because she doesn't want to stick around and watch Willow get her evil on. Buffy and Willow and Spike stare uncomfortably at each other.

Chapter Twenty-One

More notes, then some actual chapter.

Willow does the detecting spell. It shows more or less exactly what she thought it would, she can 'see' the magical influence of the demon slave traders. Buffy want to push on straight to the undoing spell, overriding Spike and Willow's nervous reluctance. It seems to go without a hitch, apart from leaving Spike unconscious, which Willow predicted. But the only way to know for sure was to wait for Spike to wake up, so Buffy moves him to the basement and settles in to wait and see.

********

"Did it work?" Buffy asked, the second she noticed the vampire stirring. He opened one eye, then the other, slowly took in his surroundings with a look of wary confusion. Though Buffy couldn't have put her finger on how, his expression managed to be different to the wary confusion he'd displayed so often the last few days.

"I'd say, on balance, no," he answered carefully, rising as he spoke and stalking towards her. Every nuance of his body language different. If Buffy had not already been on her guard that swagger would have tipped her off. "Now why don't you tell me precisely what you were trying to achieve?"

"Sure," Buffy placated. "We can sit down-"

Quick as a rattlesnake he struck, wrapping a hand around her neck and pinning her to the wall.

"Now, eh sweetheart? And I'll make you a nice quick kill."

The Slayer repressed an eye roll as his fingers tightened on her windpipe. "You have amnesia, or some kind of... brain spell. I have deja vu and a really short fuse. So I suggest you sit down because if you try and kill me again, I... Well I'll be really annoyed this time."

"Yeah," he sneered, "you're really in a position to make threats. Spill, gorgeous, or we'll make this slow and painful."

"I spilled already," Buffy pointed out. "And you're not making it any easier with the whole cutting off my air supply thing."

She lifted her knee sharply, hitting vampire groin with such force Spike was lifted off the ground. He leapt back with an unmanly shriek, clutching himself. "Now you want to sit down and do this the civilised way?"

But Spike was livid and already charging. Buffy caught him neatly on the way passed and slammed him into the wall.

"You're going to pay for that, bitch," Spike howled, twisting free and kicking out at her legs. "And my ring."

As they traded punches Buffy let herself go wild with the eye-rolling.

"Jeez, looks like Willow hit your reset button."

"What the fuck are you talking about? What the fuck is going on?"

"Stop... Hitting... Me." Buffy ducked, then a sweep kick to his stomach, buying enough time to step back and finish her sentence. "And I will tell you."

But he wouldn't, and truthfully Buffy neither minded nor blamed him. Didn't suppose she'd have reacted calmly to waking in Spike's basement with no memory. And a Spike she could hit with a clear conscience was something of a relief - to fall back into that old pattern of attack and counter attack, so much easier than conversation.

An easier pattern for her, she soon realised. Two years fighting together and she knew his every move, while he'd forgotten hers. And underweight, with dozens of badly healed injuries, he had no chance against the Slayer that had taken him down in the prime of his invulnerability. Buffy had every advantage and needed none of them.

"Did you do this?" Spike shouted. "Did you curse me?"

"Looong story." And not one that Buffy was going to attempt, even when not being punched. The vampire soon realised the odds were against him and took the 'flight' option but Buffy was on him before he made it to the stairs, knocking him down and out with the one tackle.

With one more swift kick to the head to make sure he was under, Buffy went to wake Willow.

********

[make this more into W'l POV. More introspection and considering of B's feelings. Her concern for Spike, her concern for Buffy's concern about Spike]

"There's no magic left," said Willow, not even a glance at the vampire to be certain sure. "I don't need a spell to tell you that, there's no magic in the room but mine. Are you sure he didn't remember you?" She bit her lip as she looked at Buffy, not sure how her friend would take the next sentence. "Maybe he's back to normal and he still wants to kill you?"

The Slayer shook her head firmly. "He was confused. He asked what I'd done to him and he mentioned the ring. The Gem of Amara. That was pretty much the last thing he remembered before. The last real thing, anyway. This couldn't be some kind of magical hangover? Or... I don't know, a hidden spell?"

"No magic," Willow repeated. She struggled to find a way of explaining it to her friend. "You know the vampires tinglies? Well, I have magic tinglies. And I'm getting nothing. Zip. The ritual worked, the spell is all gone."

"Could a vampire really get amnesia?" Buffy asked doubtfully.

"It doesn't seem likely. Amnesia is usually the human brain's way of coping with trauma or injury, and you wouldn't think a vampire would be affected in the same way."

"The First?"

"Not without magic, I don't think. Maybe it's the chip?"

"It's never mind-wiped him before. He must have zapped himself a thousand times, it never did any damage."

"Unless you count falling in love with your mortal enemy." Buffy winced and Willow went to apologize but the Slayer shook her head.

"That's actually a pretty Spike-like thing to do, if you think about it. The most contrary, unpredictable option going.

"Unless I was wrong, and the demon trader's spell really did permanently remove parts of his memory. And if undoing the spell didn't fix that then I don't think anything will."

"But it can't have. You said yourself, it used Spike's own memories to construct his mental prison. It couldn't have done that if they were just gone, right? They have to be still there somewhere."

"I don't know. I thought so." Willow took a deep breath. "The chip's not magical. It's the only thing I can think of that might currently be interfering with his brain that I wouldn't be able to detect. It was definitely doing something, earlier. Sending out little pulses, like brainwaves. I'm only guessing, Buffy."

The Slayer frowned. "If it's the chip, can you fix it?"

Willow was saved from that impossible question by the telephone.

"That was Angel," Buffy said slowly, as if she wasn't quite sure he'd been right about that. "He said they've dealt with the slave-traders. Lawyers, he said there were lawyers. Every time he cut one head off they'd grow two more." Buffy looking puzzled, hopefully at willow. "They were metaphorical heads, right?"

Chapter Twenty-Two

I don't believe in magic but I do believe in you When you say you believe in me There's so much magic I can do ~ Birthday Song, Don McLean

"And you really, really understand that I have no idea what I'm doing here. This is technology far beyond my comprehension; it's all going to go horribly wrong - because when doesn't it go horribly wrong? - and you'll end up with a rabid, brain damaged vampire?"

Buffy shot her a look. "...again?" Willow amended.

Buffy quashed a sigh. She remembered Giles' warnings, Tara's warnings, knew she should be glad Willow was correcting her previous 'if in doubt, try a spell' approach to magic. But as with Spike previously, Buffy was discovering she liked her friends a little more self-confident.

"I get it. I'll sign the waiver. Just get on with it already."

"Buffy..."

"Are we going to get anywhere with research?" she snapped. The two girls had been second guessing themselves around in circles for an hour now and Buffy was impatient for action, even vicarious magical action. "Can you think of a better solution than poking around in there and seeing what happens? Are there books on behaviour modification chips?"

Willow shook her head unhappily. "I'm just saying, there's an awful lot of variables with that chip. And then magic, big lessons learned about the unpredictability of magic. We could maybe put the brainwashing back? He was very well mannered."

Buffy gave her friend the ghost of a smile. "Willow!"

"Better a little traumatised than a vampire vegetable," countered Willow seriously.

"Spike would say take the risk. At least, the old Spike would have. And we're already fighting an evil I can't hit. Got no need for a big bad scared of his shadow and a witch that won't do magic."

"I did the magic. He tried to kill you - and that's the magic that worked! This is magic and technology and vampire brains, and I'm just not sure..."

"Well I am sure." It was a lie, but one of them had to be making decisions. Preferably before Xander and Dawn returned and got in on the debate. "I'll take responsibility." Much closer to the truth. "Tell me where to sprinkle the sand."

Willow shrugged apologetically. "I've kind of grown beyond the trappings. It's boring to watch, but..."

"Fine. Do it."

Willow sat cross-legged on the floor, palms either side of Spike's head. "It's just like a tiny computer," she explained as she closed her eyes. "I'm going to go in through the interface, pretend to be the mother computer. Maybe I can find out just what it's... Uh-oh."

The witch frowned in concentration, eyes squeezed shut. Buffy managed to wait all of three seconds before asking "Uh-oh, what?"

"It's telling me the safety override has been activated. I need to reboot the chip before proceeding."

"Meaning?"

"It's like... It's operating under some kind of emergency protocol, like a shut down, y'know? Something has tripped its alarm, and now nothing's getting in or out until it gets rebooted with its security codes and stuff. Could be what's affecting his memory."

"You mean Spike did this to himself? He tried to get the chip shut off?"

"It's possible. Unless I can make it think I have the right codes, I don't think there's any way of telling. It could just be on a timer - like it has to touch base every so often, or it shuts down. Or maybe those... people messing around in his head set it off."

Buffy could too easily imagine Spike leaving town with some hairbrained scheme for getting the chip out. This was Spike, there was almost certainly some hairbrained scheme somewhere along the line. If that had been his plan he'd failed spectacularly, lumbered himself with so much worse.

"This isn't just a behaviour modification chip. It's a prototype, I think it's designed to collect information as well. It makes sense that the army wouldn't want anyone else getting that information. That they'd have safeguards in place. If Spike had cut the chip out, it would cause so much damage to his brain he wouldn't be telling anyone anything. But if someone tampered with it, tried to send it remote signals, for instance... They'd get nothing. And it would be a safeguard against the 'hostile's' too. It one of them did get the thing to stop firing, they wouldn't be able to go back and take revenge, or tell anyone what happened to them. Sorry Buff, I can't even tell what kind of sensors it has, without these codes."

"Can't you hack around the codes?"

"I could try."

"And then he'd get his memory back?"

Willow shrugged helplessly, eyes still tight shut in concentration. "Probably? It's sending strange pulses, that's all I can tell from the outside. If I could get that shut off... Possibly. Or it could self destruct and leave a crater where your house used to be."

It seemed desperately important to Buffy that they get Spike's memory back. She didn't want a rerun of the chained-in-bathtub days - and with Giles moved on, it would be her bathtub. But Buffy had come a long way since her resurrection, knew damn well, nowadays, when she was lying to herself, and she knew that wasn't the whole reason. And Spike's opinion she could guess at, because every single time he picked the risky option. He'd probably be pleased with his very own crater.

"That last bit was a joke, right?"

"Probably," Willow deadpanned. "It's not to late to put the brainwashing back."

Meek, obedient Spike, hovering indefinitely under her protection or turned out defenceless into the world. It wasn't really a choice.

"You've got to fix the chip."

More waiting - Buffy's very least favourite thing to do.

"It's got some serious anti-tamper guard. It knows I'm here and it's questioning my identification. Damn. Okay, now it's getting tetchy."

Another three nail-biting seconds of silence, then Spike started to shake. Soon he was jerking around like an epileptic, banging his head against the hard floor as Willow's questing hands tried to follow. Buffy leapt to hold him down.

"What's happening, Will?" she asked with forced calm.

"It wants its own core program rebooted, and it wants it now." Willow opened her eyes and looked straight at Buffy in dismay. "I've set off the self-destruct."

Struggling to pin the flailing vampire, Buffy bit her lip

"There's no way to undo it," Willow continued. "I just don't have its original program to reinstall."

"So, what? Crater time?"

Willow shook her head. "It's just going to carry on going off. Until it runs out of juice."

"How long?"

"No idea. It could even be recharging itself from Spike."

"How long before his brain is mush?"

"I don't know anything about vampire brains!" Willow held up her hands helplessly. "I couldn't begin to guess."

"And if you take it out, that's still brain mush?"

"No. I mean with surgery, yeah, you'd have to cut out a lot of important bits, it's like it's put down roots. But with magic... oh. I could do that. Should I do that?"

The silence stretched as both girls put all their energy into keeping Spike still. Buffy avoided Willow's questioning eyes for as long as she could. "I promised him, Willow-" and even Buffy could hear the note of pleading in her voice "-I promised he could trust me."

"You didn't promise him it would work. This isn't your fault."

"My choice, my fault." And now another choice. Two options, both wrong, and Buffy couldn't pick the one that involved staking Spike, not when he'd submitted to another round of magical prodding on her say-so. "I just can't, Will."

"I could," said Willow, and off Buffy's surprised glance she added: "I want to help Spike too. But not so much I'd risk you dying because you couldn't stake him."

"I could!" Buffy protested. "If he was killing... If he was being evil. But not when I said I'd help him, not when... He deserves the chance to walk away, doesn't he?" One more vampire walking the world, for all the thousands she'd taken out of it, that was a fair trade, right? And thousands that would be dinner for that one vampire, Buffy knew that too, people not numbers that couldn't be put on some cosmic balance against the people he had saved. Thousands of tragedies Buffy could prevent with one staking, but it would feel like murder. Willow let go of Spike's head long enough to give her friend a comforting squeeze, but she still had to point out the obvious.

"And all the people he might kill?"

"He deserves a chance," Buffy repeated. "He earned a chance. Take it out."

Willow waited a long moment before complying. The spell itself only took a second's concentration and, in the blink of an eye, a tiny silicon chip appeared on the floor, its roots spread out like tentacles. A few aftershocks and Spike lay still; Buffy picked up the still-activating chip and stared at it in fascination.

"It's really a very simple spell," said Willow, "just move something a foot to the left. I'm kinda surprised Spike never tried it himself."

"He didn't like magic," said Buffy absently, eyes still on the chip, sitting astride the unconscious vampire. "Will he have his memory back now?"

"I think so. Eighty-five percent sure. Sometimes it's just the devil or the deep blue sea, Buffy." Willow shuffled across the floor to put an arm around her friend and Buffy leaned gratefully into the embrace. "You never know, Spike might be the key to defeating the First. You might just have saved the world, and not even know it yet."

Comfort, Willow style - with added logic. Buffy managed a watery smile at that far-fetched scenario. "You never know," she agreed. "How long before he comes to?"

Willow chuckled, dispelling the sombre atmosphere. "I'm not a vampire MD, Buffy, I only know about the magic. There's no knowing what damage the chip might have done. You should probably chain him up. He might have real amnesia, or..." she trailed off and Buffy nodded, not wanting to hear the 'or'."

"Then I guess I'll wait."

"I could sit with him," Willow offered. "I could... Well, I can defend myself."

"I can do it," Buffy insisted. "Really I can. I tried to kill you a couple months back, Spike really wouldn't be the problem you seem to think."

"But you shouldn't have to," said Willow gently.

"No," Buffy agreed. "Let's hope Spike sees it that way."

********

Buffy finished fastening the chains and settled down to wait for Spike to regain consciousness. She heard Dawn and Xander returning, but no-one came down to the basement to disturb her vigil. A couple of hours must have drifted by before a voice at her elbow startled the Slayer.

"He looks so sweet when he's asleep," said Spike's sarcastic drawl. "So... innocent."

Buffy didn't bother turning her head, keeping her gaze fixed on the original article. "And seeing as he's right over there, I'm not likely to be fooled by the copy."

"Just thinking of you, pet." Not-Spike prowled around her with Spike's cocky walk, planted itself firmly in her line of sight with Spike's familiar sneer. "Bit easier on the eye than most dead people, aren't I?"

"Could we maybe skip to the big scary and completely empty threats and then that nice bit where you disappear into a little blip," asked Buffy sweetly. "I'm contemplating here."

"Contemplating your dead lover?"

"He's not my lover. You know he's not my lover. And I'm way past caring if you want to call him that. Don't you have apocalypses to plan? Maybe a few tormented souls to bring over to the dark side?"

"You'd be surprised. Evil looks after itself well enough. Much rather be here to watch the carnage when our golden boy wakes up."

"You're incorporeal and he's chained up. How much carnage are we talking here? And he's not your golden boy - you didn't even have anything to do with what happened to him. I spoke to Angel, it was evil Lawyers. Which is one of those oxymoron things, right?"

"Think you've forgotten who I am, sweetheart," said Not-Spike, rolling his neck and smirking at her with that shit-eating grin she'd loved to punch. "Or who he is, if you'd rather have it that way. I am evil - he's mine. Got used to the shadow - you've forgotten the real me."

"I think you're confused," said Buffy kindly, determined not to show this copy of Spike at his most predatory her unease. The real Spike would have noticed, heard her hitching breath and racing pulse from across the room and maybe this version could too, but she wasn't about to give it the satisfaction of shattering her calm façade. "It's actually Spike who's forgotten who he is."

"And you fixed that all up for me, didn't you love? You and the little redhead. So what do you think, Slayer? Am I going to come after you? Or just trot off into the sunset to slaughter innocents another day?"

Buffy just shrugged, as if the words didn't hit an already exposed nerve.

"I remember the good old days," said fake-Spike happily, leaning against the wall next to Spike's cot in such a casual way it was hard to remember he was not solid. "Picking off the young ones, the fresh ones. There's quite a knack to it, pet. Knowing just how much blood to take, leave them alive long enough that they still scream when you fuck them. 'Cause it's just not as much fun if they don't scream. You stupid enough to think a taste of my own medicine will have cured me from being evil?"

"Actually, I'm wondering why you want me to stake Spike so much. Was Willow right? Is he the key to stopping the next apocalypse?"

"William the Bloody, Champion of the People?" mocked the First.

"Who knows. Maybe he's the only creature in the universe that can out-talk you? Because otherwise I don't get it. An unchipped Spike means more dead people, he can single-handedly increase your repertoire. So I really want to know why you're popping up to remind me of his bad qualities when he's all helpless."

For a second Buffy really thought she was on to something, but instead of fading with a thwarted cackle Not-Spike was suddenly in her face. "Because I know you can't do it." It was Spike at his nastiest and Buffy fought not to step back, though she knew it was only an apparition, not even tangible. "I know all the people that are going to die because you fucked an evil thing and I like taunting you about it, because I'm evil. I know your secret, Slayer. Know your weakness. I know that all the people I'll kill will sit on your conscience until they drown you, and I know you're powerless to stop it because you can't kill me. It's delicious.

"You're too pathetic to end me now, and you'll be too pathetic to live with what you've done. You need me around, need the kick it gives you, to have an evil thing so obsessed with you. Need the passion I bring because you're dead inside, you can't get it any other way, not now you've had a taste. You can kick and scream and tell me you don't want it, but you and I both know you do. I'm in you, down to your bones."

Buffy turned her head to the wall, for once at a loss for a witty retort.

"Oh, come now, pet, don't look away. I'm about to do that blippy thing you like so much. Sweet dreams." And with a fearsome roar and a fairly impressive special effect, it was gone.

Though Buffy's pulse was rattling away like a freight train she refused to sit there and second-guess her decision. The First Evil might do a good job of reading her mind, voicing all the things she really didn't want to think about, but that didn't mean she couldn't go right back to not thinking about them. But it had one thing exactly right - she had forgotten the real Spike.

She'd grown accustomed to the pale shadow and his polite ways but even before then, it had been a long time since Spike had got nasty with her. The non-sexy kind of nasty. Intellectually, Buffy could remember a time when he'd been a serious threat, but in the years between the visceral details had faded. The force of his confidence, hard blue eyes and mocking, merciless smile. The brutal, careless way he'd killed, thoughtless of gain or consequence, had been overlaid by a vampire much easier to laugh at, downtrodden and defenceless. That brief fight earlier should have served as a reminder, but that wasn't Spike in 'gonna kill me a Slayer' mode, just someone disorientated, covering panic with anger. Instead of feeling threatened Buffy had mostly just felt sympathy.

The First Evil had done a much better job of recreating that chill of fear only vaguely remembered from their first meeting, when Spike had casually told her he was going to kill her. It had recreated the Spike who really wanted her dead, and with hindsight, that Spike had died long before he'd declared his change of allegiance, killed off piece by piece by memories and experiences. If Willow was wrong, if those memories were gone and not merely suppressed by a malfunctioning chip, that was the Spike that was going to be waking in her basement.

That Spike, at least, Buffy knew how to kill. The other... well, the First had been half right there, too. She could dust Spike. To save the world, easy, to save Dawn, for sure, even in self-defence if she had to. But she couldn't dust him for all the people he'd probably kill. Could hardly stand to think of it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Well everybody's looking like they're supposed to But nobody's looking very good When you find somebody to get close to Don't you think you should? ~ Narcisissma, Don McLean

1100

Spike groaned a little and stretched like a cat, an adorable morning routine that Buffy had witnessed more than once. On this occasion, his languorous stretching was sharply curtailed by heavy chains. His head shot up, blearily startled eyes taking in first the restraints, then the room, then her. His head fell back on the thin mattress with a thunk.

"Fuck," said Spike, succinctly.

Buffy stayed silent, watching him, waiting for an indication of which Spike she was dealing with today. He stayed silent too, corpse-like, eyes shut, and not like any Spike she'd yet met.

Buffy caved first. "Hello to you too," she said eventually.

"Buffy," he acknowledged, without moving.

The use of her name, and the weariness in his tone, told Buffy most of what she needed to know but still she asked guardedly: "What do you remember?"

"Everything," Spike answered bluntly. "Every bloody thing."

"Seeing as we're dealing with multiple levels of amnesia here, can we make sure your everything is the same as my everything?"

Spike used his chains to haul himself sitting. Buffy could see him gathering his courage before he met her gaze.

"Remember the chip, first time around. Remember two years in Sunnyhell, trying to rape you, leaving. Remember going to Africa, finishing the trials and then I just... forgot two years. Didn't realise it wasn't still 2001 till I was halfway to LA, thought Angel might still be there, didn't know what else to do. Got tazered instead. Then I remember remembering lots of things that never happened and a few that did. Remember you coming for me, then I remember not remembering that. Then I don't remember anything, and I'm hoping like hell that's because I was unconscious."

"You were," Buffy confirmed, "that was just this morning." A part of Buffy wanted to delay with the small talk. Ask what Africa was like and why he'd gone there. She ruthlessly tamped down the impulse, slid off the dryer and walked over to the cot, not quite looking at Spike as she leant forward to unfasten his manacles.

"So what now?" Spike asked, as the chains fell away and Buffy took two very deliberate steps back.

"Now you leave. Just this once, you can wait until the sun goes down."

"Good of you," he said softly. "I'm so sorry, Buffy."

Buffy knew he wasn't talking about trying to kill her a few hours ago. She'd finally got her apology and it didn't make her feel any better.

In truth she'd already forgiven him. Not because what he'd done hadn't been so bad, or because he'd been stupid enough to get himself kidnapped and put through hell. She wasn't even sure when it had happened. But this was the Spike she knew best, who could take a punch in the face as encouragement, and she wasn't about to let him think that things could go back to how they were.

"That doesn't make it alright."

"Anything that will?" he asked bleakly.

"No."

"Then sorry's all I got. And my undying gratitude, for what that's worth."

Buffy started to pick up the scattered detritus of their earlier fight, mere displacement activity as she asked: "How much of it was real, Spike?"

She couldn't bear to put the question more explicitely, knew he would know what she meant.

"Not a fraction of what I deserve," he answered bitterly.

"That's a pretty subjective measurement."

"Few weeks, I guess."

"You were virtually a skeleton. That didn't happen in a few weeks."

The vampire shrugged. "Two months, tops. Wasn't exactly well-nourished when they picked me up. Your point, lo- Slayer?"

"No point. I'll get you some more blood."

Spike raised a surprised eyebrow. "Done enough for me, don't you think?"

"Yeah, well, it's not like I'm going to drink it when you've gone."

And she quit the basement with such speed Spike could hardly doubt that the blood was just an excuse to be out of his presence. And maybe a tiny sop to her conscience, too. After all, a well-fed vampire was likely to do less killing than a starving one, right? And Buffy wasn't going to delude herself that Spike would survive long on pigs blood once he realised he had an alternative.

********

For what seemed like the dozenth time in three days Spike's world was turned upside down. He was seriously starting to think his head might fall off. Couldn't even rant and punch wall and break furniture and scream about how he was fucking sick of this merry-go-round because he was in Buffy's basement and had caused more than enough disruption in her life. He threw his pillow instead, it hit the wall with a soft thud and slumped to the floor, not even splitting open.

The shame was maybe the worst thing. Not exactly the shame of being used as a sex toy but allowing it. Angelus had used sex as a weapon many a time and happily extended that abuse from his human victims to his unruly childer, but Spike had railed and fought until he was black and blue, carried right on defying his grandsire until he was too strong to be taken or used. But a bit of brainwashing and he'd rolled over and played the victim. Had never once dared fight back because of manufactured memories of losing those fights. And worse of all he'd put his craven cowerdice on display for the Slayer. Let her clearly see how easily he'd been broken to the point where even her pity terrified him.

But all that self-hate was playing out over a mantra of 'Buffy came for me'.

Even that tiny bit of joyous news was tainted. The soul made him the person he'd never counted as before, made him worth rescuing, and he couldn't help but resent that on behalf of his former self. Ridiculous though it was, even though he'd done the unforgivable, he resented that. And right that moment he hated the soul. For making him weak, weaker even than a chip and an unhealthy mortal-enemy obsession. For making him worth rescuing but not good enough to stay in Sunnydale. Couldn't hate Buffy for it. Knew he couldn't ever blame her for not wanting him, for not even wanting him in the same town as her. So he hated the soul instead. Without it he'd never have ended up back here, would never have had to find out for sure he wasn't welcome, though he'd already known it. Hated the soul for making him hate himself. Spike didn't know how he could ever have wondered, about the soul. Was crawling inside him now and he should have known. Buffy had known.

He needed time, huge oceans of time to get used to the enormity of it all, didn't have any because in an hour the sun would go down and everything that still meant anything would be barred from him forever. Still couldn't really follow the steps in his own mind. Technology and magic had fucked him over so thoroughly even now he only half understood all that had happened. In the blink of an eye he'd gone from fighting for his soul or death to laying in a cave in the middle of a continent he didn't remember visiting with no idea of why his last century of cheerfully killing people was suddenly a tortuous memory. Well maybe some idea, he wasn't stupid and remembered well enough what had happened to Angelus. But no fucking clue why it had happened to him. With hindsight the chip must have taken objection to the soul, had viewed it as tampering. Ironically, it wasn't until demons took their turn at fucking around with his brain that he even remembered that he'd had a chip.

After a week or two of moping, and remembering his kills, he'd left on the long and awkward - for someone who couldn't stand sunlight or kill pesky immigration clerks - journey back to Los Angeles. Some half-formed notion that Angel might have done this to him as revenge for the post-Amarra torture. And because it wasn't in his nature to simply lay down and waste away.

Couldn't really parse what came next. Couldn't think of any of it because it was all too much, and besides, all he could think about was Buffy. Damn soul hadn't even cured him of that. When he should have been thinking about what to do with a shiny new soul and a century's worth of atonement he could only sort through memories of her. Buffy running gentle fingers over his mutilated back. Buffy begging him to stop. Buffy awkward and skittish in his company but too kind to tell him why.

Should be thinking of who he was now because he'd had no time to figure it out between mindfucks but soul or not it turned out he could only think like Spike still and Spike could only think of Buffy. Hell, if he hadn't been in love before he would be now; how could you not love someone who'd brazenly walk into hell to rescue - okay, technically steal - a man she hated.

Buffy returned with a mug of warm blood, left it on the dryer and sat herself on the basement stairs as if she hadn't just disappeared for half an hour. Watched in silence as he sipped at her offering.

"Did you try to take the chip out?" she asked suddenly.

"No." Spike turned surprised eyes to Buffy but she just nodded, apparently satisfied.

"Willow said it was the chip that mind-wiped you. The spell the demon traders did, it used parts of your subconscious memories, but it was the chip that... That something had triggered it, it... restored factory settings. To your brain."

Spike gave her a watery smile. "Surprised there's any brain left in there." But Buffy ignored his attempt at humour, picking at invisible splinters on the handrail. "I haven't touched it, Buffy, I swear. Maybe it didn't like Lurky, that's when I lost my memory. I'm still muzzled, don't you worry about that."

The shifty, guilty way her eyes slid from his puzzled the vampire. "You gonna stake me?" he asked.

"What do you think?" Buffy snapped, holding up her empty hands.

"Think you've got some big bombshell coming," said Spike calmly. "And if it's not something that's already happened..."

"It has happened." More petty vandalism of the railings. "Willow tried to undo it, but she set the chip off."

Spike waited patiently for her to continue, but she carried right on removing flaking varnish from the bannister. "So?" he asked eventually. "It's not working? It's going to blow up?"

"It's working," Buiffy answered reluctantly. "It's still going off."

"Oh. And I'm not feeling the excruciating pain because...?"

Suddenly Buffy tossed him something tiny that glittered as Spike put out his hand to catch it. Spike looked at the small buzzing object on his palm in wonder. Looked up to her, back to his hand.

"I'll be buggered. You took it out."

Buffy did nothing but watch him.

"Fuck!" Spike said again. "You took my chip out!"

"It was going to melt your brain."

"And wouldn't that be such a tragic loss for the world. Fuck! You took my bloody chip out!"

"No need to be grateful," said Buffy tartly. "Next time we'll just leave you twitching on the floor. You could be art."

Spike gave an incredulous laugh. "You're off your bleeding rocker, you are. Completely fucking loopy!"

He threw the chip back at her, Buffy ignored it. It swished past her head and skittered along the basement floor.

"I'm grateful, love." Spike was clutching the edge of the cot now, knuckles white. "You have no idea of the hell you rescued me from. Even though most of it was fake the result was... nothing. I was nothing. And there isn't room in that pretty little head of your for the evil that men do."

"Yeah, I'm an innocent bimbo," said Buffy dryly. "Patronise me at will."

Spike half smiled, though he didn't look at her. "No. But even so. Christ, Buffy. Means so much that you came for me."

"Really doesn't," she said harshly. "That means nothing." some silence. "What are you going to do now?" low and lethal.

"Right now? Forget that you ever told me?" Spike suggested. "Head's already in overload. How did you know?"

Buffy doesn't understand the question. Changes subject. @@@need some kind of interruption here. an excuse for a rather random pov change. or change chapter. or keep s pov. whatever.

********

"So now we come to the serious talk bit."

"A conversation? You and me?" asked Spike with mock incredulity. Buffy frowned.

"More of a lecture. I don't want to kill you," said Buffy, as flatly as she could. "And you owe me, you owe me big time. So you're going to leave town, and this time you're going to stay gone. Because that's what I want, okay?"

Spike nodded. "Anything for you," he said mockingly.

"I'm serious, Spike. I would stake you. And I shouldn't have to."

"You should want to, daft bitch. Should be dancing in my ashes. Should have left me there."

Buffy remained silent, in an eloquent way, and Spike laughed. "You couldn't, could you? No more capable of standing by than I am of going veggie. Can't do the wrong thing."

"I've done plenty of wrong things."

"With me?"

"Yes."

Spike snorted. "Couple unhealthy decisions when you were wanting to be dead and it rips you up inside. Doesn't count."

"And what would you know of right and wrong?"

"I always knew. Just, before... Couldn't care. Didn't understand, not really, why you did. There's a huge difference between knowing that you always did the right thing and understanding why; never realised how that was a part of you. Too stupid and too souless to understand I could never have you as you were because to be with me, to not care what I was, you would have to change, lose that thing that ate at you and I didn't understand how big a part that was."

"Whereas now you're clever and soulful..."

Spike just ignored the sarcasm.

"Anyone else would have been glad to know what had happened to me."

"Who says I wasn't?"

"I was there, Slayer. I do remember."

"Shows what you know. Because I was glad."

Spike shook his head in patient disbelief. "Maybe you laughed when you heard I was kidnapped. It's not the same. I deserved what happened to me, anyone else would have left me there to rot, and been glad to think on it."

"Anyone else obviously didn't have Anya and Dawn on their case. And two wrongs don't make a right."

"And the right matters. Matters more to you than vengeance, more than not wanting to lay eyes on me again, more than just having better things to do than hare across state to rescue someone you rightly despise. Even your regular souled-up human being would have found an excuse for doing nothing. The best of them might have felt mildly guilty about it. But you, you're incapable of making excuses. And beyond that you find it in you to be nice to me, can't even enjoy me sweating it out, not just because it's wrong, but cause there's even room in that gorgeous little heart for caring about my pain."

"That's very pretty. You still have to leave."

"Yeah. I have to leave town or you'll threaten to stake me some more."

"You're starting to sound like that thing. I'm not threatening-"

"Yes you are. Oh, I'm going," he added hastily. "If the only thing I can give you is my absence then you can have it. You're right, I owe you more than you can ever know. But you wouldn't stake me. If I was killing, sure. But staking me for not doing what you told me? That wouldn't be right, and you know it, and you can't do the wrong thing."

"You're insane. Of course that would be right, that's my duty."

"That's not-"

"Shut up. Just... shut up. Have your little theories, I don't care. Just, let's not put them to the test," Buffy said warningly.

"No." long silence.

"I'm so very sorry." more silence

"Maybe it was for the best," Buffy sighed eventually.

"We talking about the same thing here?"

"Why you left?"

"Yeah. That was... for the best? Jesus. How can you say that?"

"Well there was never going to be a happy ending, was there? Even you must realise that. And you weren't about to wander off of your own accord. Something had to give. And as it was, you left, neither of us were dead. For the best."

"Well that's... pragmatic. Bet that's exactly what you were thinking, when you were fighting me off. 'How fortunate-'"

"Spike!" Sharp, chiding, all that was needed to rein him in. "Willow could totally put the brainwashing back, you know. You were a lot less of a drama queen when you had amnesia. I'm just trying to say... silver linings, and that. Put it behind you."

Buffy figetted with her cuffs. "I don't despise you and you didn't deserve it."

Spike blinked. "I did." Then, with less certainty, "you don't?"

"No-one deserves to be raped. That's what happened to you, isn't it?"

A pause, then Spike nodded.

"What you did to me was a million miles from okay, but it wasn't that. It wasn't the same."

Another snort. "Think you're the only girl I ever hurt? Only girl I ever held down and tried to fuck? You're just the one who could fight back, and the only one I gave a toss about. The rest are long since rotten piles of bloody remains. Believe me, I deserved it."

If Buffy paled slightly she did her best to hide it. "Well maybe, in the whole karmic balance thing. Maybe you had it coming. Does that mean you're going to stop?"

Spike gaped. "Stop... raping people? I think you know the bloody answer to that, or you wouldn't have-" gestures to chip on floor. "I didn't get myself a soul just to-"

"You got yourself a soul?"

"That's right.. Did you think I'd been cursed? Because it wasn't like that."

"A soul?" repeated Buffy stupidly.

"Yeees."

"And you're just going to casually drop that into the conversation?"

Spike looked at her, stunned. "But you knew, you said... You took my chip out!"

"It was frying your brain!"

More gaping. "Guess I was wrong, sometimes you can do the wrong thing."