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Author's Chapter Notes:
I was caught off guard that so many readers expressed surprise with the results of the fingerprints. That is after all what I put in the summary. This chapter seems to resolve the issue, but we'll be back to it. There's plenty more in store for our favorite couple.
Chapter 21: Time Off for Bad Behavior

Buffy couldn’t stop the trembling all day. She had to go home and lie down. If she had owned any Valium she would have taken it. Stupid Buffy, not to have stopped by Tara’s office – it showed how poor her thinking was just now. Tara was about the only person Buffy thought she could confide in. Tara, she was sure, would be in pretty much the same state of shock as she was. It would be good to talk the things over with someone else, someone who knew what was going on, and who also knew Spike.

Buffy had held firm to the belief in Spike’s innocence for so long; now she didn’t know what to believe. Whatever the truth, Buffy decided that prudence would be a good idea. It wasn’t like she was in love with Spike or anything. They’d only seen each other a few times. No, she’d always been suspicious of him. He was just a case, after all. Now there was a no reason for her to get involved any further. She SO didn’t need to get involved with a psychopath.

It made her wig just to think about how Giles had put it to her. “I don’t think it would be wise for you to stop seeing him suddenly, though. I don’t want him to get suspicious and target you. No, I think it’s best if you go away for a few weeks and let us see what we can come up with without you. If we still haven’t filed charges by the time you get back, you can start to fade out of his life slowly. I assume he thinks that you’ve been dating? If you have to see him from here on, you’re to agree to meet only in public places. If you let me know when and where, I’ll send another agent to back you up, just to be on the safe side. You can appear to simply lose interest, or purposely do things that will make him find you unappealing. It would probably be best if he broke up with you, rather than the other way around. Either way, our top priority is your safety.”

One of the first things that Buffy had done before leaving on her forced ‘vacation’ was to talk to Tara. No one at the agency knew that Tara was friends with Spike, so Buffy had to inform her about the results of the fingerprint search. Tara hadn’t been as surprised about the incriminating evidence as Buffy thought she should be.

In a way, what Tara had said made a weird kind of sense. Buffy thought about her advice the whole time that she was away.

“I know a lot of bad stuff happened when Spike was younger – but I don’t know all the details,” Tara had said. “I think not even he knows anymore, he’s blocked a lot of it out of his mind. But if half of what I suspect is true, then I don’t blame him. In her will, hiss mother made the mistake of leaving Spike in Angelus O’Connor’s care. That’s who you should be investigating, if you ask me.

“His mother died while they were overseas, but I don’t think there was anything mysterious about it. She had cancer, Buffy. That’s what killed her. Spike still feels guilty about it. He feels that if they had never left home and she had continued treatment in Britain she might have recovered. But even Spike admits that it’s not really a rational thought. The whole reason for the trip was because they both knew she was dying. It’s not rational, but he feels like he should have been able to do more for her.

“And I know something else, Buffy. I shouldn’t really tell you this, but consider it a confidence between friends. Spike and I have spoken about the incident in China; the young girl that died. It was her sword, Buffy. The murder weapon. He feels responsible for that too, but SHE was the one who attacked HIM. I believed him when he told me that he really had no choice. It was kill or be killed. As far as the other two incidents – well, maybe you should just ask him. He feels guilty enough about things that weren’t his fault, I can’t imagine what he’d be like if he really did do something awful. You and I both believe that he has nothing to hide, so maybe everyone should just come clean. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a logical explanation for the fingerprints. It’s not proof, Buffy. Not by a long shot. I know Spike. He’s not a bad man, Buffy.”

Three weeks later, when Buffy returned from her ‘buying trip,’ her mind, and the case, were still unresolved. She wanted to call Spike and confess everything, but the tiny suspicion that maybe Giles was right, and not Tara, kept her from doing anything.

By the end of the following week Spike had called her house twice, the gallery four times, and had stopped by once. Buffy simply told him that she was overwhelmed cataloging the new acquisitions, and that it would be a while before she had a chance to see him again. It was breaking her heart to have to fabricate lies, when what she really wanted to be doing was having a heart to heart candid talk, like they had on the plane home from New York. While she had been gone, Buffy realized that she really did miss his company. They had been to one another’s homes, had really seemed to be connecting. She knew he must be wondering whether it was the Anya thing that was still bothering her, or whether he had managed to do something else wrong. She was certain that after the first couple times she put him off that he had picked up on the fact that she was making excuses not to see him.

Meanwhile, Buffy got weekly progress reports from Willow about the on-going investigation. With more than a little bit of glee Buffy was surprised to learn that Faith’s investigation had stalled. Faith had tried getting a job at both his business and home, but had not been successful in even getting a personal interview. She’d tried to hook up with Spike at a club he sometimes visited, but he hadn’t paid her any attention at all. Knowing Faith’s reputation, Buffy was sure that she’d made it clear to Spike that she was available. Apparently Spike wasn’t interested. At least not in Faith.

Seeing the futility of a lost cause, Willow told her that Faith was going to be assigned to another investigation. Part of Buffy was looking forward to going back to work on the case, but another part of her was dreading it. She needn’t have worried. Giles didn’t ask her.

Buffy was briefly disturbed when Willow told her that they had managed to plant Harmony with him, but it hadn’t lasted. As Willow reported it, they had gone out to eat together once or twice, then he had lost interest. Harmony never managed to get close to Spike at all – although there were rumors that they had spent time together in a motel. Either way, Harmony was humiliated. Both she and Faith had failed to obtain their objective.

At long last, a defeated Giles approached Buffy again. After nearly two months of fruitless attempts to obtain more evidence, no one was willing to attempt to prosecute. The fingerprints were almost a quarter of a century old, and circumstantial evidence at best. In the absence of a witness or any other physical evidence, it was pretty clear that no charges would be filed. All that could be proved was that William Thorndale had been in the general area when the murders occurred, not that he had committed them. To Giles’s point, all three incidents taken together certainly seemed damning, but each case on it’s own merits seemed inconclusive.

Giles was a firm believer in Spike’s complicity. His new plan was almost the same as the old one. If they could obtain enough evidence to make a lesser charge, they could probably obtain a warrant to search for any other incriminating evidence. Murderers often kept trophies: pictures, newspaper articles, clips of hair, articles of clothing. Something physical to remind themselves of the successful kills they’d made.

Regretfully Giles told Buffy that the murder investigation had led to a dead end. They were putting the case on hold. Giles’s objective was for Buffy to return to their original goal. All she needed to do was get herself invited back to his house and snoop around. The missing picture was probably long gone, but there might be other suspicious things she could find, especially if she could get herself in to see the locked room.

Unless she was completely comfortable with continuing the investigation, all Giles asked was that she agree to see him one more time. He even promised to have back up close at hand. If anything went wrong, if she felt threatened in any way, another agent, a man this time, would be waiting for a signal just outside the gates to the house. All she had to do was utter an agreed upon phrase, her microphone would pick it up, and help would be there in minutes.

Buffy couldn’t help but feel proud that what for both Faith and Harmony had almost been impossible, for Buffy it was no problem at all. After six weeks of no contact at all, Spike returned Buffy’s call almost immediately, and agreed to have her over to his house again the very next day.





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