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Author's Chapter Notes:
And yeah, it's 2 AM. Hope you enjoy :D
*Once again, direct quotes from "Something Blue." **Any and all facts come from the series "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" which is full of trivial knowledge!**
Buffy convinced Willow to accompany her on patrol that evening, feeling some fresh air and vampire stakeage would be of the good to help distract her from thinking of Oz. Besides, she herself needed to sort out her feelings in regards to the Giles and Spike situation. And Willow wisdom seemed just the thing.

“I mean, I can’t believe he unlocked his chains just because of a little nose bleed. Wasn’t like I’ve never made his nose bleed before,” Buffy muttered for the fourth or fifth time that evening. She told Willow what had happened earlier that day, the story starting in disbelief but ending with outright contempt. “I think if Spike were a televangelist then Giles would be throwing money at him.”

Barely registering that she’d stopped talking, Willow mumbled, “Maybe he’s really sick, Buffy. I mean, Giles is pretty hard to fool… you know, him being Watchery and all,” she finished lamely.

Buffy snorted. “Yeah, well… I think Spike has him snowed with his ‘Rain Man’ routine.”

Willow said nothing, not in the mood to argue with anyone, especially Buffy. The only reason she’d gone on patrol was so she would stop bickering about Spike, to no avail. She wasn’t listening to her anyway, aside from when she’d brought up the subject of Riley asking her out on a picnic to which she sighed internally. What she really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sob her eyes out. Instead, she was in a dark, damp graveyard threatening vamps with good old dustiness and listening to Buffy blather away about stuff she had no interest in anymore. Goddess, it just wasn’t fair. Here she was, going on about three men in her life and Willow couldn’t keep even one interested in her. Nope, it wasn’t fair. Oh well, better ask the obligatory questions any good friend would ask.

“So, a picnic…” Willow started.

“Yeah, it's just, different, you know? A picnic. First of all, daylight - kind of a new venue, Buffy-wise. And the best part - he said he would bring all the food, so all I have to do is show up and eat. Those are two things I'm really good at.”

“So he's nice?”

Buffy nodded enthusiastically. “Very, very.”

Willow looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “And there's sparkage?” That ‘very, very’ statement sounded a bit… forced.

Once she started describing the supposed connection with Riley, it sounded too bland to her, like it was too normal. She imagined Buffy’s quest for the ordinary stemmed from Angel leaving, something she still hadn’t forgiven the broody vamp for, and also forcing herself to put on a brave face. She could see it now - Upstanding, American hero-type boy meets college freshman girl who happens to be the Slayer, they date and canoodle, then she squeezes the life out of him with a bear hug. End of ‘normal’ for Buffy.

“Yeah, he's… have you seen his arms? Those are good arms to have. I really like him. I do.”

Oz had wonderful arms, Willow thought sadly. Arms that won’t ever hold me again. She was about to tear up, but composed herself in time, thinking over her friend’s last statement. It sounded plain, like when a girl says a guy is ‘nice.’ So she questioned her on it. “But?”

Buffy hesitated. “I don't know. I really like being around him, you know? And I think he cares about me… but… I just-” She turned and staked a vamp that had suddenly jumped out at them from behind a bush. “I just feel like something's missing,” she continued without missing a beat.

Willow watched the dust settle over her shoulder. “It’s the fact that he's not making you miserable, isn’t it?” She had a suspicion.

“Exactly! Riley seems so solid, like he wouldn't cause me heartache.” Not like Angel was left unsaid.

“Get out. Get out while there's still time!” the redhead said with feigned worry. Maybe if she’d gotten out sooner with Oz then she could’ve avoided the heartache. As it was, she was barely holding on to any semblance of being interested in life.

Buffy smiled at her dramatic response. “I know… I have to get away from that bad boy thing. There's no good there… too painful.”

Willow bit her lip, hard. She wouldn’t cry, she would NOT cry. “Yeah, pain is not a friend.”

Buffy continued to talk, oblivious to her friend’s emotional state. She was on a roll and heaven forbid anyone that happened to be in the way of the freight train that was the Slayer. “But I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know its nuts, but… part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting.”

“Like you and Spike,” Willow offered as an example.

“What?” She stopped abruptly and stared at her best friend as if she’d grown horns and a tail.

Willow turned to look back at her. “Like you and Spike?” This time it sounded more like a suggestion than actual fact.

“That bleached pest? Until he became an overnight savant, he was on everyone’s do-not-call list!” Buffy fumed. First Giles and now Willow. The only thing she had in common with Spike was the pain and fighting, not the love and passion.

Willow held out her hands in a flustered gesture as she neared her breaking point. “Buffy, you’re always fighting with him, physically and otherwise. You cause each other enough pain to put an iron maiden to shame and you both live and love so passionately. So really, not seeing the difference here.”

“Wills, you-you can’t seriously compare-” she spluttered.

“Stop! I-I… I can’t do this anymore,” Willow whimpered and ran off in the direction of the campus.

Buffy started to run after her, but a strong arm hauled her back, bracing her body against something solid.

Outrage and fury swept over the Slayer as she turned with her stake held high, coming face to face with the earlier topic of conversation. “Spike,” she spat. “Let me go, or I swear you’ll wish you’d stayed with the Commandos,” she seethed venomously, stake poised over his unbeating heart.

Without thinking, Spike grabbed her wrist and shook it hard enough that she dropped the stake. Burning hot pain seared through his frontal lobe as he released her, stumbling backwards and hitting a grave marker. “Bloody fucking hell!”

She quickly retrieved the stake then took up a fighting stance; her hand poised to strike as she watched him slowly gathered his wits. “What are you doing here, Spike?” Giles may let the rabid dog run loose, but she had no reservations about dusting his ass.

He smeared the blood that trickled from his nose across his face, trying to wipe it off as he clutched his forehead, swaying slightly on his feet. Buffy frowned as he staggered towards her.

He reached blindly for something that wasn’t moving to hold on to which just happened to be Buffy’s arm. “God, Slayer… feel like I’m three sheets to the wind,” he moaned leaning his head on her arm.

“Three who’s to the what?” she asked confused, her guard slightly lowered.

“Three sheets to the wind,” he muttered again, shifting to an upright position, his balance still precarious as he clutched her arm. She had a blank look on her face.

“Drunk,” he clarified, then noticing he still had his hand on her arm, he abruptly he let go. He didn’t want another round of crispy fried Spike brains, because frankly, he was surprised he had anything left to think with.

“What do sheets have to do with being drunk? I thought being drunk was mostly about drowning your sorrows or an ex-wife stealing the car and driving to Texas sort of thing – you know, something depressing like that,” she asked, relaxing her stance once she realized Spike couldn’t hurt her in the state he was in now as he could barely stand. Maybe Willow was right… maybe this thing was making him ill.

“In the seafaring world, pet, ropes with different functions are given names. For example...” He raised his fingers, ticking them off with each fact. “Halyards raise and lower sails.” He lowered a second finger. “Sheets hold the sails upright.” He grimaced as a phantom pain flitted across his face, clearing his throat to continue. “If a sheet is loose, the sail slaps in the wind and the ship becomes unsteady. Having two sheets loose to the wind is a big problem. Having three sheets to the wind will make the ship rock and reel like a drunken sailor.” Having finished his explanation, he searched his pocket for his lighter and smokes.

Buffy stared at him, wide-eyed, her mouth hanging open as she finally took a moment to look at Spike. His cheeks were hollow; more so than usual, and there were black circles under his eyes, not just dark ones. Black. His eyes were sunken a little in the sockets as starvation drew his skin taut over his face. She watched him light the cigarette, noticing his hands shaking, then observed his belt was notched a couple inches tighter than the last time she looked at him. In essence, he was a shell of his former “Big Bad” self.

He pulled a long drag from his cigarette and without realizing what he was doing, blew it straight towards Buffy. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that, pet!” He moved further away, rubbing his temples to ease the throbbing.

“If you were alive, those things would kill you.” She coughed, waving the smoke away from her face.

“If a pack-a-day smoker inhaled a week’s worth of nicotine all at once, they’d die instantly,” he said off handedly.

She frowned in confusion. “Spike, where are you coming up with this stuff?”

He shrugged slightly and looked off in the distance. “Don’t rightly know, Slayer. Didn’t start ‘til I woke up, staring at the tiles in the Watcher’s bathroom.” He turned his focus back to her. “But it makes me mighty fearful,” he admitted quietly.

She raised her eyebrows in astonishment at Spike’s confession, but remained silent, sensing he had more to say on the matter.

He pondered long and hard on what he could tell her, pacing as the words jumbled out. “It’s like a pressure building in my head, right? An’ every time that bleedin’… contraption fires, it feels like my brain’s going to explode. Lose all sense of myself.” His pacing slowed and he stood by her side, staring off into the graveyard. “Then all this bleedin’ nonsense starts up in my brain and my mouth starts going and after a bit… I don’t know what the hell I’ve said, let alone what I’ve done.” He turned to look at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. “They took away my ability to survive, Slayer. Don’t think they’ll stop ‘til they finish the job.”

Compassion edged its way into her heart, albeit reluctantly. Here was someone that had been yanked from his only known existence and forced to change overnight. It was a little like being called to be the Slayer. One moment she was a happy, carefree teenager worried about the latest trend or fashion. The next, she was scrubbing greasy vampire dust from her clothes in the middle of the night so her mother wouldn’t find out. Yeah, she could relate to the sudden change of lifestyle.

“You never answered my question of why you’re here, Spike. Does Giles know?”

“Watcher’s the one that sent me, thought you could use some help with patrol. Maybe flash some fang here or there, put the fear of-”

“I don’t think you’ll be much use to me, fangless wonder - you can’t even kill a demon,” she countered before he went further.

She watched his face fall for a fraction of a second before he regrouped, shutting her out coldly. Sighing heavily, she knew she had better things to do than baby-sit a neutered vampire that couldn’t defend himself - like finding Willow. Without thinking too hard on why she was doing it, she dug around in her pocket and pulled out some money, handing it to a confused looking Spike.

“US paper money is seventy-five percent cotton and twenty-five percent silk,” he muttered, looking at her.

Shaking her head in pity, she reached up and tenderly rubbed her thumb under one of his baby-blues. “You have black circles under you eyes. You need to feed more.” She shoved the hand holding the money towards him. “Get some blood at the butchers.”

“Buffy…” he started, afraid he was going to fall apart.

She held up her hand. “Don’t.”

He nodded silently and backed away.

“Besides, I like being able to see your blue eyes without the black,” she whispered and turned to run in the opposite direction.

Spike watched her run out of the cemetery towards campus. “Blue eyes simply have less pigment in them than brown eyes, pet,” he said to her departing form.

He pocketed the cash she’d given him and headed towards town to find the nearest butcher shop, pondering the mystery that was Buffy Summers.





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