Four a.m., when the lights were all up and the music was off, when the only sounds were clanking of glasses as tired hands neatly stacked them for the next night and the shuffling of a broom against the poured concrete floor.  Four a.m. was the time when thoughts that had been pushed aside in favor of the job at hand came rushing back in startling volume.  There were no customers to distract him.  There was no thumping club mix to drown out the fury of his inner monologue.  At four a.m., he had no reprieve from the dilemmas warring in his brain.

Spike frowned at the bottle of Chivas in his hand before marking the sight-based measurement on his inventory sheet.  Thoughts of Buffy were making his attempts to finish off the weekly inventory near to impossible.  Frustration was quickly turning into irritably, a fact that was plainly obvious to anyone who cared to look.

“Dude, you okay?”

Spike’s head jerked to the side and he saw Gunn standing a few feet away in what could only be described as a submissive posture, palms up and out, one foot turned in anticipation of retreat, dark eyes wide. 

Oh, bloody hell…  Spike tossed his clipboard onto the counter.  “’M fine.  Jus’ got a lot on my mind is all.”

Gunn visibly relaxed and turned to lean against the bar.  “Woman trouble?”

Spike arched an eyebrow at him, amused that his friend thought he could so easily be picked apart.  Of course, the sodding bastard was right, but Spike wasn’t about to admit that.

“Trouble is relative just like anythin’ else, Charlie-boy.”

“Not when it’s about a girl, it ain’t.  That kind of trouble is unique to the world of females,” Gunn said with a knowing smirk.  “Look, I’m no Casanova and I’m certainly no expert, but, uh, if you ever wanna, you know, uh, talk about it…”

It the weeks following Buffy’s birthday, she had grown increasingly determined to go back to school.  She brought it up it daily, always with a hopeful tone, that maybe tomorrow she could get her life back on track.  The girl was extraordinary, but her aspirations were as normal as any other person her age: finish high school, go to college and start a career.  She talked about taking her SATs and ACTs and applying to UNLV.  Her future was mapped perfectly in her mind and all she needed was help with that first step.  But for his part, Spike was useless.  More than, if truth be told, because he couldn’t even manage to offer up encouragement.

He’d wracked his brain for a solution.  It kept him up at night, worrying about her and her future and of the slowly retreating threat of her father.  How could she possibly enroll in school if she was a runaway, whether Hank Summers was looking for her or not? She was living with a man who was neither her parent nor her legal guardian and she was still technically a minor.  They could file a motion with the court to get her emancipated, but that would reveal her location, and while the facts all pointed to her father not being interested in finding her, Spike had a feeling in his gut that said otherwise.  He thought for a second that they could just get some fake documents, but that idea was quickly nixed when he envisioned what would happen if they got caught.

All of that aside, there was an answer to this problem, one that made perfect sense.   She should just wait another year.  She would be eighteen then, a legal adult, free to do as she pleased.  If her father came after her, the law would be on their side.  But that answer would create another problem and Spike wasn’t sure he wanted to add that to the equation.  He knew Buffy.  He knew that she wouldn’t want to wait that long, that she would be miserable, that she would start to feel like he was trying to keep her under his thumb. 

Which is exactly why he had put off telling her.

He sighed heavily and slapped a hand over his face, rubbing away the tension.  “She wants to go back to school and I don’t know how to tell her she can’t,” Spike said.

“Oh.”  Gunn’s eyebrows knitted together, suggesting that he had thought to subject of Spike’s problem was something else.  “Have you guys thought about having her take the high school equivalency exam?  I know it’s not school, but she can study for it now and then take it right when she turns eighteen without parental consent.”

No, he hadn’t thought of that, but it was a bloody brilliant idea.

“And they let you go to college with it?” Spike asked.

“Hell yeah.  I mean, she probably wouldn’t be able to get into Harvard or anything with it, but a state school, no problem.”

***

Inventory days were the worst.  On a normal work day, Spike usually sauntered in the door by three in the morning, but on inventory days it was closer to six.  Since Buffy had acquired the rather bad habit of waiting up for him, she resolved herself to a very long night which should have culminated with a big breakfast and some lazy lovemaking.  But six o’clock came and went.  By seven, breakfast was ice cold and her eyes began to droop.  By eight, she had all but fallen asleep when Scrappy woke her up to go outside.  By nine, she was back on the couch and snoring with the puppy curled up next to her.

It was a quarter to ten when she heard the keys finally jingling against the door. 

Buffy quickly shot upward, her hands immediately flying to her hair which she tried desperately to smooth.  She probably looked horrible, clothes askew, skin dull, hair sticking out like a mad scientist’s.  Stupid inventory day. 

The door opened and the dog scampered off the couch to greet Spike as he walked in. 

“Hey pet,” Spike said cheerfully before dropping a handful of shopping bags onto the floor.  “Did you just wake up?”

She blushed, she couldn’t help it.  “Yeah.  I couldn’t stay awake any longer.”

“Don’t have to wait up for me, luv.”

“I know,” she replied with a timid shrug.  “It’s just…  I like seeing you when you first get home.”

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Well, Buffy couldn’t comment on what Spike felt in his heart, but when he came home after work other parts of him were sure happy to see her.  It was like Christmas every day, seeing the expression on his face, the lust in his eyes and impatience in his strides to get to her.  Besides, even if he didn’t set her body on fire with a single look, it sure was nice to have someone excited to see her.  Before Spike, there hadn’t been anyone who cared, not since her mom and Giles.  Having a person who loved her was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of and she would do a lot more than lose a few hours of sleep to get to experience that every day.

Spike chuckled.  “Oh yes, I am a regular prize after coming home from hours in that bloody slop house.”

“Not a regular one.  An extra big, giganto, sparkly prize with ribbons and chocolate frosting.”

He smirked then bit his lower lip and gazed at her from below a canopy of dark eyelashes.  “We could definitely work in the chocolate frosting.”  He started towards the couch, rounding it effortlessly before sitting down next to her.  “Or some other flavor.  I’m partial to raspberry cream myself.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Is that all you ever think about?”

“What?  Food?”  Spike shook his head.  “Nope, I also think about you an’ that luscious body o’ yours.”

Without another word, he grabbed her and lifted her up so he could lay her down on the soft cushions of the couch.  Her thighs parted unconsciously to accommodate his hips which pressed into her, against her.  He whispered her name just before capturing her lips in a hot, wet kiss.

“Oh, Spike.  Please,” she whimpered as she felt the hard ridge of his cock rub the sensitive button of nerves covered by her flimsy pajamas.

Then suddenly he was gone.  Her eyes flew open and caught sight of him standing a few feet away, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

He wagged a finger at her and let out a shaky laugh.  “You little minx.  Always distractin’ me.  I had a sodding plan, you know.”

“Plan?  Plan for what?”

His eyebrows went up and he motioned for her to wait a second.  He walked back to the front door and picked up the shopping bags, bringing them back to the couch and unloading their contents onto the coffee table.  Books and pamphlets and spiral-bound notebooks and packages of pencils and index cards, it looked like he had raided a classroom.

“Been tryin’ to figure out a way for you to go back to school and it might not exactly what you had in mind, but I think this’ll work,” he told her, handing her a pamphlet.

Buffy looked down at the flyer.  “Getting your GED in Nevada.  A guide to completing the high school equivalency exam,” she read aloud. 

She frowned.  No, this wasn’t what she had in mind at all.  It was a good idea but…   She was trying really hard not to be disappointed.  Her wanting to go back to school was only partly for the diploma.  There were so many things that she was missing out on.  Friends her own age, dances, pep rallies, those things couldn’t be experienced with a GED. 

Her eyes moved from the pamphlet to Spike’s face, which had half-fallen from excitement to trepidation, no doubt from the look on her own face.  And she had never felt like a bigger asshole.

“Spike, I-“  She didn’t even know what to say.  Nothing sounded right and she’d tried on a few replies in the privacy of her head just to make sure.  “It’s a really good idea.”

“But.  You’re forgetting that part, luv,” he said, all the joy now completely gone from his expression. 

Buffy swallowed the lump in her throat.  “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”  He stood up and began pacing the floor.  His hand dove into his perfectly slicked back hair, ripping a path through the hardened gel and freeing the curls he tried so hard to tame.  “I’m bloody sorry that you can’t have a normal life, Buffy.  I’m sorry that I can’t bring back your mum and Rupert.  I’m sorry that you had to live with that git of a father and that I couldn’t keep you safe from him.  I’m sorry that you can’t go back to school an’ play footsie with some jock under the bleachers.  I’m sorry that you can’t listen to the teacher drone on about manifest destiny and The New Deal.  I’m sorry you’re stuck in the fucking apartment all day when you could be learnin’ and socializin’ and bein’ a bloody teenager!”

Tears started to well up in her eyes.  “I know.  You have every right to be mad at me.  It’s just a stupid dream.  It’s not important.”

Spike froze.  “I’m not mad at you.  Pet, I’m mad for you.”

“For me?”

He kneeled down in front of her, capturing her tiny hands in his, and gazed up at her.  “Yeah, for you.  If anyone in this world deserved a normal life, it’s you.  Never met anyone who deserved it more.  But, luv, it’s just not meant to be.  Pisses me off that it has to be that way, that I can’t fix it.  So, yeah, I’m angry.  I’m angry that you got dealt such a shitty hand, but we just gotta play it through, yeah?  It’s not a perfect solution, but doin’ this is how we stay in the game.”

Her resolve began to firm up from the gelatin mess it had become after reading that pamphlet moments ago.  Spike was right.  Her life wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be normal again.  Normal flew the coop when her parents died, but she couldn’t give up fighting just because things weren’t peachy-keen perfect.  Besides, high school was overrated.  If it hadn’t been for the reprieve she got from her father’s temper by going, she would have been miserable.  She hated the kids, had no friends to speak of and was bored to tears by the curriculum.

Wait.  Why had she wanted to go back to school?  She must have been out of her mind.

Except she knew that there was some small, tiny part of her that longed to know what she was missing now.  She could at least admit that without shame.

Her hand moved to trace the glossy cover of one of the books on the table and then she picked it up.  She leafed through it, her eyes crossing slightly when they spied a section of complicated-looking mathematical equations.

She squinted up at Spike.  “This looks hard.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure it out on my own.”

“Thought of that, too,” he said with a soft smile.  “Anya might be a bloody loon but she’s brilliant at math.  I can help with the English and the social studies.  And the science…we’ll figure out later.”

“Do you really think I can pass it?”

He brushed his thumb against her bottom lip then leaned up to kiss her.  “Buffy, I think you can do anything.”

***

Three Days Later

Wolfram and Hart, Los Angeles, CA

Lindsay threw his black leather portfolio across the smooth mahogany surface of his desk and slammed the door to his office shut. 

This was such horseshit!

A month ago he’d been the golden goose, fawned over and adored by the senior partners.  He’d been Hank Summers’ right hand man, picked out personally to handle his daughter’s disappearance.  He’d been on his way up to the big time and now, four weeks later, he was stuck defending some pencil-pushing weenie along with a slew of junior associates all trying to make a name for themselves.  He was better than this crap.

He swallowed his anger down with the help of some JD before falling back into his Italian leather chair to mull over his recent fall from grace.   His eyes fell upon a stack of newspapers on his desk.  The LA Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and…  The Las Vegas Sun. 

Back when he’d first figured out that little Miss Elizabeth Summers had fled to Las Vegas, he’d ordered a subscription to the metropolitan newspaper, hoping that something might jump out at him.  Nothing had ever panned out, but it certainly had kept him in the loop while he was in LA.  After he was unceremoniously kicked off the case, he continued to browse through it, only this time it was to find out what was going on with Willie D.

Hamilton had made sure Lindsay was kept in the dark with not only the Summers case, but what the senior partners planned to do with Willie D.  Lindsay had his suspicions of course, suspicions that were quickly made fact when an article showed up on the front page of the Sun about an attempted escape by one William DeMille.  The guards had shot and killed him on the spot.

He picked up the newspaper and flipped through it until he caught sight of a tiny article towards the last page.

Prison Guards Cleared In Fatal Shooting

Jean, NV.  A decision was reached in the investigation of a fatal shooting that occurred on June 23 at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center.  An inmate, William DeMille, who had been serving out a six year sentence for peering into a residential apartment complex with the aid of video equipment and possession of a deadly weapon, had attempted to escape the medium security prison on the morning of the shooting.  The State of Nevada Department of Corrections cleared the prison guards of any wrongdoing in the death of DeMille, siteing that officers can use deadly force if they are attempting to stop an escape in progress.

There was no way in hell Willie was trying to escape.  The guy would piss in his pants if he even thought someone would point a gun at him let alone invoke a reason to get himself shot.  It stunk, the whole goddamn thing stunk to high heaven.

That sickening feeling was back in the pit of his stomach.  It was a foreign sensation, but one he had become all too familiar with in the past month.  Guilt. 

He sure had picked a fine time to grow a damn conscience.  Question was, what was he going to do about it?  He had contemplated further cementing his place in the fiery depths of Hell by ignoring it or better yet justifying his deeds.  But this had gone too far.  He got slime balls off of drug charges and racketeering and anything else if they paid enough.  He didn’t condemn them to death.  He didn’t murder because even a shady son of a bitch like him had at least one line he refused to cross.

It was too late for Willie and that would always be his cross to bear, but what about Summers’ daughter?  Lindsay wanted to believe the man had no intentions of killing his only child, but why the big secret?  Hank could have settled this months ago if he’d gotten the police involved and it wasn’t as if the asshole didn’t have a ton of cops in his pocket already.

 No, no there was something definitely off about the whole thing and he intended to find out what.