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Déjà vu.

Time stopped. Heartbeat, breath – stopped.

The room around her ceased to exist, faded to black. Her vision tunnelled to where he stood, her whole world focused entirely on him.

He died.

“Spike?” Unsure whether she said the words out loud or in her head. And because she had dreamed of this, because she had conjured up this image so often, she had to ask… “are you real?”

I saw him burn.

The floor was shifting beneath her feet, reality and imagination merging and bleeding into each other. She held on to the lifeline of his eyes, thought she heard him say “Last time I checked. But what with one thing and another, never can tell these days…” hardly able to focus on the words, avid for the sound of his voice.

I saw the Hellmouth bury him.

She crossed the room as if in a dream, raised a hand slowly to his cheek. She hesitated, eyes locked with his. Very carefully, she touched his face.

He died.

Cool skin, smooth beneath her fingers; familiar contours, fingers tracing planes and hollows, the hard edge of his cheekbone, the firm line of his jaw. A finger trailing across the soft curve of his mouth. Blue eyes… so blue… blue eyes holding hers… drawing her closer…

Real.

He was real.

Oh, god…

Reality hit home on black wings of panic. Her heart lurched painfully in her chest, air rushing into her lungs on a gasp of pain. She drew her hand back as if the coolness of his skin scalded her. The floodgates opened on the months of confusion and loss she had carefully locked away, walled up someplace deep in her core to save her from the pain that threatened to overwhelm her. She was drowning. She backed away from him, pale faced and trembling.

“No.”

“Buffy…” Spike took a half step toward her.

“No.” She shook her head, cast a horrified glance at the faces turned toward her, expectant, watching, waiting, judging. “This… I can’t…” With a final panicked look at Spike, Buffy fled. The bathroom door slammed behind her.

There was a long, stunned silence.

“Well,” Angel was the first to speak, “You handled that well.”

Spike turned on Angel with a growl of rage. "Will you FUCK OFF!"

"Ouchie!" Andrew winced as Spike's fist met Angel's face in a blow that sent the larger man crashing to the floor, blood staining his nose. "Oh, that musta hurt!"

Spike shrugged back his anger and looked over at the bathroom door, frowning. "Yeah," he said softly. "You're right."

*****

She was sitting on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, back to the wall, arms wrapped around her legs, eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

“Buffy?” Spike hesitated in the doorway.

“What was the crash?” She didn’t look up.

“I punched Angel. Kinda rearranged his nose a bit.”

“Oh.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips, but still she wouldn’t look at him. She gestured vaguely in his direction. "I wasn't expecting... I mean..."

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugged uncomfortably. "No."

"How...?" The words caught in her throat.

"Don't rightly know. Somethin' to do with the Amulet."

"No". She shook her head. “How long?” Her voice was hesitant, afraid of the answer. “How long have you been back?”

“A while, but…”

"A while?" Her voice was tight with supressed emotion. " A few minutes while? Coupla days while? Or...?"

"Longer."

She winced. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sighed. “I did." He dropped his eyes, stared at the floor while he mustered the words. "A thousand times in a thousand different ways.” He pressed a finger briefly to his temple. “In here.” He crouched down near her on the floor. “I phoned you, wrote you letters, sent you poems, turned up out of the blue, posted adverts in the personal columns… thought about sending you a strip-o-gram after a couple of bottles one night.” He shook his head with a wry smile. “I half hoped maybe Andrew would tell you…”

“Andrew knew?” Still she didn’t look at him.

“Yeah… since he came to LA.”

She gave a nod and a small smile. “Explains a lot. Giles knows too. And Dawn. And Angel. Everyone but me.” There was a glint of tears in her eyes. “You didn’t think maybe I had a right?”

“It wasn’t that easy.”

“What was so difficult? You’ve heard of the telephone? Wicked clever invention.” Her voice was bitter.

“It wasn’t that easy,” he said again, emphasising the words. “You don’t understand...”

“I don’t understand? How could I understand when you didn’t even tell me?”

He rested his head back against the wall with a sigh. “When I came back - I was... let’s just say a shadow of my former self. I couldn’t see you, not like that. Then I started thinking about what went down and what was happening and it just got too… complicated.”

“Complicated.”

“Love, what was I supposed to do? Honestly? I do the big heroic death number then just turn up ‘Hello, honey I’m home!’?”

“Why not?” She fought hard to keep her voice level, to hide the bewilderment, the anger, the hurt.

“Because…” Because why, idiot? “Because…” because I was scared of what I’d find. “Buffy, you had a right.” Spike had an almost overwhelming urge to reach out to her, to wrap his arms around her; but she sat, rigid and untouchable, locking him out. “You had a right to have this normal life they all keep bangin’ on about, and me? Not hardly normal. Love, you’d moved on. I turn up, it’s just dragging up the past for no good reason.” Because, honestly? I was scared you really had moved on and there’d be no place for me.

“And you didn’t think that just maybe it was up to me to decide about my life? Where do you all get off telling me what’s best?” She pulled back her anger, locked it down behind her brittle shell of self-control. “So, why? If you feel like that, why are you here?”

He looked at her for a long moment, at her bent head and tense shoulders. He so wanted to say the right thing – and he hadn’t the first bloody idea what the right thing was. Not getting much of a clue here, other than the anger. Eventually he sighed – no option but the truth. “Angel’s been having you watched.”

“I know.” She gave a half-smile. “Not exactly subtle.”

“No, not so much. Thing is… someone’s been bumping off the guys who’ve been watching you.”

He had her attention. She looked up at him with a frown, a flash of slayer steel. “Who?”

“They have an idea… Wolfram and Hart have an idea. Seems Dru’s in town.”

“Drusilla? The Drusilla? Oh, come on…” she gave a snort of disbelief. “Can’t exactly see her as an organised assassin.”

“Yeah, maybe. But fact remains someone’s out there topping these guys and that someone’s a vampire and Dru’s in the frame.” He looked over at her. “They think maybe she’s after you.”

“OK – so I stake her. No big.” She shrugged. “How… what has this to do with you?”

“They called me over to sort out Dru. As a favour to Angel and me, because of who she is.” He gave her a sharp look. No reaction. He sighed and looked down. “They were kind of pissed at losing their blokes. I was watching their man, Angelo.” He frowned – bugger! Forgot all about Angelo. “So, I’m lurking in the shadows and I managed to scare the bejesus out of the Bit and she invited me over…”

“And if it hadn’t been for that…” More of a statement than a question. She gave a rueful smile.

“Buffy, I wanted to see you, but…” He shrugged and looked down.

“It was complicated.” She supplied calmly.

“Yeah.”

She looked over at his bent head. Her fingers ached to reach out, to touch the vulnerable curve of his neck, the soft curls that sat there. She fought down the urge, set her lips. “What now? How are you going to find Drusilla?”

“I dunno. First thing, best check on Angelo, make sure no-ones bitten the bait off the hook while I wasn’t looking.”

“OK.” She hesitated. “Spike?”

“Buffy?”

“I…” She stopped, biting her lip. He waited, eyes fixed on her averted face, head tilted. Then she gave a smile and a small shake of her head. “What kind of strip-o-gram was it?” she said eventually.

Oh. Well, what were you expecting? He shrugged. “I thought maybe a Pavarotti-o-gram – some big fat Italian geezer singing a soppy aria.”

“Nice thought with the song, but the stripping? Gross!” She looked over at him, eyebrow raised.

“Maybe I didn’t think that through too carefully.” They shared a smile. Buffy was the first to look away.

“You want I come with you?” Reluctant to lose him, more reluctant to admit it.

“Nope.” He stood up with a sigh. “No need.” He paused and looked at her uncertainly. “Should I come back?”

“I…” You need to ask? “Sure. We need to get this sorted… the Drusilla thing, I mean.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Spike?” Her words were little more than a whisper. She stopped and looked away. “Be careful.”

He nodded. “You know me…” He gave her a smile and left.

Buffy sat on, staring at the door. Do I? She rested her head in her hands. He’d come back and he hadn’t come to find her. Something had changed; the old Spike would have rushed straight to her side. She felt a fluttering of panic. The Spike she thought she knew, the Spike who held her and held her together during the long nights before the showdown at the Hellmouth, the Spike who told her she was the one – he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have sought her out. But he didn’t. What else had changed? Had she lost him? Panic tightened her chest. She folded her arms around her knees and closed her eyes against the tumult in her brain.

******

Dawn was alone, sitting on the sofa, ostentatiously reading a magazine. She looked up at him with studied calm. “So, how’d it go? I didn’t hear the sound of bathroom furniture breaking.”

Spike gave her a half smile. “What did you do with the brooding one and the boy?”

“Sent them for pizza and beer.” She grinned. “Oh, and Andrew wanted to see if he could find a DVD of ‘The Matrix’…”

Spike gave her a surprised look. “And Angel went? Just like that?”

“His nose was bleeding all over the furniture. I didn’t give him an option. Bossy, remember?” She frowned at him. “Are you OK?”

“Me? Never better.” He spoke brusquely and Dawn wasn’t fooled for a minute. “Just going to check something. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

She watched his back thoughtfully as he left. Something told her the two of them hadn’t done much in the way of getting things straight. She sighed and raised her eyes. Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was only eighteen and here she was sorting out the lives of two people who were, quite frankly, old enough to know better – and in Spike’s case, way old enough. She stood up. OK. Someone clearly needed to take this in hand. Starting with her sister. She looked at the bathroom door and bit her lip, then, with a sigh she went to find Buffy.

*****

Outside, Spike scanned the street, looking for signs of Angelo, feeling frustrated and confused. What was it she’d said last year? Something about mixed signals? Well, she’d sure as hell got the hang of that one. He was left completely unsure as to whether she was pleased to see him or not. Was she pissed with him because she was the last to know? Because he’d turned up at all? Because she’d missed him? Because maybe… he pushed the thought away and gave a growl. Why did it always have to be so bloody complicated?

A flash of white from the darkened doorway of the building opposite caught his eye. He strode over the road quickly and then stopped. Something not right. He walked cautiously towards the dark shape in the doorway, the warm, metallic smell of blood flooding his nostrils. What was left of Angelo was crumpled on the ground. “Fuck!” Spike went to kneel at his side. He didn’t hear the soft approaching footfalls behind him until it was too late, and so he had no time to block the blow that left him sprawled stunned on the pavement, or stop the sharp stab of the needle in his neck that brought deep and complete unconsciousness.





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