Chapter 1 - Just Fine

Buffy seethed at the unwitting blond head at the bar. 'How dare he show up here,' she thought fiercely. 'It's even a Wednesday, not a drinking day, not a go out and party day. He knows it's my usual day to hang out with the gang. Why is he even here?' She glared daggers into his black clad back, but he remained oblivious, fixated on the amber whiskey in front of him, absently fiddling with the glass, swirling the alcohol moodily as though something important could be divined from its depths.

Hang out with the gang, yeah, that was kind of funny in a not terribly funny way, since Willow and Tara had begged tonight off, citing a busy following day; Oz was with his new girlfriend at some gig upstate and Faith had decided to join Oz and Bella; Dawn was dancing with her latest boyfriend, Steve, and Xander and Anya had spent the whole night practically having sex on the dance floor, leaving Buffy alone at the table, where she was definitely not watching her ex.

Ok, so maybe there was a little watching going on. Shooting a glance back to the bar, she was irrationally irritated anew to see two women perched on the bar stools near him. As she watched, the girl next to him tipped her drink over, sending a small flood Spike's way. 'Oh please, so obvious,' Buffy thought, rolling her eyes.

She watched as Spike deftly rescued his endangered cigarettes and shrugged off the girl's apology, accepting it gruffly and settling onto another stool further removed from the mess. The girl stood and caught his attention again, placing her hand on his leather sleeve and apparently continuing to make her apologies. Finally, Spike acquiesced and another whiskey was placed in front of him by the bartender.

Spike and the girl exchanged a few more words, his reluctance to converse further evident in the stiff lines of his body, but then…the girl said something else and leaned in a little and patted his sleeve again encouragingly and Spike's entire attitude changed. He looked the girl in the eyes for the first time, then down at the glossy surface of the bar for a moment. He seemed to come to a decision, because he snapped his head up, slid off the bar stool and shrugging his coat off, offered the girl his hand.

Buffy stared in disbelief as Spike shot the girl's companion a sexy smile, in thanks for watching his coat Buffy assumed, and the couple made their way onto the dance floor where they proceeded to drape themselves around each other.

'She's not even his type!' She thought furiously and took a quick inventory of her compet…Spike's new friend, she corrected herself swiftly. 'Tall, skanky ho with long dark hair...' Hmm, on second thought, the girl did bear a passing resemblance to Drusilla, Spike's ex, in build and coloring. Oh, except she wasn't as thin. No, she definitely had more curves than Drusilla, Buffy noted clinically. Ok, so she had a pretty nice figure. She certainly wasn't as pale as Drusilla, her skin had the healthy glow that tanning salons and creams promised and never provided.

The girl whispered something in Spike's ear and was rewarded with a wide, sunny grin that was familiar to Buffy, but had been a rare sight lately. He laughed at whatever it was she said next and Buffy added 'funny' to her growing list of details about the girl.

Spike's hand stroked the girl's long braid and looking mischievous, he pulled the band from the bottom of the braid and ran his fingers through it until it lay in long and loose curls down her back. He grinned again and said something to her, eliciting a giggle.

'Ok. Nice hair,' Buffy thought. 'Shiny and soft looking.' She absently ran her fingers down her own recently snipped to just below chin-length blonde hair. 'He does like long hair,' she thought crossly.

'Well, if you hadn't gotten mad at him and cut yours off to spite him, yours would still be long too!' Her inner voice chided her. 'Whatever! I like it this way! I do!' She smacked the voice back down where it belonged, all quiet and not so darn - talky. 'Yeah. Stupid voice. Whose side are you on, anyway?'

She looked away from them, suddenly feeling a little ill. 'Well, good.' She told herself. 'Spike's moving on and that's of the good, because he won't be bothering me anymore, won't be making things all confusing anymore. That's what I wanted, after all.' She put her head in her hands. 'Yeah, exactly what I wanted.'

"Hey, Buffy," Xander and Anya appeared at her side. "I'd like you to meet Jake, he's my friend from work. I think I've mentioned him."

Startled out of her contemplation of the tabletop, she looked up at the man standing next to Xander. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with brown hair and friendly eyes that were…peering at her waiting for her to acknowledge the introduction. 'Moving on. Right!'

She favored him with a brilliant smile, stood and held out her hand. "Hi Jake, nice to meet you. Xander's told me a lot about you." She wracked her brain trying to remember what exactly Xander had said about him, but came up with nothing more than, 'dammit, she's got her head on his shoulder,' and realized she'd again focused on Spike and his new friend. Cursing her one track mind, she dragged her eyes back to Jake.

"He's told me a lot about you, too. If I didn't know how much he loved Anya, I'd think he had a crush on you." He said, smiling as he took her hand.

She realized Xander and Anya had moved away again, not so subtly leaving her with Jake.

"Would you like to dance?" He asked.

She nodded and they moved onto the floor with the other couples swaying to the music. 'Ha,' she thought, 'I've got a cute guy to dance with and he seems nice and I can do the moving on thing too. No problem.' She peeked at Spike to see if he'd noticed her acquisition of said cute guy yet. He was still wholly absorbed in his companion. She frowned.

"Something wrong?" Jake asked curiously. "Did I step on your foot?" He smiled.

'Really beautiful smile,' Buffy thought absently. "Oh, no, no - everything's fine. Except..." Renewed pangs of outrage shot through her as she saw Spike and the girl leave the floor and head towards the bar. 'No…no…maybe they're just thirsty," she whispered internally as they retrieved their things, said their goodbyes and walked out, obviously planning to continue their evening elsewhere.

"Except?" Jake prompted her gently and she guiltily looked back at him.

"Oh, except I think I'm feeling a little sick. I think I should make it an early night." She backed out of his arms and they headed back to the table.

"I'm sorry, hope it's not the company." Megawatt smile again. "I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime, maybe this Friday night if you're feeling better."

"Oh! Sure, go out, sure, I'd love to. Friday's great. Would you mind telling Xander I'm heading out and asking them to give my sister a ride? They look like they're having fun and I don't want to interrupt." 'Ok, need to stop saying oh…where's my vocabulary gone, anyway?' Right out the door with Spike, she answered herself dully. Buffy conjured up a smile for Jake as she grabbed her purse and prepared to flee the club.

"Not at all, I'll do that." He grasped her arm gently as she turned to go, "Phone number?"

"Oh, right!"

'Dammit, words Buffy. People use them to communicate.' She chastised herself.

"Um, you'll see Xander tomorrow, right?" She rifled through her small bag. "I can't find a pen. He can give it to you then. It was really nice to meet you. Looking forward to Friday night. Goodnight!" She hastily glued herself back together long enough to flash him another smile and wave goodbye as she walked out.

'Ok, no question anymore, I can admit it. Still got a few things to work out over the breakup. No problem, that's totally normal,' she reassured herself silently. 'I was a little jealous, but that's totally normal. After all, you can break things off, but feelings aren't always so quick to get the message. There's always residual, awkward stuff at the end of a relationship - wait - thing - wait - oh, whatever we had.'

She nodded to herself encouragingly. 'Ice cream and movies and a good cry are completely normal requirements for any type of breakup. So that's what I'll do. Go home, relax, do the whole official relationship ending ritual and get it out of my system and then I can focus on Jake or whoever. It's fine. I'm just fine.'

But it wasn't Jake's friendly face she was thinking of as she walked across the parking lot. Instead, the sight of Spike's fingers woven into the other girl's soft dark hair flashed across her mind again and she didn't feel fine at all. A faint wave of nausea rippled through her and she leaned against her car for a moment before opening the door and driving home slowly.


*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Dawn turned the key in the lock, letting herself in quietly. She heard the television in the living room and headed in to find her sister clutching a pillow to herself on the couch. Noting her red and suspiciously glassy eyes, Dawn sighed.

"You ok?" She asked.

Buffy held the pillow tighter. "Sure, I'm fine. Just not feeling too well, is all." She stared resolutely at television. "You have fun?"

Dawn crossed in front of her to collapse on the other end of the couch. "Sure, Steve's a good guy. Ten dates and counting and not bored yet." She eyed her sister warily. "Talked to Spike tonight. He's pretty down."

Buffy sniffed. "Yeah, so upset that he left with some girl. He recovered from his bad mood fast."

"Not that you care, of course." Dawn said with a raised eyebrow.

Buffy sighed. "He lied to me, Dawn. It may hurt now, but I can't be with someone who lied to me." Another sniffle. "Just another guy who'll tell you anything you want to hear to your face and then turn around and rip your heart out by showing his true side later and abandoning you. Better to get out now. I did. I got out and it's better that way. I can find some nice, normal honest guy. That's what I need."

"Buffy, Spike is a nice guy." Dawn said. "Remember? The guy who's been our friend forever? The guy who stuck around and helped out when Mom died and our father didn't even show up for the funeral? I don't know what happened, but I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

"Dawn, he did hurt me. You remember! I walked in on Dru and him at his place. He cheated on me. Tell me again how nice a guy he is, really, 'cause I need to hear that!" Buffy mangled the pillow, twisting it in her hands, but her voice softened, "I know you love him. I'm not going to tell you not to talk to him or see him because I know how much you care about each other." Her tone grew stronger and colder. "But don't tell me what a great guy he is. I know what he's really like."

"Buffy, I don't believe it. I don't believe he'd cheat on you."

"He would. He did. I saw…" her voice broke.

Dawn slid over and hugged her sister. "Did you even give him a chance? Did you give him a chance to explain, Buffy?"

"NO! I saw. It was clear. Do you think I'd think he'd do this? But no! I saw it with my own eyes." She sobbed and mumbled, “why, what did he say to you?"

"Nothing. He won't tell me anything. Gets that stubborn look on his face, his jaw sets and that little muscle twitches and he tells me it isn't my business, that it's between the two of you. He'll talk about the weather or my life or current events, but he won't say a word on that subject."

"See, he doesn't even defend himself to you. Because he can't. He's guilty. He cheated on me with that…that…druggie ho." Buffy scrubbed her wet eyes furiously.

"Buffy," Dawn said uncertainly, "if he wanted to be with Dru, why isn't he with her now? I mean, I haven't seen him with anyone until tonight. If he wanted to get back together with her, where is she?"

Buffy frowned. "I don't know. I don't know where she is. Isn't that just typical of her, though? Show up, wreak havoc and disappear into the woodwork again. So very Dru."

"We helped him put himself back together after her overdose and their breakup, Buffy; do you really think he'd have wanted to get back into that life? He was miserable with her." She rearranged her sister until she was looking at her, "He was happy with you. You were both happy."

Buffy wrenched herself out of Dawn's embrace and stood up, tossing the couch throw back onto her sister. "Well, we're not happy now!" She laughed bitterly. "No, wait, he probably is happy - with his new Dru clone. Let's just hope this one is more drug and drama free for his sake, huh?" With that, she stalked up the stairs to bed, having had enough conversation for the evening.

"Well, you told him to leave you alone and get out of your life! What did you expect? Did you think he'd just pine after you forever while you ignored him?" Dawn yelled after her.

Dawn shook her head. 'Spike, what the hell did you do?' She thought grimly. She loved him like a brother and this whole situation brought back miserable echoes of her parents’ divorce. To be torn between two people you loved was horrible. She felt her own eyes well up. 'I just can't do this again. This has to be fixable.' But she'd noticed Spike's activities tonight too and she wondered if he'd finally listened to her sister and decided to forget about Buffy.

Buffy lay face down on her bed in her jammies. She was making an active attempt at trying to sleep, which perhaps was the problem, the active part, that is. Her brain wouldn't stop going. 'Sleep…' She coaxed herself, 'Think about nothing but sleep.' She tried to visualize the word, as Willow had taught her once. SLEEP spelled out in big, white, puffy cloud-like letters on a blue sky background; SLEEP spelled out in wispy letters that drifted away like smoke, like the smoke of Spike's cigarette that perpetually dangled from those soft….

'Dammit.'

'Ok, so the sleep word isolation thing is not working,' she thought. 'maybe, that relaxation technique will do the trick.'

She tensed her whole body, from her toes to the top of her head. Well, if she'd had muscles on the top of her head, they'd be tense. Anyway, she didn't think there were any muscles up there, so maybe she was tensing from her toes to her…face? She frowned, thinking. Because your face obviously had muscles and… 'hello!' She mentally smacked herself again, 'rambling here, back to the task at hand.'

So, all obediently tensed up, she began to slowly and deliberately relax each muscle starting with her toes. She'd gotten to her calf when she realized she now had a knot in it and had to vigorously rub it to drive it away. 'Ok, soooo not conducive to sleep,' she thought as she rubbed, 'and ow, when did relaxing get so painful?' Inevitably, her mind went to what happened usually when her muscles knotted up. For a moment, she could almost feel his talented hands smoothing out the bunched muscles beneath them, leaving relaxed, jello-like Buffy bits in their wake. The thought of what those hands might be doing at this very moment made her bolt upright in bed.

'Dammit.'

She leapt out of bed and headed to the bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet hastily, keeping her disobedient brain from continuing that disturbing train of thought. 'Aha!' She thought, triumphantly. 'Mom's sleeping pills.' She studied them intently. 'Only a little expired. Should still work. Not like they'd be dangerous if they were too old, right? Just wouldn't work.' She downed one with a handful of water from the faucet and returned to her room.

She lay on her bed again, this time face up, sprawled over the covers. 'Should be kicking in any minute now.' She fidgeted. 'Any minute now.' She rolled to her side. 'Stupid ancient pills!'

Images came unbidden to her closed eyes. His hands, holding a half naked Drusilla clasped against his towel-clad body. Coils of dark hair draped over his arms. His eyes, blue and panicked, meeting her own. Those hands, releasing Dru as he dashed across his living room. Too slowly, because Buffy was gone.

Buffy was gone. Asleep. But she tossed and turned, plagued all night by scenes from the past.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Spike smiled at Melanie, the girl from the bar. They'd been sitting in the diner, the only place open for food at this hour, for a couple of hours now, just talking. 'Lovely girl,' he thought idly, during a lull in conversation. He'd always thought grey eyes were somewhat chilly, but hers managed to be warm and welcoming, shining with the charming personality he'd been discovering over the course of the evening.

When she left him to go to the restroom, he reflected on the night's events. He'd gone to the bar in a rebellious mood, knowing Buffy would be there, but as it was his favorite hangout too, not caring what she thought. Yeah, right, not caring what she thought. Going to make them both miserable, was more like it. He wasn't going to hide from her, he'd thought as he walked to the bar. She'd broken up with him and he was in the right, so she could do the hiding if hiding was required.

So he'd planted himself at the bar and ordered his regular and pretty much tuned everything else out. He was aware of where she was in the room, but he forced himself to ignore her and focus on the liquid haven in front of him. He'd seen his Niblet briefly, but she'd soon gone off to be with that boy she was so taken with lately and left him to his sulk.

He'd had several drinks by time Melanie had apologized for spilling her drink and bought him another, and he'd not thought much of it at first, hadn’t even looked at her properly. 'What's wrong with you anyway, ponce? Pretty girl comes up to you in a bar and you don't even look.' He shook his head in disgust. 'Bloody whipped and you aren't even with the chit anymore.'

He'd thought that would be the end of it, but Melanie laid her hand on his arm and said in that kind voice of hers he'd gotten to like over the past few hours at the diner, "I can see you're having a bad night, but maybe you'd like to forget things for a little while and dance with me?" She continued, "No strings attached, no expectations, just a little dance?" She accompanied it with a smile that was hard to refuse.

If she’d come on to him overtly, he would’ve declined as he’d done many times before. But she was so sweet and hopeful that he'd looked down a moment to think and then thought, 'why not, mate, not like you're doing anything else. Why not have a dance?' Maybe it'd kick Buffy out of his head for a few minutes. Not like anything else did. 'It's not like you're with Buffy, anyway, she said to move on. Said it clearly, didn't she? Right, so, moving on.'

He slid off the stool.

While they were dancing, Melanie spoke next to his ear, "See, better than suicide by bottle at least, no? I haven't stepped all over your feet yet, either. I'm terribly proud, usually I'm a bit of a klutz."

He grinned and laughed at her being dubbed a 'klutz'. She was anything but. She moved smoothly and stepped surely, confident and graceful. She felt good in his arms. Running his hand down along her braided hair, he suddenly wanted to free it and pulled it loose from its braid, mussing it gently. "Should always wear it this way, luv. 'S pretty."

She giggled at him. "Pretty tangled is what it usually is when it's not braided. Such a pain to take care of."

"But still pretty." He replied softly, playing with it. He wondered briefly if he'd been imagining the feeling of being watched. He wondered if a certain set of green eyes were resting on him now. He inhaled the fragrance of the dark head resting on his shoulder and didn't care. Yeah, he didn't care. She smelled wonderful and…different. No vanilla, no fruit, she didn't smell like Buffy, nor anything like the incense and spicy scent of Dru, just a soft floral fragrance that brought back no memories whatsoever. He rested his cheek on her hair and allowed himself to bask in the peaceful unfamiliarity for awhile.

He'd walked to the bar, because he'd planned on getting drunk and not having to drive and she'd come with friends, so they'd ended up walking to the all night diner down the street after leaving the bar, where, surprisingly Spike realized he was hungry. He hadn't been truly hungry in weeks - lost a few pounds too. Pounds he could ill afford. His elderly neighbor had teased him that his cheekbones could currently cut glass they were so prominent. He was hungry now and he made quick work of the burger and fries when it came, stealing a few of hers when his were gone.

She was back.

She sat down and for the first time, looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then she met his eyes. "I live right in town. Would you like to walk me home?"

"'Course," he said immediately. "Wouldn't have you walking home by yourself. 'S not safe, is it?"

"Not terribly, around here. Gets a little better where I live." She brightened. "We affectionately call the neighborhood 'OSAS' for 'One step above slum'."

"Sounds lovely." He laughed. "Can't wait to see the sights."

She smiled at him.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Her apartment was in a slightly better neighborhood. Inside was nice, if a little cluttered. He'd walked her home and she'd invited him in and he was here, standing awkwardly in her living room. She tossed her keys on a nearby table and turned to him. "My roommate must still be out," she said, motioning him towards the couch. He sat.

"Can I get you something? Coffee or…" she trailed off, unsure.

"'M fine," he said. "Thanks."

Settling next to him, she abruptly faced him. "Look, I know you're getting over someone. I know what that looks like. I am too. If you want-"

"Don't know what I want." He rested his elbows on his knees and grabbed his hair with both hands. "'S the problem, innit?"

"Well, all I'm saying is, you don't need to know what you want." She tugged on one of his hands until he looked up at her. Then she kissed him. "No strings, remember? I want to forget too…"

He hesitated a moment, then closed his eyes and kissed her back, running his hands through that soft, gorgeous hair again.

He woke disoriented. For a moment, the feel of soft, silky hair strewn across his chest made him deliriously happy. 'Buffy' he rejoiced inwardly, 'Buffy, Buffy…' Buffy back where she should be, cradled in his arms. Everything was right. Just as suddenly, everything was very wrong. Wrong scent, longer curvier body, wrong…bloody hell, wrong girl. His eyes snapped open and he was blinded by the daylight. He sighed and squeezed them shut again. He wondered what time it was, that it was so bright.

Melanie mumbled something and woke, looking up at him with a wry smile. "I'd hope you could open your eyes. I'm not that terrible to look at, am I?"

"No, pet. 'Course not." He rubbed a soothing circle on her shoulder. "'S just…"

"It's ok, Spike." She pecked him on the lips. "It's ok."

She rose from the bed, unencumbered by a smidgen of modesty and headed towards the bathroom. "If you want to take a shower, that's fine, or if you want coffee, we have some, just needs to be made." She leaned back around the doorframe, "I'm afraid we don't have much in the way of food. Cupboard's kind of bare at present. Doesn't appear my roommate made it back last night, which isn't unusual, so no worries about that."

"No problem, luv. I'm not that hungry." 'Feeling kind of sick, actually,' he thought. "Um, I think I'll just…"

"Head out? Ok." She walked back into view and he kept his eyes firmly on her face. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something on it, quickly. "I'm putting my number and email address in your coat. I've got your email address from last night. I enjoyed hanging out with you and I'd like to do it again sometime…if you want."

She walked over to him and gave him another kiss, longer this time, not disturbed by his reticence.

"Goodbye, Spike." She headed toward the bathroom again.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

'Fuck.' What the fuck had he done? The logic that had seemed so clear the night before, that sane stuff about Buffy not wanting him and telling him to shove off, had evaporated in the light of day and he was left feeling he really had cheated on her. He strode the blocks back to his apartment swiftly, as though he could outrun his mistake.

Soon enough, he was home and that was worse. He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. His hair stuck up in random, wet, white spikes all over his head and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like shit. 'Feel like it too, dontcha mate? Cheated on the woman you love, after all. Doesn't feel too great, does it? Can you forget now? Can you forget that you did just what she said you did, huh? Yeah, made this a whole lot better now.' He wanted to argue with the annoying voice in his head, defend himself, mention that they were broken up, but he couldn't deny the underlying truth of what it was saying; he felt it, so he didn't have the heart. He did wish it would say it a bit softer.

He banged his head against the offending mirror and grabbed some aspirin from the medicine cabinet.

'Work. Gotta call in.' He hadn't been as late as he thought. Despite the bright morning, it wasn't that late and he could still make it in. But he couldn't face her. Not today. He picked up the phone.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Oh, this was bad. Dawn set the phone gently back on the hook. This was very bad. She knew her Spike and Buffy did too and that was the problem. The moment Buffy found out he wasn't coming in today, she'd know what had happened, just as Dawn did. Though Buffy wouldn't have to hear it in his voice, as Dawn had. She wouldn't have to see it in his face as Dawn would when she saw him for lunch. She'd bullied him into letting her bring him lunch to his 'sickbed'. He'd put up a fight, but she'd won in the end, substituting resolve voice for resolve face and not taking no for an answer. She would find out everything then, wasn't going to let him brush her off on the subject today. Yes, she would find out once and for all, what had happened a month ago and what had happened last night while she was at it.

Nothing could be fixed until she knew what she was dealing with. Briefly, she smiled, because they both soooo underestimated her powers of manipulation. She might have been too young to try to fix her parents' relationship, but she wasn't going to let this one go down without a fight. She sighed. If it wasn't too late already, that was. She braced herself to tell Buffy.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy schooled her face into stalwart blankness. She focused on the paperwork on her desk. "Not feeling well, huh? Ok, nothing major is happening today anyway." She congratulated herself on her even tone and wished desperately that Dawn would now depart the office. 'Few more minutes, Buffy, keep it together.' "Did Mr. Wright call about his painting yet? He's having it delivered, but he hasn't specified the address or time. We need to make sure there will be someone there to receive it."

"Yeah, yeah, Buffy, that's a given." Dawn said in frustration.

"Well, could you call him and check up on that?" Buffy asked coolly, her eyes giving nothing away as they met her sister's.

"Yeah, Buffy. I'll call right now." Dawn left. 'Yup, she didn't take that well.'

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy's mother, Joyce, had owned the gallery for years. She'd opened it when she'd moved to Sunnydale after the divorce and considered it her greatest achievement after her daughters. She hosted many fine painters and dabbled in sculpture and rare, interesting antiques on occasion. She'd devoted her life to it and when she died, Buffy couldn't bear the thought of closing it down. Buffy had worked at the gallery for her mother for brief periods off and on since it had opened and knew a little of the workings and clientele. But Spike was the one who saved it. Spike had been working for her mother since he'd been in college. He loved Joyce too, and she'd awakened an interest in art he hadn't realized he possessed.

Gradually, through working there and art and business classes he took at the local college, he'd worked his way up to co-managing the place with Joyce. He had a good eye for up and coming artists and a way with customers that made them visit and purchase often. If it hadn't been for Spike, Buffy wouldn't have been able to keep it profitable. His knowledge and networking proved invaluable, and the business flourished, which was why Buffy couldn't get rid of him. She knew if she did, she'd immediately lose at least half of the customer base, mostly older women, she thought, rolling her eyes. Maybe she'd lose more than half.

She'd briefly hoped to figure out a way to replace him, but the gallery wasn't so profitable yet that she could afford to pay someone what Spike's actual worth was, so she was stuck. She also felt more than a twinge of guilt at the thought of replacing him, since he'd poured so much of his life and energy into building the business up. No matter what he'd done to her, she thought, that just wouldn't be right. She didn't think Joyce would be smiling down upon that decision. She grimaced.

So they still worked together. They still saw each other every day. They were unfailingly polite and professional, as if all emotions stopped at the door. They were a successful team at the gallery, Spike, Buffy and Dawn, no matter what might be going on between them outside of work or who was mad at whom. They were a successful team, yeah, and one of them had not shown up to work today. Buffy laid her head on the desk.

She didn't have to ask herself why he hadn't shown. She knew. She knew as well as he did, that to people who knew how to read him, his every emotion flickered across that sensitive face and through those expressive blue eyes. So, his options were to A) come in and have her know everything instantly while facing her or B) have her know everything because he stayed home and hid.

'Coward!' Her inner voice screamed at him.

'Oh yes, because you've been so adult and understanding in the past, Buffy.' Hmm, were the voices multiplying? There were definitely two involved in the current mental scuffle. 'Great, now I'm isolating the different voices in my head. Wonder if straitjackets come in size 2?'

'Listen, you…you...Voice Two! I've never been anything but professional at work and there's no reason whatsoever he shouldn't be here! I've never brought our fights in here!’ Buffy fought back.

'This isn't a fight, though, and he knows it. This is the end. Can you leave that at the door, too? Can you continue to see him and work with him?' Voice Two was merciless, Buffy thought.

'What do you mean? The end was a month ago. He did a horrible thing. We were ended. I mean, we are ended. The ending happened. We were fine here. Mostly. Fine.' That was the catchword of the week, apparently.

'That was the end for you. Not for him. This is him, having decided that it's finally over, going on with his life…and you're just fine with that?' Buffy was really starting to develop a hatred of Voice Two.

"Yeah." She mumbled aloud. "Just fine," and more tears arrived.

Voice Two left her with one final thought, 'There's something worse that could happen, you know. He stayed before because he loved you. He doesn't have to stay here, he doesn't need you; you need him. He can find a job somewhere else in a heartbeat. He isn't here today. You think he'll still stay? He can't even come in to work. You think he'll stay?'

"Shut UP!" Buffy grabbed her head in frustration. Somehow despite everything, she hadn't thought of the possibility of him leaving her altogether. She hadn't thought of how that would make her feel. She felt empty and sad and very, very alone for the first time in a long while.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

A/N: Well, at least I chickened out on the explicit stuff for this chapter. That's good, right? For that particular scene anyway.

"You don't understand, Bit, it's not that simple." Spike sighed.

"Yes, it is. You didn't cheat. It's that simple. Once she knows it, everything will be fine."

"She doesn't know it and she's not going to know it from you now, Bit. No!" He yelled over her attempt to speak. "She didn't trust me." He paced furiously. "She didn’t listen. She didn’t let me explain. God, I know it looked bad. I know it did, but she didn’t even pause, just cut me out…like I meant nothing."

"You know how she is, Spike. She cuts herself off because she's hurting. She just shuts down. You know that-" Dawn reasoned.

"I do. I know it. But do you know how she ended it that Monday morning at work, Bit? You know what she said? She said, and I quote, 'it's over and we'll never talk about this again' and she wouldn't. I tried." He raked his fingers through his hair. "She wouldn't listen. She walked away every time I tried, usually with a nasty parting shot as she left." He slumped down on the couch next to her. "What does that tell me?"

"She never said anything else? Not all the times you tried to talk to her?" Dawn asked.

"Oh, 'course she said other things. Your sister may say she never wants to talk again, but that's not what she wants, is it? What she meant was, she never wanted to listen to me talk about it again. She's told me over and over since then that our relationship is now strictly professional and that I have no place in her personal life and I know if she could she'd boot me from the gallery as well."

Dawn looked at him sympathetically and didn't know what to say.

"Do you know in all the time we were dating she never said she loved me?" Spike turned his head away from her. "She never once said it. I said it, she knew it, but she never once returned it. That's your sister. Just have to face the fact that she never loved me and now she never will. "

He paused to get himself back under control, and then pawed through the bag she'd brought and looked at her in disbelief. "You brought greasy chicken wings to a sick man?"

Dawn snorted. "Please. No one thought you were sick, Spike. This called for Spike-ish comfort food, not chicken soup."

He sighed again and grabbed one, mumbling his thanks around it.

"What…what about that girl, Spike?" Dawn asked hesitantly.

He carefully set the wing down again. "Really don't want to talk to you about this, Dawn. Any chance of you respecting that?" He met her eyes, seriously.

"You really didn't want to talk about the breakup either, but you did." Dawn paused. "Spike-"

"Dawn," he bowed his head. "What is it exactly that you want to know?"

"Fine. I want to know if you slept with her," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes." One unadorned word, concise and spoken with a calmness he didn't feel.

Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh," she said softly and lost it completely.

She'd known he had. But it was different to hear it and she'd hoped it wasn't true. Dawn thought she could feel all of her insecurities from the divorce rise up and form a lump in her throat. "Don't you love Buffy anymore?" She choked out.

Spike drew her into his arms. "Oh, Bit. People screw up. I screwed up."

"No, you screwed her, "she bit out snidely, "that's the problem. You're going to leave us too. Everybody leaves us, we're-" she was sobbing now.

His arms tightened around her. "'I'm not leaving you. I won't ever leave you. No matter what happens between Buffy and me, I'll never leave you, Dawn. You're my family too. You know that. I love you. No matter what happens or where we are, you call me and I'm there. Promised your mother I'd take care of you, didn't I?" He finished gruffly.

She calmed. "You just don't love Buffy."

He realized again how very young she was. It was easy to forget her age. She was so composed and often wise beyond her years. She was only eighteen and she'd seen several people she cared about leave her in various ways. Bloody hell, her own father had left her emotionally years before he did physically and hadn't exactly been the doting Dad since. She was well-versed in bereavement, his Bit. But she still saw things solely in black and white - a trait of the young. To her, there were no shades of grey, only good or bad. An intense weariness swept over him as he realized he might be pivotal in changing those views.

He looked into the big, teary, blue eyes of his surrogate younger sister and said, "I love Buffy. But sometimes that's not enough. You can't make someone love you back. You can't force someone to trust you or listen to you. Not like I could chain her to a wall until she listened, yeah? And it hurts, it hurts badly when someone you love doesn't believe in you. As I said, people do dumb things when they're lonely and hurt. I was at my lowest point, your sister had said some particularly nasty things just that afternoon after work and I was planning to get pissed that night. I'd halfway succeeded by the time I met Melanie." He paused, "I'm not making excuses here, just trying to explain why I did what I did. You always hurt the ones you love most, Bit, because they're the ones your actions affect most. I'm sorry I hurt you. I guess...I guess it was just so nice to feel wanted for once..." He winced.

Dawn put her arms around him and hugged him back fiercely. "I want you." Then she blushed, bright red, and stammered, "Well, not that way! In the 'I'm your baby sister' purely platonic always want you around kind of way!"

He laughed and tickled her, making her explode into giggles. "Knew what you meant, Dawn, and thank you."

Dawn prodded the wings, "They're cold. Let's heat them back up and eat. Then you're coming back to work, slacker."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I am, am I? Who says?"

"Spike, you can't hide forever and delaying this isn't going to make anything any better. You're coming back with me. "Dawn grabbed the wings and headed towards the kitchen, back to her bossy little self in an instant through the resilience of youth.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Dawn had finally persuaded Spike to come in for the rest of the afternoon and early evening, but when she'd told Buffy, Buffy had decided to take the afternoon off. Whether that was good or bad, Dawn couldn't really decide. On the one hand, there would be more time for them to cool off and the gallery would still be standing, on the other hand, she needed to figure out how to get them to talk at some point and while a blow-up wasn't ideal, it was talking. Well, it might be talking. Or yelling. Or maybe throwing things. Ok, the gallery definitely wasn't a good place after all. She had been hoping the semi-public place status would help rein them in, but she wasn't too sure at this point. Better safe than sorry.

For all that she wanted them to confront each other, her stomach still quivered at the thought of the massive fight to come. She worried that her sister would retreat further into the ice queen act and that Spike wouldn't be able to get over his hurt over Buffy's distrust long enough to explain things properly. She worried that the ripples caused by the events of last night would build into tidal waves in the time they weren't speaking and that those waves would crash into them, destroying everything. She straightened. She would provide a lifeboat and lifejackets and make sure they bobbed to the top eventually. Hmmm, Buffy was so tiny that a pair of floaties or waterwings would probably work for her. She giggled at her horrible analogy and the mental image of her sister in bright yellow waterwings. It would be ok. She would make it ok.

"Hey Buffster, what's going on?" She smiled at her friend's exuberant voice and braced the phone on her shoulder as she looked over the papers for the gallery's latest acquisition.

"Hey Xan, not much. Dead day at the gallery. What's up with you?" Buffy replied.

"Not much. I hear you've got a hot date with Jake tomorrow. He's a nice guy, Buffy. Glad you decided to give him a chance. Anya's already cooking up future double dates. She's all excited about having another couple to do things with."

Buffy groaned. "Xander, we've said like five complete sentences to each other and danced once and you two have us all paired up already."

"Don't panic, Buffy! That's what tomorrow is for. Hey," his voice turned singsongy, "I know where you're going…wanna know?"

Buffy bit her lip. "Yeah, sure, the kind of surprises I get aren't usually of the good. Where are we going?"

"He's taking you to L.A. to dinner and the opera.

"Ok, dinner in L.A. sounds nice, but the opera! Uh, I'm more of a kung-fu, action flick type of girl as far as entertainment goes. Well that and the occasional obligatory sisterly bonding chick flick marathon. I've never been to the opera. Don't they sing in Italian? How will I know what's going on? Why the opera? Wait, isn't he a construction guy like you? Do construction guys go to the opera a lot? I-" Buffy babbled.

"Ok, breeeathe, Buffy. Yeah, the opera. Apparently, he's a fan and I assume he thinks you might like that cultural stuff too because you own that hoity toity art gallery." Xander did his best impression of a high society voice. "Hazards of the job, babe. Stereotyped by your mom's legacy. He didn't ask me. I would've known about the action fighty flick thing. As for construction guys going to the opera, I'll have you know we're a very refined bunch, thank you very much. Actually, he's a little more refined because he's just doing this gig until he finishes his masters in something."

"Masters in something?" Buffy asked dubiously.

"Yeah, um, he told me and I was listening, I really was, but then someone brought in doughnutty goodness and my priorities had to be reassessed."

Buffy smacked her forehead. "Helpful, Xan, helpful. More importantly, what the heck am I gonna wear to the opera? I mean, I have nice stuff, but I'm not sure whether I have anything that says 'night at the opera'. I'll have to go shopping today. Hey, when's he gonna tell me officially what time and where we're going?"

"Buffy, I'm sure he'd love whatever you wore and I think he's going to call you this afternoon. I gave him your cell." Xander laughed. "Hey! Anya's free now. She actually has someone in the shop that she trusts handling the money and leaving alone. She's all on board the Buffy and Jake bus, why don't you ask her if she wants to go do the girly mall stuff with you."

Buffy brightened. "Good idea, Xan. I'll give her a call when we hang up."

"Buffy," Xander said quietly, "How are you really doing? Got a little worried when you rushed out last night. Was Spike bothering you?"

"What? Spike? No…I didn't feel well. That's all. C'mon Xander, I see Spike every day here, it's not like I'm not used to ignoring him and dealing with him only when strictly necessary."

"I can't believe you still let him work with you after what he did." Xander growled.

Buffy sighed, "It's not like I'm letting him work here out of the goodness of my heart, Xan, he helps with the whole keeping the gallery open thing and making that green stuff your girlfriend loves so much."

"You've been running that place for a year and a half now, Buff, you could do it. You don't need him."

"No, I really can't. It's complicated and well…" Buffy floundered. "I have a shopping trip to set up! Fun, afternoon out get all pretty stuff! Oooo maybe we could get manicures and pedicures too, that'd be nice."

"Ok, Buffy." Xander paused. "You know I'm here if you need me."

"Yeah, Xan, I do. Thanks. Gonna go call Anya now." They exchanged goodbyes and Buffy hung up the phone.

o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy threw her hands up in frustration. "Every time I find something I like, it's not in my size. You're so lucky not to be a petite size Anya. I can't find any size twos in the ones I like."

"Hey! It's not like I'm a large size." Anya protested.

"No, no, I mean, all of these dresses come in your size. You're the perfect size."

"Xander thinks so." Anya replied. "He especially likes the size of my-"

"Uh, so find anything yet?" Buffy hastily cut her off.

"How about this one, Buffy?" Anya held up a flowing, black silk charmeuse dress.

"Wow, that's gorgeous. It's a 2?"

"Yes. Go try it on. This is fun, but I don't like to leave the money too long. It might think I don't love it and run away." Anya handed her the dress. She fingered another dress nearby. "It might decide to defect to this store's cash register if I stay here too long. I can't let it do that."

Buffy changed quickly and came out to twirl for Anya.

"Oh my God, Buffy, that's the one. It looks great on you." Anya gushed.

"It does look good, doesn't it?" Buffy turned back and forth in front of the mirror to see it at all angles. The dress had a V-neck that hinted at cleavage, but didn't come close to 'slut'. 'Good for a first date,' Buffy thought. The fabric was gathered a little around her breasts, giving the illusion she had a little more up top than she did. It had wide straps over her shoulders leading to a lovely back that hit just below her shoulder blades. On the sides at the waist, two long silk ties were attached that knotted under her breasts at a point slightly higher than her waist; the ends dangled freely, a little below where the skirt hit at her knees. Buffy loved the way the skirt swirled around her; it made her feel feminine and sophisticated.

"Yeah, this is the one." She said. She was actually bouncing with excitement, having temporarily lost herself in the feeling of accomplishment at finding the absolutely perfect dress. She hugged a startled Anya. "Thank you for finding it!" She saw Anya's surprise and backed away, smiling. "Sorry, shopping high!"

"Ok, I'll take it off and then we can go find some killer shoes to go with it." Buffy babbled happily.

"Killer shoes, ok. Better hope Jake doesn't make you walk anywhere or they really will be killer shoes." Anya eyed the dress and pursed her lips, thinking. "You'll need a black silk shawl or something too, just in case, because you don't want to freeze."

"Check! Shawl and shoes. Oh and maybe a new purse to go with." She dashed back into the changing cubicle.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Back at home, shopping bags in hand, Buffy dropped gratefully onto the sofa. It had been a wonderful afternoon. She'd been able to forget everything in the joy of shopping. She'd found a pair of black, four inch heel open toe sandals to go with the dress. The delicate straps curved gracefully up to clasp her ankles with a tiny, sparkling crystal buckle. Her new purse was a simple, black beaded shell clutch.

She'd spent far too much money, but right now, she didn't care. The gallery was doing well and she wasn't hurting for money. She'd been setting aside most of the money for Dawn's tuition and rarely splurged on things for herself, so the money spent today wouldn't be a hardship. She'd been scrubbed, wrapped and relaxed and she had a beautiful new outfit. She admired the shine of her black cherry polished nails.

She curled up and rested her head on the back of the couch, a smile on her face. For the first time in a while, she felt truly happy and optimistic. Shopping was the only drug for her, she mused contentedly, and she closed her eyes for a brief nap.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

The door chimed softly and Spike looked up. A tall man holding a single rose walked in and over to the desk where Spike stood.

“Hello, may I help you?” Spike asked.

“I’m hoping you can,” the man said with a broad grin, “is Buffy Summers in?

Spike froze. "No," he said slowly, "No, she's not here right now. Was she working on getting something for you?" 'A rose,' he thought, 'how bloody unoriginal can you get? Besides, she likes daisies, but you wouldn't know that, would you mate?'

Jake shook his head. "No, I'm a friend."

"I'll be sure to tell her you stopped by, Mr. - what was your name?" Spike asked.

"Jake. Jake Morgan." Jake replied. "Don't bother. I'll call her on her cell. I thought I'd surprise her, but I guess that's a bust. I'll see her tomorrow anyway. Thanks!" He said on his way out the door.

"You'll see her tomorrow, will you," Spike said to the empty gallery. "Well isn't that bloody fantastic."

"Customer left already? I heard the bell." Dawn came out of the back carrying a wrapped package.

"Not a customer. A Jake. Looking for your sister." Spike turned on his heel to face her, "Know anything about that?"

Dawn fidgeted. “Uh, she might’ve mentioned something earlier today.” She set the package behind the desk. “He’s Xander’s friend.”

Spike stepped closer to her. “So you do know something. Xander’s friend, huh, taking time out of his busy day to stop by and see Buffy because…?”

“Becausethey’regoingonadatetomorrow.” Dawn mumbled.

“What was that? Didn’t quite catch it.” Spike leaned in towards her.

“Oh, this is stupid. BECAUSE…THEY…ARE…GOING…ON…A…DATE!” Dawn said, loudly and slowly and shoved him lightly in the chest to back him off.

“Well, isn’t that neat. Hiding anything else swept under the rug there, Dawn? A husband and five kids maybe? Nasty drug habit? Secret long-lost twin, perhaps?” His voice rising, he said, “And you didn’t mention this, WHY?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dawn snapped back, getting in his face, “Maybe because I was busy talking about who YOU ‘dated’,” she imbued this word with all the scorn she could muster, “LAST NIGHT!”

Spike massaged his temple and leaned back on the desk. “Right, ok, point made. Sorry for yelling. Care to spill now?”
Dawn considered staying angry for a split second, but decided that wouldn’t be productive. Besides, he seemed to have returned to the land of the sane for the moment.

Dawn ticked off the things she knew on her fingers. “Met him at the bar last night. Xander’s friend. Date tomorrow. All I know.”

“Yeah.” Spike seemed at a loss for words, “Must like him, going on a date and all.”

Dawn sighed. “Spike, she doesn’t even know him. Xander introduced them. They’ve spoken a few words to each other and danced once. Right now, he’s an excuse for a shopping trip—” she stopped abruptly.

“Likes him enough to buy a new dress, huh. Bloody fantastic.” He repeated to himself. “Girl’s got a closetful of clothes, but no, none of them good enough for this ponce.”

“Spike, she didn’t think she had anything to wear to an opera, that’s all.” Dawn said, “She told me so on the phone earlier when she said she was taking the afternoon off. She uh,” Dawn hesitated, “took the day off tomorrow too. Long-ish ride to L.A. and they’re having dinner first so…”

“Oh fine, she meets somebody and she’s too good to work all of a sudden. Run the sodding place into the ground, but wait—” He used his Buffy voice, “no problem! We have Spike; he’ll mind the store while I play dress up and run off to L.A. with some guy I barely know.”

“Spike, get a grip.” Dawn said. “Besides, I think the not coming in tomorrow part is her way of dodging you one more day, not—”

“Yeah, dodging me. One thing she excels at these days.” Spike said bitterly. “Hey, she takes off tomorrow and has the prospect of an entire Spike-free weekend!”

“Also, I wouldn’t talk, Mr. I’m so sick I had to stay home this morning, but really I’m not, I’m dodging my ex!” Dawn shot him a pointed look. “You’re both cowards. You’re perfect for each other. Meant to be. Soulmates to the last. You two are also going to be the death of me, you know that right? You can bond at my funeral and declare your undying love over my coffin. It’s probably not good to get tension headaches at age eighteen, you know? Probably all kinds of stress related damage you’re inflicting on me RIGHT NOW.”

She folded her arms and turned her back on him, but continued speaking more calmly, her voice laced with disdain. “You might care to remember that I am on your side.”

Spike snorted. “You’re her bloody sister; you’re not allowed to be on my side.”

Dawn faced him again. “I’m on her side, too. She just isn’t bright enough to have figured that out yet.”

She reached behind the desk for her backpack. “This was fun and all, and I’m sure we’ll be revisiting it tomorrow, but I need to head home and finish an English paper on a book I haven’t read yet.”

“What book?” Spike asked.

“The paper’s on themes in Yeats. The book’s a collection of poems—”

“No name on this collection, yeah?” Spike laughed.

“Ok, so I haven’t even looked at the title since I picked it up! Thus, the trouble and late night panicky studying and hopefully, if I’m lucky, wee hours of the morning frantic writing.” Dawn made a face.

“And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,
And all the burden of her myriad years.”

Spike put his arm around her. “Know a little Yeats. There’s a bit in that one about warring sparrows, figure that’s your sister and me. Sure you’d get an A with that interpretation. Also, a line about the curd-pale moon and white stars, they’re probably blanching at how late you’re gonna be up.”

She pouted and turned pleading blue eyes on him.

“I suppose, considering you’ve used the time that you haven’t spent on that new boyfriend of yours attempting to mop up the messes created by your sister and me, I could be persuaded to help you out.”

Dawn scowled at him. “Be persuaded to help! You ought to be down on your knees begging to write the damn thing for me, with all the trouble you two have been lately.”

Spike freed his arm to applaud her. “Oh, well done. Nice try. Tell you what,” he fell to his knees dramatically and grabbed her hand in both of his, “Please Dawn, please allow me to help you with your poetry paper in penance for my recent misdeeds that have caused you such grief.”

Dawn couldn’t help it, she giggled. “You’re gonna write my paper then and let me get my beauty sleep?”

He was standing again, with a single lithe move. “Noooo.” He drew the word out and caressed it lovingly. “That would be cheating.” He put his arm around her and started for the door. “I,” he said patiently, “am going to mentor you into writing a brilliant paper of your very own.”

“How do you even know this stuff, anyway?” Dawn asked doubtfully.

“Hey, I went to college. I’m well rounded.” Spike protested.

“Spike, you’re sharp and pointy and anything but well rounded.” She giggled again. “Especially now. You haven’t eaten since lunch, right? Does your penance include a free dinner out for the injured party?” She wheedled.

“Thought you were going to be up forever and we had to start right off!” Spike said.

“It could be a working study dinner!” Dawn amended hastily.

“Yeah, sure, lead on, Bit. Best call your sister and tell her you’ll be spending the night with someone who isn’t me.” He opened the door for her and they headed out.

“Good plan. You know you need a new couch, yours is too lumpy. I think the penance should include you sleeping on the couch and letting me…” Her voice trailed off in the distance as they walked down the road.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy woke up in darkness. “What the-” She rubbed her eyes and sat up. ‘What time is it?’ She turned on the light and looked at her watch. ‘10 o’clock! How on earth did I sleep that late? Dawn was supposed to be home hours ago.’

She wandered into the kitchen groggily and poured herself a diet coke. She noted that the refrigerator now contained one additional can of diet coke and two expired non-fat yogurts.

‘Time to hit the grocery store,’ she thought, ‘Guess we’ve been eating out a little much lately.’

She searched a little more and unearthed a lone granola bar in an otherwise empty box in the cupboard.

“Ok, what’s wrong with you?” She asked the granola bar. “Dawn systematically scarfs down everything edible in the house and you’re left untouched?” She peered at it suspiciously and more closely and, “Oh, you’re that flavor she hates. That’s alright then.”

Peeling the wrapper off, she munched on it somewhat testily, noting the lack of blinking on the answering machine side of the room. “I’m going to have to kill her. I’ve told her she has to…oh,” There was a notepad on the machine. It was blinking after all, just covered up. However, it was not the friendly, helpful, ‘I have a message’ kind of blinking, more the ‘you lazy girl you forgot to delete the messages as you went along and now I’m completely full and how do you expect me to function properly if you don’t free up any room for new messages’ rapid jittery blinking.

“Great. Wonder who else tried to call.” Buffy deleted a few messages and considered going through all of them. There were still one or two mixed in from her mother and she didn’t want to delete them by mistake. ‘Have to get those off of there,’ she thought and made an executive decision to worry about that later.

“Ok, so the machine is full. If Dawn were going to be late, she’d then leave a message on my cell, which is…” She found it in her purse in the living room. “Off! Of course.”
She dialed in and got Dawn’s message. She also got a message from Jake telling her when he’d be by to pick her up and what the plan was.

She moped for a minute. Since she’d slept away the afternoon and early evening it was unlikely she’d be able to get back to sleep for any length of time. She resolved to try.

She went to the bookcase and found the most sleep inducing tome her mother had owned. She could swear the first fifty pages described the surroundings and the clothing each character wore down to the buttons, this before anyone spoke a single word. ‘Yeah, that’s the stuff. Need some strong literary sleeping mojo tonight.’ Book in hand, she climbed the stairs.

Buffy's hands hovered over her jewelry box in indecision. She stroked one of the flat black velvet boxes sadly. She didn't have much good jewelry. Her mother's tastes ran more to the artsy and funky than simple and sophisticated. The only pieces she had that would go with her dress lay in those boxes. 'It's just jewelry' she told herself, 'they're just things, and they're my things, no reason I shouldn't wear them, not really,' she persuaded herself.

She opened the first box. When she and Spike had had their first successful show at the gallery, he'd bought this for her to commemorate it. She touched the pendant with a fingertip. It was a round diamond set in platinum on a fragile chain. Twining around the diamond was a delicate platinum vine bearing tiny flowers. She'd never seen anything like it. It was her favorite thing. She freed it from its resting place and fastened it around her neck. She missed the kiss he'd plant on her neck when he was finished clasping it for her. 'It's just a thing,' she thought again firmly, 'just a thing that I like and am going to wear because it looks good on me.'

God, did everything have to be a reminder? She opened the other boxes and removed the matching earrings and slender bracelet and put them on too. Those had been birthday and Christmas gifts, respectively. She peered at her reflection critically. Yes, they looked good. The small amount of sparkle they added was just right and they went with the tiny crystal buckles in her shoes.

'Shoes, right.' She sat on the bed and bent down to slip the heels on. Carefully fastening the straps around her ankles so she didn't mar her nails, she turned them this way and that and the crystals winked up at her.

She was ready. She grabbed her shawl and purse and went downstairs to await Jake's arrival.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

The trip to L.A. had been uneventful and pleasant. Buffy had learned quite a bit more about Jake along the way. The mystery masters degree was in Computer Science. He was working in construction while he was in school even though he could've gotten a job in his field because he said he feared it would be the last time he wasn't trapped at a desk in a cubicle. He wanted to savor the sunshine while he could and he enjoyed the manual labor, he said it cleared the mind.

She enjoyed the results of the manual labor, that's for sure. She eyed him appraisingly. The man looked damn good in a suit. 'Well, maybe a little bulky,' she thought truthfully. Cordelia flitted across her mind and she wondered how she was doing in New York. 'I should give her a call,' she thought, 'I haven't talked to her in ages.'

Cordelia could appreciate this salty goodness. Willow was slightly less satisfactory for all things ogling men and Anya tended to be more blunt than Buffy liked, always speculating about other areas of their anatomy and asking whether or not performance could be guessed at by evaluating various features . Anya spoke loudly, too. When people were around, Buffy usually ended up bright red and mortified, peeking through her fingers to see if there were any children around whose young minds had just been warped. Dawn was completely out of the running for discussing the good points of anyone not Spike.

She sighed inwardly. She didn't know what she was going to do about that. She knew it would break Dawn's heart when she realized they weren't ever going to get back together, but she didn't know what to do to ease the blow. Dawn was under the misguided, but well-intentioned delusion that everything would work itself out and her little family would be magically restored. Buffy wanted to dwell in denial land a little longer on the problem of her sister, so she pushed that aside and refocused on the man driving.

She thought it was both clever and somewhat daring of him to take a first date to somewhere hours away, trapping them in the car and forcing them to make conversation for that amount of uninterrupted time. Personally, she'd always thought a movie was a safe bet. A little time to talk before the movie and the certainty of being saved by said movie should the conversation be stilted or run off the rails.

He'd won his bet, though. They spent the hours mostly filling in the blanks for each other and sitting in comfortable silence the rest of the time. She liked a man who didn't mind the natural breaks in conversation and could sit at ease, humming along with the radio. Not like some people who tended to talk too much and keep her on edge with snarky comments that begged responses. No, her brain didn't have to race to keep up with Jake and rapidly form attempts at witty comebacks, conversation just flowed along smoothly and unhurried.

She didn't miss that.

She didn't.

His taste in music was inoffensive too. No jarring punk played at eardrum bursting decibels here. No one was shouting along tunelessly to the lyrics and punching a fist in the air all while simultaneously slamming the musical preferences of the other passengers in the car.

She sat, in the nice car, with the nice man and the nice music and told herself how nice it all was. 'Yeah, nice is good.' She thought. 'Nice and normal and…good.' She tapped her heel idly and looked out the window at the scenery.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Spike paced the length of the gallery restlessly. He was alone. Dawn had her class. They'd gotten the paper written and he thought she'd do reasonably well. He'd had customers in the morning to distract him, but now there wasn't anything going on and his excess energy was driving him mad. Everything was taken care of for the moment. He'd already processed the few web inquiries he'd gotten during the day.

He threw himself behind the desk. Maybe there were more. He needed something to do. Oh good, new mail.

He clicked it and saw that it wasn't an inquiry or order at all. Melanie had written asking him if he wanted to go for coffee or see a movie. Her roommate was out of town and she was left at loose ends for the night. He sat back in the chair. He did feel rotten about how he'd run out on her yesterday. Buffy was out on her date, at this he winced, and Dawn had one with Steve, all he had to look forward to was hours of ignoring the obvious.

He tapped his fingers on the desk. 'Yeah, ok, maybe go out for pizza or something,' he thought. That wasn't romantic in the least and he could apologize for his behavior. No alcohol at the pizza place either. He could explain that he wasn't over his ex and he wasn't looking for any repeat attempts to forget her. Make everything very clear. He could do that. The gallery was closing at 6pm anyway because foot traffic in their part of town wasn't high after that hour on Fridays. Anything was better than lying at home staring at the ceiling for the remainder of the night.

He dialed her cell.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

He was right. The pizza place was agreeably noisy and not intimate at all. Melanie had accepted his apology with a wave of her hand. She told him he'd been perfectly honest with her from the beginning and she wasn't ready to start anything new either. So they ate and talked and it was surprisingly comfortable.

"I could kick your ass at that," she laughed. "My brother got that game a month ago and I beat him constantly."

"You could not! I've had that game a week and I can already beat all the computer opponents. It's not even a challenge anymore. Your brother could be really bad at it, you don't know, could mean nothing that you win." Spike protested. "Dawn's pretty good and she can't stay in a game with me longer than a minute."

"Wanna bet? Put your money where your mouth is. Betcha fifty bucks I can pummel you into the ground. Best out of ten, say?" She laughed.

"You're on. Your money's mine, Missy. We'll just pay up and get out of here so I can collect my winnings."

"You are so dead." She grabbed her purse and stood to go.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy had enjoyed the opera more than she thought she would. The music was beautiful. Jake had told her his love for it came from his mother. She'd taken him from the time he was a boy and he'd grown to appreciate it.

Buffy was relieved to see the English translation projected above the stage allowing her to follow the story. 'Figures that it'd be about a philandering jerk,' she thought. 'That theme seems to be haunting me lately.' She perked up, 'Oh well, at least he ends up in hell. That's something.'

The audience filed out and they moved along with the crowd. Jake went to collect their coats.

"Sunshine!" A voice trilled sweetly, coming from nearby. "So…interesting to see you and at a cultural event, too."

She recognized that voice. She turned towards it, dreading what she already knew she'd see.

Drusilla smirked at her. She looked incredible, in a red dress with a dramatic neckline, leaning on the arm of some handsome boy toy. 'She must be off the drugs,' Buffy thought, 'and back in Daddy's good graces.' She was still thin and pale, but she’d lost the emaciated, frail look she’d had at her worst and she was speaking coherently. Dru had at one point pawned or sold all of the jewelry she'd received from her parents to buy drugs, yet now huge rubies glinted from her neck, ears, wrists and fingers.

“Dru,” she said softly but with a hint of steel in her voice, “you know I don’t want to talk to you. We can just turn politely and forget we ever saw each other.” She started to do just that.

Dru patted the arm of the man she was with. “Be a good boy and get the coats.” As he went off obediently, she moved into Buffy’s path. “Now, now, Sunshine, no need to be so rude and run off, didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s impolite to turn your back on someone?” She cooed, “After all, we’ve known each other practically forever, can’t we spend a few minutes catching up?”

‘Ok, she may not be on drugs, but she’s still a lunatic.’ Buffy stared at her in disbelief. “Dru, you slept with my boyfriend. That doesn’t bode well for peaceful reunion chatter.”

"Well, he was my boyfriend first, you know, technically." Dru pointed out logically.

"Ok, I am so not doing this. This is insane. YOU are insane. What do you want, Dru? You want to crow over the fact that he cheated on me with you? Fine, consider it done. Is there anything else that you could possibly want?" Buffy snapped. "You want to chat about Spike, now? Little comparing notes?"

"Such a stupid girl you've always been. You let my Spike go, as was right," she pouted, "but he wouldn't stay. He wrecked everything."

"Yes, Dru, he did wreck everything. Unlike you, I don't like to share my men. Usually I'm a happily generous sharer of stuff, but not my boyfriend." She glared at her. "You can have him now, though. I'm really done with him. Wait—" She grabbed Dru's bony arm then forced herself to let it go and change tack to a sympathetic confiding tone, as best she could manage. "Why don't you have him, anyway? I mean, two scorned women, same rotten man, talking amongst ourselves, we can relate, right? I mean all grrr, men are pigs and bonding over badness stuff..." She held her breath and gritted her teeth and hoped her false camaraderie held.

Dru laughed outright at her. "Silly Sunshine, you let him go for nothing. I knew you would." She frowned prettily. "But nothing went right after that." With those ominous words, she floated off to her escort and right out the door before Buffy could chase her down and shake her and make her tell her what she meant. 'Damn Dru and her drug-addled brain.' But she had a sinking feeling she knew the gist of what Dru was saying. 'Oh God.'

The ride home was hell. Buffy was quiet and she told Jake it was because she was tired. She also told him that she'd had a wonderful evening, which she had, until her life had fallen apart after seeing Dru. She wanted to scream at him to drive faster. The car proceeded along at its mellow, consistent five miles above the speed limit pace driving her absolutely crazy.

The music that had been inoffensive before seemed insipid and not at all suited to her current mood. She'd bitten her lip and her palms bore deep half moons where she'd dug her fingernails in to keep from snapping at poor Jake to speed up. They were also the visible signs of her struggle to keep her composure. She felt all of these panicky feelings welling up deep inside her and desperately she kept her finger in the dam, holding the flood away by a fingertip. She knew it had to burst soon.

She still didn't know the whole story, but she now knew that what she thought she'd seen wasn't necessarily what had happened. She desperately needed to find Spike and listen to what he'd been trying to tell her. 'Damn Drusilla for being so cryptic, hell, just damn Drusilla period.' She thought furiously. All she knew was that she was hours away from Spike and she needed to get home NOW.

By the time they reached her house it was 1am in the morning. She said her thanks and goodbye to Jake and tried to appear normal. He was such a nice guy, she felt awful that he wasn't the guy for her. She didn't do the polite thing and invite him in for coffee, because she didn't want to waste another minute.

As soon as he had gone, she grabbed her car keys and ran out of the house. She forced herself to drive as safely as she could to Spike's apartment. Getting pulled over would only cause further delay.

Thank goodness she hadn't returned his keys. She let herself in the door of the building and raced up the stairs in her four inch heels. But when she got to his door, she paused uncertainly. Would he be asleep? Should she go home and wait until morning to talk to him? She felt the confidence leaching out of her. She still didn't know what the situation was, maybe he would be angry if she woke him. Maybe he was so upset at her he wouldn't want to explain now.

She straightened. No, after all, he'd still hurt her recently even though she'd hurt him first, it now seemed. They had to get this out in the open, once and for all. She had her hand raised to knock when she heard his unmistakably loud laughter.

She had no shame. She put her ear to the door. "Oh baby," she heard him say loudly and then something unintelligible followed. A peal of feminine laughter joined his.

She put her hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears as she backed away from his door. 'Oh God, oh God, oh God…' She ran.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Spike dropped the controller and stretched his fingers. The fifty dollars had gone back and forth several times. She was pretty good after all.

"Ha!" Melanie said. "Gotcha good that time! You're 4 games down now, you're going down!"

Spike laughed. "Oh baby, you ain't seen nothing yet!" She laughed as he grabbed the controller with renewed purpose.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

When Dawn got home at a quarter to two, she saw Buffy's light on. She rapped at the door and opened it to find her sister, still fully dressed with her shoes on, curled in a fetal position on the bed, tearstained and surrounded by a mountain of tissues.

"Oh my God, are you ok? Did he hurt you? What happened?" Dawn rushed to Buffy.

"Spike," Buffy sniffled. "It's Spike."

"What's Spike? Spike's hurt? What's going on?" Dawn asked frantically.

"Oh Dawn, I think I might've ruined everything." The details of the evening poured out in a rush. "…and then I heard…I heard…he's got that girl there again." She hiccupped and started crying again.

"No, he doesn’t, he can't have her there. What are you talking about?" Dawn said, frustrated. "And Buffy, if you'd have just let him explain sooner, none of this would be happening now."

"I know," she sobbed. "I know it, I don't know what happened, now I probably never will but I think I messed up and now it's all over and he's got someone else and…"

"Ok. Buffy. Stay." Dawn commanded. "Don't move. Stay right there. I'll be back."

"Noooo. Dawn you can't. He's got her there, it'll be horrible, and it’ll be embarrassing. I can't-" Buffy choked out.

"Buffy, I said stay there." Dawn grabbed her purse and Buffy's keys and dashed out of the house.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Dawn stormed up the stairs of Spike's apartment building like an avenging fury. She didn't hesitate as she shoved the key in the lock and threw the door open.

Spike and Melanie looked up in surprise from the couch. "Dawn, what's the matter?"

Dawn addressed herself to Melanie. "Hi, I'm Dawn. I'm sorry, but you need to go now."

"Dawn, what's going on?" Spike demanded. Then he paled. "Is it Buffy? Is something wrong with Buffy? Is she ok? What happened? I swear if that git hurt her I'll hunt him down and-"

"Yes, it's Buffy. She needs you. You're an idiot. I'll explain in the car. We're going to do what I should've done a month ago."

Melanie gathered her things quickly and waved to Spike who didn't notice at all.

"Dawn, you need to tell me what's going on. RIGHT NOW." Spike's jaw clenched. "Is Buffy ok?"

"No. She needs you. So get downstairs and get in the car." Dawn followed Melanie down the stairs and didn't look back to see if he was following her. He was.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

"Well, we're not headed to the hospital; we're going to your house, so Buffy must be ok. What the bloody hell is going on, Bit. Why'd you come barging into my apartment at two thirty in the morning and practically abduct me?"

"You, as I mentioned earlier, are an idiot. To that I could add moron, dolt, dork, dope, imbecile…really just take your pick of the one you like best - or hey - take all of 'em, I'm feeling generous. If you want you can teach me some British synonyms and we can choose from those."

"What are you talking about? Melanie? We were just playing a game…" Spike said.

"Yes, well, Buffy came to see you a little earlier tonight and she heard God knows what and now she's in a tiny, sobbing heap on her bed." Dawn said, "How could you be so stupid, really? Why'd you have her over anyway?"

Spike got defensive, "Dawn, I did absolutely nothing wrong. Buffy was out on a date with, oh right, someone who wasn't me, you were busy and Melanie and I went for pizza and then spent the rest of the time playing playstation. A) Nothing happened and B) even if it had, why would your sister care? She doesn't want me, remember? What, she doesn't want me but she doesn't want me to have anyone else either?"

Dawn abruptly pulled the car over to the side of the road. "Ok, let's get something straight here. Do you want that Melanie girl? You done with Buffy? That's all over? 'Cause if that's the case, then I'll turn around and take you home and leave you alone. But if you want Buffy, this is it. You two need to talk tonight or not talk again, because this is getting ridiculous. So decide what you want, I'll just be over here waiting." She stared grimly out the window.

Spike groaned and put his head in his hands. "Drive, Dawn."

She turned the key and pulled back into the road. She didn't have to ask where she was going.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy was in the dark now. She'd turned off the too bright lights and was in the dark. She didn't think there were any more tears left. It was like the day she'd found him with Dru, but worse because while she had the same horrible, stabbing feeling in her chest, she also had the knowledge that this might've been partially her fault. 'Yeah right, might be partially your fault, Buffy. Could it possibly have been in part due to all the times you told him what scum he was and how he should stay away from you?' Buffy was not happy to have the nagging voice back again. She ignored it as best she could.

There was a soft rap on the door. "You can come in, Dawn," she said.

The door opened. "It's not Dawn, Buffy." Spike hesitated and then came over to sit on the edge of the bed. He left the door ajar a bit so some dim light poured through the crack and he could see her there huddled in a tiny Buffy ball against the headboard, arms wrapped around her knees.

He cleared his throat nervously. Then he looked more closely at her, "Pet, do you have your shoes on? Wouldn't you be more comfortable if you took them off? Here let me," he said gruffly. Moving very slowly, so that she could protest if she wanted to, he took hold of one slim ankle gently and unfastened the buckle. She stared back at him with hollow eyes and a quivering, slightly protruding lower lip. He let the first shoe drop to the ground and undid the second, sending it to join its fellow on the floor. "There that's better." She immediately tucked both feet under her and continued to stare with those big, blank glassy eyes.

"Why are you here?" The question wasn't accusatory, rather faint and somewhat resigned.

"Dawn brought me to talk to you," he replied.

At that, she turned her head away from him. "Oh, great. Dawn brought you on a pity run to talk her future mental patient sister down off the proverbial ledge, right?" She turned back and stared him directly in the eyes. "Sorry she interrupted your evening."

He ducked his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "She didn't interrupt anything important, Buffy. Melanie's just a friend. We were," he rolled his eyes, "stupid as it sounds at present, playing playstation."

"Oh right," she laughed bitterly, "because you always shout, 'Oh Baby' when playing console games with your friends."

He was momentarily amused. "How do you know I don't? I might."

"Spike."

He chuckled, "You had to have come at the absolute worst possible time if you heard something like that. We were-"

She waved a hand at him to stop, "Please, I really don't need to hear what you were doing."

His nostrils flared in irritation and he lost his temper. "For the last time, we were PLAYING A GAME you deaf, stubborn bint."

Her shoulders came back and she raised her head, fire in her eyes. While he was glad to see the hollow look replaced by something else, something told him that what had taken its place was not going to be beneficial to his wellbeing.

Sure enough, in a swift move, she shoved him off the bed and onto the floor, which move succeeded wholly due to the fact that it was entirely unexpected.

"You slept with her, Spike. Last I checked, you don't sleep with your friends. I don't sleep with Xander!" She yelled at him.

"He'd probably love it if you-" she kicked him. "OW! Changed that policy," he said. "Wait, stop." He grabbed her ankle as, enraged, she was about to kick him again. He pulled her down onto the floor with him.

"Ok, now we're going to talk. No kicking, no shoving, no hair pulling and no trying to punch me in the nose. Just talking. For a change, what do you say we give the other person the benefit of the doubt and accept what's said as fact, yeah? Just for the sake of moving the conversation along." He held her firmly against him so she couldn't break free.

She huffed in frustration and glared at him. "Fine. You're all with the talky. You tell me what happened with Dru."

"Do I have to worry about you breaking free and going on the attack again?" He asked her.

She made a face. "No. You're safe for the moment. Talk."

He loosened his grip on her arms and set her down gently beside him.

"I don't know where to start. Do I start with what I knew then or what I know now?" He said.

Buffy rolled her eyes, "You've been trying to talk to me about this for a month and you haven't decided what to tell me yet?"

"I never got past the, 'Buffy, we need to talk' part before! You always ran off!" Spike glared at her.

"Start somewhere. I'm listening now." Buffy said softly.

His gaze softened. "Right,” He gathered his thoughts. “So Dru had been traipsing around Europe with some guy and apparently he got fed up and left her in Paris with no money. She called her father and he said he'd buy a one-way ticket home for her, but he wouldn't give her any more money. He was cutting her off until she went into rehab." Spike paused.

"She didn't want to go back to rehab, so she thought the best option was to find a way to get back together with me. After all, I'd taken care of her for years and I'd loved her, she'd just make me love her again, yeah?” He rolled his eyes. “It seemed like a brilliant idea to her. She was in rehab after we broke up and I guess travelling since then, so she didn't know about you.

"So she used the ticket her father sent her, but instead of going home she came here. I guess either he must've sent her some travelling money or she sold something, I don't know, but she had enough to set herself up in a hotel in town.

"She was going to surprise me.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Instead, she was the one who got a surprise, because she saw us together and figured out that we were dating. Now she had a small flaw in her plan. If I was with you, I wouldn't take her back." Spike got up and started pacing.

"So she had to break us up, somehow. Since she didn't have any better ideas, she started following us around. Sometimes me, sometimes you, hoping an opportunity would present itself. She did this for about a week, she said. I can't believe she didn't get caught." He shook his head. "Dru as an unobtrusive secret agent isn't something I can picture. She also has the attention span of a bloody gnat. I don't know how she managed it. Well anyway, that day she had a stroke of luck." He turned to her.

"Apparently, she overheard you call someone while you were at a cafe, Dawn I'm guessing, and you said you would be by to pick something up and would then be heading to my apartment."

"Yeah," Buffy thought for a minute, "there was a problem with a delivery; the courier only had your name on it for some reason and we needed your signature. They wouldn't release it to me. You were home that afternoon, so I was going to grab the release form after lunch and bring it by for you to sign. They were going to retry at two."

"Ok so, she didn't really have a plan before that, but you know Dru's insane, not dumb. She thought fast. She knew you'd be a few minutes paying and going back to the gallery so..." Spike continued relating the events of the day.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Dru knew she only had about a half hour. It was risky; she had to work fast and for it to work everything had to go perfectly but with a little luck she could manage it. She hurried over to Spike's apartment and knocked on his door. When he opened it, she burst through the door sobbing. "Please Spike," she begged. "I don't know what to do. Please you have to help me. "

"Dru, what's going on? Help you how?" Spying her suitcase beside the door, he groaned. "You can't stay here."

He guided her over to the couch and grabbed her suitcase. No need to give the neighbors a show.

But he couldn't get her to calm down. She made a grab for her suitcase and starting tossing through it, spilling the contents everywhere. She grabbed a bottle of something just as he grabbed her wrist. "Dru, stop it!" The bottle's cap was loose and when she jerked to pull out of his grasp, she splashed most of the contents of it all over him. "Oh, bloody hell, now I reek of whiskey," he complained, looking down at his drenched clothing in disgust. It dripped from his hair, it trickled down his neck, it was all over him. He brushed aside drops heading for his eye.

She looked up at him with repentant eyes. "I'm sorry, my Spike. I just…I needed…"

He sighed.

"Maybe," she said meekly, "you should go take a shower. I'll sit and be good. I won't do anything else. I'll just sit here. Then you can help me when you get out?" She stared up at him sadly.

He eyed her suspiciously. She seemed to have settled down and returned to herself. She just looked pale and tired now, but calmer. "Yeah, ok. I'm gonna go wash this stuff off. You stay there and don't touch anything." He wagged an admonishing finger at her. "I'll be back in five minutes and then we'll get to the bottom of this."

He'd just gotten into the shower when he heard a shriek from the living room. "Bloody hell, Dru, what now." He hastily threw a towel around his waist and rushed out.

He had a split second to realize that she'd stripped to her panties before she threw herself into his arms. He staggered back and automatically grabbed at her to keep her from falling.

Just then a key turned in the lock and the door opened. He registered Buffy's stricken face and realized what it looked like. He let go of Dru and ran after her, but she was already gone. He frantically dialed her cell, but she wasn't picking up. On the third try, the cell started clicking over into voicemail right away. She'd shut it off.

He called the gallery and Dawn answered. "Dawn, when your sister gets there have her call me, or if she won't, you call me and I'll come over." She started to ask questions and he cut her off. "Just do it, Dawn, please." He hung up and dialed Buffy at the house.

The machine was full. "Fuck!" He yelled and threw the phone against the wall.

He rounded on Dru. "Put some clothes on." He growled. "What the bloody fuck is going on here, Dru?"

She cowered and slumped to the floor, huddled against the wall and turning her big sad eyes at him again. "I was hot…" she said weakly.

This time, Spike wasn't falling for it. "You were sodding hot. So you decide to take off all your clothes and…what the fuck was that yelling about?" He took several aggressive steps forward and stopped, not trusting himself to get closer to her. He'd never wanted to hit someone so badly in his life. He stayed a safe distance away. "Why did you yell, Dru?"

"I tripped." She said, pointing to the whiskey bottle, now rolling on the floor. "I tripped and then I fell on that knife." She pointed again, this time to a wickedly sharp knife lying amidst the mess of her belongings.

"Why are you walking around with a-" he started, "No, wait, I don't care."

"I hurt myself." She whimpered and held up her other hand which was dripping a small trickle of blood from a cut on her palm.

He grabbed a shirt from her bag and went over to her, wrapping the shirt around her hand. Then he grasped her shoulders tightly and held her against the wall. "You are going to tell me what's going on, right now, Drusilla." He said in a low, frighteningly calm tone. "Then we're going to figure out what to do with you and I am going to do my bloody best to explain to Buffy what just happened."

"But Spike," tears welled in her eyes.

"No 'but Spike'. The only talking you're going to do is telling me what you've done, Dru. Because I'm finding this far too much of a coincidence that Buffy showed up just then. Because," he continued in the same even tone, "in order to fix things with Buffy, I need to know everything. So talk." On the word talk, he was unable to keep himself from shaking her slightly.

Tears poured down her face, "But you don't need her, my Spike. I love you. We're meant to be together, not you and Sunshine. I need you," she wailed.

He clenched his teeth. "Tell me, Dru." He said again.

"I can't. I won't." She pouted. "My hand hurts and now my shoulders hurt too. You're hurting me," she frowned petulantly and turned her face, refusing to look at him.

He yanked her to her feet and shoved a shirt at her. "Put that on."

She did.

He then picked her up and dumped her back on the couch.

"Comfy?" He asked her. "Now talk. You're not leaving until you do."

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

"So eventually, she told me everything I've told you. She'd watched for you out the window, gave you a few seconds to get most of the way up the stairs and yelled.” He looked disgusted. “I don't know why she thought I'd buy it. I mean, at best, I think she's crazy again and that's not any incentive to take her back," he shook his head in wonder. "At worst, I think she's a manipulative, scheming bitch in addition to the crazy."

"Gee, I don't know, you only did crazy for five years with her! No idea why she'd think you'd put up with that, no sir." Buffy said dryly.

"She wasn't that way when I started dating her, Buffy!" Spike protested. "You know that, you knew her then too."

"Oh, much better, it's obvious you contributed to the crazy." Buffy joked lightly, giving him a half smile.

"Yeah, well," he scrubbed at his hair absently with one hand, freeing more random curls from the gel, "I'm done with crazy." He smirked. "Except for possibly you, of course…"

"Hey!" Buffy threw her shoe halfheartedly in his direction.

"Oi!" Spike ducked and laughed. "What did I say about violence!"

Buffy sniffed. "You said nothing about shoe throwing. It's a loophole."

He laughed again.

"So what did you do with her?" Buffy asked.

"Huh?" Spike looked puzzled for a moment, "Oh, I called her father. I kept her there until he came to get her. I didn't like the thought of that knife, so I couldn't just let her go and go looking for you," his tone deepened. "I don't know what plan B was and I don't want to think about it. I told him if he didn't get her locked up somewhere, I'd go to the police and have her prosecuted for stalking, breaking and entering, assault…anything I thought I could pin on her."

"She's out." Buffy said quietly.

"She's what?" Spike strode back over to her. "She's out and you know this how?"

"I saw her tonight," Buffy said, "at the opera."

He strode back to her and dropped to his knees. He cupped her face in his hands. "God, Buffy, if she'd-"

"She didn't. She said her typical wacky, cryptic things. I think she's off the drugs though, she was pretty coherent." Buffy said.

"Is she why you came to talk to me tonight?" Spike asked.

She looked into his eyes. "She said something that made me think I'd been horribly wrong and I needed to get back here and fix it." She slid her arms around his back and when he dropped his hands she rested her head on his chest.

"I'm so sorry, Spike," she whispered softly.

He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply the sweet smell of her shampoo. Was it melon? Maybe.
He never had pinned it down. It mixed with the soft vanilla fragrance of her skin and he was lost again in the scent that was uniquely hers. "Where did you go?" He asked hoarsely. "I tried to find you. Couldn't."

She sighed. "I went to Xander's."

Xander opened the door to his apartment. He saw Buffy on the couch wrapped in his mother's hideous afghan, the only remnant from his old basement apartment at his folks' house. 'Cozy.' he thought fondly his mind wandering, he loved that afghan, so comfy and…stupid post-work brain. 'Buffy. Buffy's sad.'

Buffy had her arms folded on her knees and her head down, her long blonde hair spilling over onto the bright neon colors of the blanket.

He walked slowly over to her. "Hey," he sat down next to her. "What happened?"

She raised her head and he saw that her eyes were red and swollen and her face was blotchy with tears but the crying had stopped. "Spike happened. Well, Spike and Dru happened." Her mouth twisted. "Bad things happened."

He leaned over to her and hugged her and the afghan fell away from her bare leg revealing a huge bruise forming on her shin. "Buffy, did Spike do that?" He asked in alarm.

"What? No." Buffy said. "I'm an idiot. I ran out of there so fast I wasn't watching where I was going and I ran into something. No, Spike just ripped out my heart and stomped all over it."

"Buffy, again I gotta ask...what happened?" Xander asked.

She rubbed at her eyes wearily. "I had to go there. I had papers. I-" her voice was so low he could barely make out what she was saying and what he could hear wasn't clearing things up much. "I walked in on them, Xan."

"Walked in on who? Walked- wait- Spike and Dru?" His voice rose. "Buffy, Dru hasn't been around for years. Are you sure?"

She laughed harshly. "I couldn't be more sure, Xander. You don't get surer than this. He was all naked and touching and...naked and she was all naked and hugging and there were hands all over…I can't talk about it. Just know that I am really sure."

Xander rubbed her back. "Buffy, I don't like Spike much, but I just can't picture that."

She pulled away from him. "Well, I don't like Spike much either right now! But I can picture it really well because I just saw it!"

"Wow, Spike and Dru." Xander boggled. "Dru. How could he go for that again now after what she put him through the first time?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm asking!" Buffy sighed. "I don't know, maybe it's the whole first love thing. Maybe you just never get over your first love."

"Hey, I barely remember the girl who used to beat me up and take my lunch money in the sixth grade." Xander said, trying to coax out a smile.

He got a lopsided one.

"He loved her for so long, Xan. He spent five years of his life with her." Buffy said dully.

"Yeah and the last what, two and a half were sheer hell?" Xander shook his head. "Buffy, she was like a vampire, sucking the life out of him. Again, with the obligatory disclaimer that I don't like Spike, I still gotta say I can't believe it. Man, she took everything he had. He was like a hollow hulk of a Spike there for awhile before you and Dawn took him over. I mean that night he found her on the floor, thought she was dead, even I felt sorry for the poor guy."

"Ok, well we're not all with the feeling sorry for Spike right now, Xander." Buffy complained. "Remember? Cheating bastard?"

"Oh, right, right, cheating bastard." Xander said hastily. "We hate Spike. I can do that. Can I be president of the club though, Buff? Because I hated him first. It's only fair. Also, I've never gotten to be President before. I've been Treasurer, but that wasn't nearly as-"

"Xander! Focus! We can decide on the rules and regulations and what the dues will be later!" Buffy said, so irritated it momentarily snapped her out of her mood. She thwapped him in the forehead.

"Sorry, Buffy."

"Xan, can I stay here for the weekend? Please?" Buffy asked. "I can't go home. He'll look for me there. He'll look for me at Willow and Tara's. Oz is out of town again and Faith…ok, I just don't want to stay with Faith."

He brushed a long piece of hair out of her eyes. "Sure, Buffy, you can stay as long as you want. Mi casa es su casa, you know that. Anytime." He frowned. "He'll look for you here, too, you know."

Buffy gave him an almost grin. "Yeah, but you'll lie better than Willow would!"

He laughed. "Yeah sure, lying to Spike. Got it covered. Not a problem." He paused. "What about Dawn, though. You going to tell her where you are?"

Buffy made a face. "No. I can't. She'd tell Spike in a heartbeat. She'll be in class in an hour. I'm just going to leave a message on her cell that I'm ok and spending the weekend out of town."

"You sure you don't want to spend the weekend at the beach or something? I mean, my place is luxurious sure," he waved a hand at his living room, "but it's not a relaxing getaway."

"I'm sure. Going away would require driving - don't say it -" Buffy cut him off before he could start, "and finding a place that isn't booked and interacting with strangers and trying to look like I'm not a basket case. I want to stay here and mope on your couch in peace. Besides," she continued, "a hotel doesn't have warm fuzzies like your place does."

Xander laughed. "Yeah, warm fuzzies that blind you!" He waggled a corner of the afghan at her. "I could drive you if that's the problem…"

"No, I want to stay here." Buffy said. "If it's ok, then I want to stay here."

He hugged her again. "Car keys?"

Her face scrunched up, "Car keys?"

"Yeah, if we're gonna do this subterfuge thing I'd better go move your car to a less conspicuous place," he said. "Right now it screams, 'Buffy's hiding RIGHT HERE, c'mon in!'

She actually giggled, then sobered and said warmly, "Thanks Xander. You can always make me laugh. They're on the hall table."

"I try, Buffster, I try. Now, what's on the Buffy menu for this weekend?"

"Come again?"

"There's a serious shortage of Buffy-approved foodstuffs in my kitchen at the moment and somehow I doubt you can subsist on cheetos and oreo goodness. I'm going to hit the grocery store after I move the car."

"You don't have to do that, I can-" she said.

"What, go out in public and blow your cover? Nah, no big deal. I needed to go out and get some hot pizza to make into cold pizza for breakfast tomorrow anyway. Hey!" He snapped his fingers, "One pineapple and ham pizza coming up. Plus the everything meat special for me and we have ourselves a good sulking party. And-" he raised a finger, "as I said before, it's also a protein and grease laden breakfast food so it's all good."

"Pizza sounds good, Xan. Not that hungry, but I'll have a slice if you get it." She looked down at her fingers, twisting them in the afghan, "Hey, will Anya have a problem with me staying here?"

"Nah." Xander replied. "Plus she's out of town at some New Age merchants' convention. She ran up to L.A."

Buffy stood up and headed to the bathroom. "Ok, good. I wouldn't want to cause any problems or get in the way. I'm going to take a shower while you're out and steal some sweats or something."

Xander bowed, "Mi sweats es su sweats. Back soon."

Buffy stood still, forehead resting against the shower wall, hoping the spray of the shower would soothe away some of her tension. 'Spike and Dru,' she thought again sadly, closing her eyes. With Xander's exit, the meager amount of warmth in the vicinity had abruptly departed. She turned the dial hotter hoping to dispel the chill eating away at her. She hoped Xander would hurry back.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

"That bastard!" Spike swore. "He told me he hadn't seen you."

"Well, yeeaaah." Buffy said. "What part of, I asked him to lie, did you not get?"

"Yeah, but he's known me for years too." Spike said.

"And most of those years you referred to him as "whelp". Who's he going to help?" Buffy laughed.

"He called me Dead Boy." Spike grumbled.

"Blame your delicate English complexion for that." Buffy yawned.

"You're tired, pet. I'll go. We can talk more tomorrow, yeah?" Spike started to get up.

"Wait." Buffy tugged at his arm. "Would you…would you stay?" Her eyes were big and dark in the dim light. She continued hurriedly, "just to sleep. Just to hold me. We'll do the rest of the fighting tomorrow. There's still more to talk about," Spike cringed a little at the return of that fiery glint in her eyes, "but for now could you just stay?"

He kissed the top of her head and got up. She looked up at him, stricken. He ran his hand over her hair lightly, "Have to go tell the Bit to stand down. Get dressed for bed and I'll be back in a minute."

She looked dazed, like an exhausted child, the night's stresses having caught up with her and she nodded.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

She was already asleep when he returned. He slid under the covers behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She stirred, "Missed you," she murmured.

"I missed you too, luv." Spike closed his eyes.

Spike woke first, little wonder with Buffy's level of exhaustion the night before. He stared at the golden head on his chest for a few minutes, reveling in the feel of her small body cuddled against his. He lay there thinking about the previous day's events and the conversations to come.

She turned her head and her hair fell back revealing the earring he'd given her. A warm surge of affection shot through him at the knowledge that she was wearing them. He hadn't seen her wear them since that afternoon with Dru. This was right. Buffy in his arms, wearing things he'd given her, sleeping peacefully. They had problems to work through, but this was right. Ever impulsive, a thought came to his mind and he acted on it.

Looking at the bedside clock, he saw it was early yet. She wouldn't wake for hours, not if he knew his Buffy. Dawn and their other employee had the weekend shifts at the gallery, so there was no need for her to get up. He kissed her hair and gently slid her onto the pillow next to him. She shifted position a little and settled back to deeper sleep.

He quickly scribbled a note and slipped out of the room. He had things to do.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Buffy woke late. She eyed the clock blearily. 'Noon.' she registered. 'Wow.' She shook off her dreamlike state and suddenly remembered the night before and sat up. 'He's gone.' She thought sadly. He didn't stay.

The note caught her eye and she unfolded it.

'Back soon, love. -Spike' was all it said.

Soothed, she stretched lazily and reached for her bathrobe. She felt surprisingly good. She expected it was from the catharsis of the night before. 'See, Buffy, talking is goooood.' She flicked at the mental voice with a cranky hand. 'Time for a shower.' She thought. She really wasn't a morning person.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

An hour later, somewhat refreshed and caffeinated, she was sitting in the living room with a fresh mug of coffee when he arrived.

'He looks incredible,' she thought. His blue eyes were sober and held a hint of wariness, but his body was relaxed and she thought he looked at ease for the first time since they'd broken up.

"Hey," she said. "Where'd you get off to?"

"Had some stuff to take care of this morning, couldn't wait." He said, coming around the coffee table to sit next to her.

"Oh," she stared into her coffee. Silence fell and lingered.

"Well…this is harder in daylight isn't it?" She said softly, finally.

"A bit." He grimaced. "Be able to see how mad you are at me. That won't be fun."

"Not mad," she said quietly. "More sad than mad." He flinched. She turned to him. "Ok, I believe you about last night. I believe you that nothing happened. But something did before, right?"

"Yeah," he said, matching her tone, "yeah, it did." He looked away. "Wish it didn't, if that means anything."

She remained calm. "Why?" She asked simply.

He knew she wasn't asking why he wished it hadn't happened. He paused. "Because I was sad. Because I was lonely and angry. Didn't mean for anything to happen… it just did."

She was silent for a moment and then she said, almost too low for him to catch, "Because of what I said."

"Yeah, maybe." He ducked his head. "Because of what you said that day."

She put the mug down and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. "I'm sorry."

She held his chin for another moment longer before letting her hand drop and she asked somewhat shakily, "Do you think we can we get past this? Can we forgive each other and just go back to normal?" She held her head as though it ached. "Can that happen?"

"I can," he said. "I'm still mad at you, but I can't say what I'd do if I walked in and found you and your ex all naked and snuggled up comfy-like, so I can understand why you got so upset." He shook his head, "Can't understand why you refused to talk to me. I'd've been in there screaming, if it was me," he grinned at her and then continued, "if you can promise me you'll always at least give me the chance to say something in my own defense. Uninterrupted!" He clarified and shook a finger in her face teasingly. "I can. The real question is, can you?"

Everything ran through her head at once, leaving her thoughts jumbled and uncertain. "You must've liked her. That's not like you. You've never," she stopped. "You don't do things like that, at least that I know of."

"No, I don't."

"You like her then?" She asked again. "It was because it was her?" She resumed staring at her coffee mug on the table.

"Yeah, I like her. She's nice." He looked at his folded hands in his lap. "She was sympathetic."

"Right. Get to talk all about that bitch who left you, huh?" She said bitterly.

"Wasn't like that, Buffy."

"Would it…could it ever happen again?" She said. "If you were mad at me and-"

He took her hands gently. "No, Buffy. It couldn't." His so blue eyes stared intently into hers and she could see the honesty there. "Never."

She knew if they were to have anything, she'd have to truly forgive him and not let it fester in her mind, waiting for future arguments to resurface in anger.

She accepted the unspoken apology.

"What if we fight?" She looked seriously at him. "What if we mess it up again?"

His eyes twinkled and his mood shifted suddenly. "Ah, see that's why I have the Buffy management backup plan." He reached behind him and handed her a messily wrapped rectangular box that she hadn't noticed him carry in.

Buffy eyed the paper in amusement. "Wrapped it yourself, did you?" Bright, cheerful smiley faces peppered the blue paper, which was slightly mashed in places and suffered from an abundance of tape. Clear packing tape, to be exact. "At work, it seems." Her voice gained strength. "I'm so docking you for the entire roll that's on this box. How you can be such a perfectionist at some things and soooo not at others is beyond comprehension."

"Couldn't find the scotch tape," he defended himself. "Open the bloody box, Buffy."

She actually giggled at him and did her best to rip the thing apart, finally reaching the white box inside. She opened it. "It's…a jar?" It was a clear, deep blue glass jar, about a foot high and a few inches square with a lid wrapped separately in tissue.

"Pretty." Buffy said. "Thanks." She paused. "I don't get it." She looked questioningly at him.

He reached for it and turned it over in her hands. On the other side, in silver ink in Spike's surprisingly elegant script was written, 'Apologies'.

She burst out laughing. She carefully set it on the table and hugged him tightly. "It's wonderful. I love it. How long have you had this? "

"The thing itself?" He shrugged. "A little while. In its current form? This morning."

"You work fast." She looked at it again, sizing it up. "It may not be big enough, though."

He pouted at her. "Oi! I don't need to apologize that often! "

"How do you know I wasn't talking about me?" She grinned.

He raised his eyebrow at her. "See, I figure, it can live in your kitchen and when we're so mad we can't stand to look at each other and we can't swallow our pride and talk things out," He coughed meaningfully, "this'll come in handy."

"Yeah, it's good." Buffy kissed his neck. "It's good."

The door slammed and Dawn walked into the kitchen, where Buffy was standing, drinking a diet coke.

"Hey Buffy," Dawn looked around. "Isn't Spike here?" she asked. "He was earlier when I talked to him. Oh, and by the way…" She flew to her sister and hugged her tightly, conveying wordlessly how she felt about their reconciliation.


Buffy hugged her back. "Yes, he was here, but he went out to get some takeout from that little Italian place." She said. "Do you want me to catch him on his cell and get something for you too?"

"Nah, don't bother. I'm meeting Steve in an hour. We'll get something out." Dawn said. "Hey, what's this?" She pointed to the jar, in its new place on the counter.

"Oh, Spike got that. It's kind of a joke." Buffy smiled. "You know to help us apologize when we can't apologize."

"Oh, no, I knew that. I saw it when he was wrapping it up this morning. No, I meant what's inside it." Dawn clarified.

"Inside it?" Buffy opened the jar and peered in and sure enough there was a small white linen envelope. She took it out and studied it. "Huh, that wasn't there before." She opened it and read the card inside.

"Meet me at the gallery at 7. Dress for dinner. -love, Spike"

Buffy looked puzzled. "I'm not sure what this is. Two sentences and a signature. What's he up to now?"

Dawn grabbed the note. "Well, seems pretty clear to me." She looked at her watch. "You'd better hurry. It's 6:15, now."

Buffy shrugged. "Ok, maybe we're having a picnic at the gallery."

"Awwww." Dawn said. "He's in full on romance mode. So cute."

Buffy giggled. "Yeah, he is. Guess I'd better get dressed." She headed for the stairs.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

When Buffy got to the gallery, the door was open, but the sign said "Closed". The windows were dark. She'd had to hurry getting dressed and she'd quickly chosen a shimmery, soft grey silk dress that hit mid-thigh that Spike hadn't seen her in before, silver heels and the black wrap she'd taken with her the night before.

She pushed the door open. 'Dark,' she thought. 'Where are you, Spike?'

As if on cue, a lighter flicked and its flame was touched to several candles, bathing the gallery in a soft, warm glow.

"Oh, there you are!" Buffy smiled. "Wow, this is great." A small round table had been set up in the center of the gallery, complete with candles, table settings and a small bunch of daisies. She laughed.

"So this is what you were doing all morning." He still hadn't said anything.

He moved towards her. "Yes. I thought we deserved a more formal reunion. Got the fighting out of the way, maybe we could progress to the making up part?" He slid his hand down her sides, enjoying the silken slide of the fabric and the feel of her body underneath.

"Maybe we could." Buffy smiled at him and leaned up to kiss him.

He held the kiss for a moment and then released her. "Food first!" He said, unveiling a plate of antipasto. "We have this. We have pasta and we have a chocolate torte to finish it." He beamed at her, obviously proud of his surprise.

"You 'done good', sir!" She giggled and sat in the chair he'd pulled out for her. "Wow, you even wore a suit. I can never get you in a suit for anything but gallery events." He was wearing a dark suit with the blue shirt she loved that matched his eyes, but the shirt was unbuttoned at the top, tieless, and the jacket hung open. 'Formally informal,' she grinned to herself.

"Yeah well, special occasion." He grumbled amiably. "Wine?"

"Please," she said.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

They ate and drank and fed each other bits of the torte and all the while they talked. Buffy felt the tension of the last month slip away in the comfortable familiarity of his company. She held another glass of wine to her lips and took a sip.

"So," Spike said. "I put the note in the apology jar for a reason."

"Hey, how'd you know I'd notice the note? You could've been sitting here forever." She giggled.

Spike smirked. "I have my ways."

Buffy laughed as the realization, quite literally, dawned on her. "You had an accomplice."

She took another sip of wine.

"So there was a reason the invite was in the jar? You've done something you need to apologize for already?" Buffy asked, amused.

"Well, kind of." He pulled his chair over next to hers. "See, I meant to give you this a long time ago, but I never found the right time. So tonight I brought you here, to the business we built together, to the place your mother loved so much that if there's anywhere she's keeping tabs on, it's here." He paused and then continued."It's sort of an apology for not giving this to you sooner." As he said the word "this" he handed her a small, black velvet box.

Buffy's eyes widened as she took it. "Spike…" She started to say.

"You promised you'd listen to me, remember? Uninterrupted." He shushed her. "I'm calling that in." He paused to take a deep breath. "This isn't an engagement ring," He said and noted the faint trace of disappointment in her eyes with satisfaction. 'Well, that's a good sign, mate.' He thought. "Yet."

Buffy looked puzzled and she frowned. "Yet? What are you talking about Spike?"

He nodded and continued, "Gettin' to that. I know if I were to propose to you tonight, you'd say no." He saw her fiddle with the box nervously and she looked down at it and away from him.

"It's too fast, Spike." She said softly.

"Yeah, nine years of knowing you and of those, nearly three years of…what?" He laughed. "Hanging out and unofficially dating? How we managed to unofficially date for that long is beyond me, anyway. That's YOU, missy." He sobered again. "Yeah, so nine years aside, I knew you wouldn't be ready for that yet." He switched gears swiftly as only he could and joked, "Not sayin' I wouldn't like it if you were, figure it'd be harder to run away if you're all legally bound and such. You'd have to talk to me then!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Spike, I managed to avoid talking to you fairly successfully every day for a month while we worked side by side and you think a little piece of paper is going to help?"

She looked at him, "So, what is this, then?"

He grinned back at her. "Ah, see that, luv, that's for me-"

"I thought it was for me!"

"Hush, you." He laughed again. "That's a promise of an engagement. That's something that hopefully, you'll agree to wear…on your right hand, until a certain day arrives."

"I'm still lost." Buffy said, frowning. "What day are you talking about?"

He got suddenly serious, "Buffy, you don't need to say it now, but I do need to know it. I want you to wear that ring for me. I love you," he caressed her cheek gently, "and I'll stay with you, but I am hoping that someday soon you'll be able to say that back to me and maybe move that ring to your left hand, where it's meant to go." He looked down at the box. "Where I bought it to go. Open it."

Buffy opened the box and saw the ring that went with the other jewelry he'd given her. Her eyes filled with tears. "You've had this-" she said softly.

"I've had this since I bought the others, yeah. Matched set, had 'em made at the same time." He took it from the box.

"You've known that long?" She asked him, still teary-eyed.

"Buffy, I've known a very long time." He gazed at her earnestly. "May I put it on?"

She nodded, tears still glistening in her eyes as he slid the ring on her right hand. She clasped his hands in hers and leaned over to kiss him, at first softly and slowly, then hungrily, hands sliding underneath his suit jacket.

He slid his one hand up her smooth thigh, relishing the soft satin of her skin under his fingertips, far more pleasing to the touch than silk she wore. His other hand found the zipper at her back and drew it down slowly and he lifted the delicate dress over her head. She stood before him in nothing but two scraps of fragile white lace.

He stared at her for a moment, as she stood against the backdrop of the paintings, their brilliant colors muted, becoming something softer and more intimate in the flickering light. Candlelight shimmered in her hair and eyes and danced over the slender curves of her body. His Buffy...

She put her hands on her hips. "Hello! Standing here almost naked, while you're not!"

Spike laughed. That was his Buffy too. "You're beautiful, luv. I like to look at you." He shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor.

She was already nimbly unbuttoning his shirt. "Off." She tugged at it, smiling. He complied.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

They'd ended up on one of the couches that flanked the walls. He bent his head and licked the salty sheen on her collarbone, trailing kisses along it and up her neck, reveling in the taste of her. He thought perhaps he liked her best this way, hair mussed, lips swollen, skin shining; Buffy with all of her defensive walls down, open and relaxed.

Her eyes widened suddenly. "Hope Mom wasn't watching that!" She laughed, reddening at the thought. "I missed you. I missed this," she said quietly.

"I'm glad you took the ring, luv," he whispered in her ear.

"It's beautiful. I love-" she hesitated, "the ring."

"Yeah," he murmured, "I know you do," he bit her lower lip gently and resumed kissing her.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Two Weeks Later:

Spike sat, relaxed, at a table at the Bronze, sipping a beer and waiting for Buffy to get back from the dance floor where she was dancing with Willow, Tara and Anya. Things were back to normal. Life was good and he was content.

"Hey, Spike," Melanie said, appearing on his left and leaning on the back of the chair next to him. "What's up?" She smiled, "Hope everything went ok that night. It didn't look too good. Everyone live?"

"No, pet, it wasn't." Spike chuckled. "Much better now, though, thanks. Yeah, no casualties. Things are sorted for the most part."

A hand fell on Spike's shoulder, pressing just a little harder than was usual for a casual gesture. "Hello." Buffy said coolly, but the look she gave Melanie was anything but. "This seat's taken." She said as she sat down again next to Spike, placing her left hand very visibly on the table. The ring there sparkled obediently even in the low lighting. Spike froze, and then looked at her out of the corner of his eye, raising his eyebrow. "Sorry." Buffy smiled sunnily at the other girl.

Melanie shot a grin at Spike and put her hands up in the classic gesture of surrender, "Hey, totally understood. Message received." She smiled again at Spike a little sadly. "Glad things worked out for you after all." She waved. "See you around," and walked off into the throng around the dance floor.

"Not if I can help it," Buffy muttered.

Spike probably should've remained prudently silent but he said soothingly, "Luv, she's just a friend."

"Not anymore, she isn't!" Buffy proclaimed defiantly with a pointed look.

Spike's grin widened and he drew her into his arms and onto his lap. "But she's the only one who can beat me at playstation, pet," he teased. "Where will I go for a good challenge?"

She snorted. "Not to her! That's for sure. Anyway," her eyebrows furrowed in thought, "I can beat you any day, just lead me to the game, give me a little time to learn it and you're a dead man!"

"You're on." He nuzzled her neck affectionately. "So, seat still taken even though you aren't using it now? You got over here from the dance floor pretty fast. You must be really fond of it. Must be extra comfy."

"You're taken. I love you." Buffy replied seriously, staring into his eyes. "You're mine."

He stared at her a moment, another broad smile emerging slowly, "Yeah...I am," He purred at her, "and isn't that just…neat." Then he kissed her.

The End


*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

End Note: Well, that’s the end of my first Spuffy story. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading. I had fun writing it. I hope you don’t find the ending too abrupt. In my head, this is always where it ended. It began at the bar and ended at the bar. You might think Buffy’s a little annoying for waiting to accept his engagement until Melanie came along but well, she just needed that final shove, I guess. We all know she’s been in love with him forever anyway!

If an idea ever pops up, there may be a sequel. Dru’s still out there ticked off and crazy, but I didn’t want the story to languish unfinished while I waited to see, as I’m always sad when ones I’m reading stay in that state. Besides, this one was more about their relationship with each other (even though they spent most of the story apart!) and with Dawn and not so much about external big drama (well, other than how Dru’s actions affected them) and I kind of liked leaving it that way.

Regarding the love scene, I’m sorry. I tried, I really did, all weekend to write it, but I just ended up getting more ideas for my other fic and the scene never went anywhere. So, I copped out and faded out and back in again. At least there’s no lack of that available in other stories. There are so many people who are quite good at writing smut without it resulting in unintended giggles for the readers. I am not currently one of those people! I’ll go back through and figure out what this should be rated so people aren’t misled in the future. I think all I have to warn about is language, not sure if that’s 15 or still 17 or what. Maybe there’s a ratings FAQ somewhere.

Thanks for all of the encouraging reviews and wonderful feedback. It’s very much appreciated and it gave me such fun to read them and know people were caring about the characters.

-Jane