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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hi! Long time no write, huh? Again, I will apologize for the delay, but muse wasn't cooperating due to some serious RL problems and what's the point in posting the le crap that I wrote? LOL Hope some of you are still out there. Would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Also, a big thanks to the ever amazing Lauriel (DragonFlyLady) who is always around to boost my confidence, fluff my ego and otherwise make me feel nice. She didn't get a chance to beta this one simply because I got impatient and didn't want to wait. So, sorry for the errors that I am sure are there.

Also, a huge thanks to the wonderful and talented Sotia for doing a read thru to make sure it made sense.
Huddled in a darkened corner, tucked away from the pulsating lights and rhythmic beat of music emanating from the dance floor below, Spike sat alone in heavy contemplation. His hand curled protectively around a bottle of his favorite imported lager, paint chipped nails clinked nervously against the moisture glistened bottle as he waiting impatiently for his friends to arrive. After patrolling the graveyards on the north end of town, failing miserably at the attempt to soothe his frazzled since the demon activity remained at an all time low for Sunnydale, he’d decided to call his friends for a meeting about the events from the night before.

Images of Buffy haunted him, her tear stained face, the frightened expression that marred her beautiful features and most of all, the complete lack of recognition in her emerald eyes. Lost in thought, he methodically peeled away the sodden label on the bottle and replayed their encounter in his head over and over until the heavy footfalls on the stairs signaled the arrival of his friends.

“Spike! Long time, no see.” Gunn announced as he flopped unceremoniously into a chair next to his morose friend. While Spike had been in town for several days, the group hadn’t heard from him, only the occasional update from his father which was normally passed along by Fred to the others. “About time you called, we were starting to wonder if we should call for a search party.”

“Charles, be nice.” Fred chastised lightly, a joking smile on her face to ward off any hurt feelings. “I told you Spike would call us when he was ready.”

“Yeah,Charles,” Spike teased, knowing how much his friend despised his given name, “play nice.” Seeing Gunn’s disgruntled expression caused laughter to bubble up and erupt loudly from Spike in an uncharacteristic guffaw.

“It’s nice to hear that laugh, Spike, been too long, you know?” Fred said honestly as she patted Spike on the thigh. Seeing the light return to his blue eyes, even for a second, gave her hope and she wished whole heartedly that it was a sign that his life was taking a turn for the better. She just wished that Wesley were here to see his former charge smile again, but he’d been gone with the new Slayer, Oz, for nearly a week on some training exercise in the desert and would not return for several more days. “So, what brings us together tonight?”

“Well, thought we’d wait for Angel before getting into the details. He is coming, right?” Spike covered up the worried expression by quickly lighting another cigarette, hiding behind the tendrils of smoke that seductively floated around his face. The last time he’d spoken to his long time mate they’d exchanged the usual joking barbs which had somehow taken a turn for the worse and ended with a heated argument about Spike’s behavior as of late. In the end, after mumbling lame apologies to one another, Angel had left with a frown on his face and Spike had consumed the bottle of whiskey that had convinced him to follow Willow to Los Angeles .

“Angel’s on his way.” Fred answered, soothing Spike’s nerves momentarily, that is until she finished with, “But, he’s bringing someone with him so you may want to spill the beans before hand since she’s not a member of the Scoobies.”

“Angel’s got a date?” Spike asked with a proud grin. While Angel wasn’t a horrible looking bloke, if your preferences ran towards tall men with poofy hair, his habit of putting his foot in his mouth on regular intervals combined with an atrocious fashion sense had a tendency to repel decent women.

“More like a girlfriend.” Gunn interjected. “Missed a lot while you were gone those weeks, man. Angel’s got himself one smoking hot babe. Not that he’s let us meet her personally, but I did catch an eyeful of them making out here one night.”

Spike opened his mouth to comment, but was interrupted by the sudden arrival of the friend in question, who stumbled into the seating area out of breath and seemingly flustered about something important. “Angel, everything all right, mate?”

“You…she….I mean, have you…downstairs.” Angel stammered, huffing and puffing from sprinting across the club and up the stairs. Man, I’m out of shape. Gotta lay off the jelly donuts,he thought to himself. Angel looked into the confused faces of his friends, took a deep breath and blurted out, “Buffy is downstairs!”

“Seriously, Angel, that’s not a very nice thing to do to Spike!” Fred chastised Angel with a stern glare. “I know you two are having some problems, but honestly…”

“She’s here?” Spike asked as he pulled himself slowly out of the chair and headed to the railing to look down into the crowd, leaving his friends open mouthed with shock and wide eyed with curiosity. Intense blue eyes searched the crowd with fervent attention until they landed on the object of his desire. “That’s the reason I called you guys.”

Striding across the small walkway, the lithe brunette leaned against the railing with Spike. “How in the world?” Fred breathed in amazement and watched in wonder as the formerly deceased (and deceased again?) blonde shimmied and shook on the dance floor with an unknown male subject.

“No idea, luv. Showed up on my bloody doorstep last night, wearing the face of my beloved and doesn’t remember a thing about her life with me or well, anything before a couple weeks ago when some paper carrier found her in the parking lot of the warehouse we torched.” Taking a final drag of the cigarette, Spike crushed it out in an ashtray on a nearby table and continued, “She feelslike Buffy, Fred. Looks like her, sounds like her, moves like her! But she has no sodding idea who I am or who she was.”

Fred’s heart wrenched for her best friend. To have loved so deeply and lost her so painfully was bad enough, but this was taking the cruelty a bit too far in her opinion. What if this wasn’t Buffy? What if she truly was just some other woman that looked like another? How would Spike ever be able to cope with this heartache and would he be able to recover this time? “What are you going to do?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.” Spike replied honestly. “What can I do? ‘s not like I can force her to remember me.”

“No, I guess you’re right.” Fred mumbled as she tried to think of a way to help her friend. “There’s got to be somebody that could help. Maybe the council? Surely they’ve got some witches or whatnot that could tell if it’s Buffy.”

“My dad already tried that route this morning and got the brush off of a lifetime. Bloody bastards refused to help on the grounds that they don’t help known killers and if it is Buffy then she’s an abomination or some nonsense.” Spike ground his teeth together in frustration as he watched the blonde dance with another man. “Honestly, Fred, I should just leave her alone and let her have a normal life, but…seeing her dancing with that tosser makes me want to march downstairs and lay claim to what’s mine like some bleeding caveman.”

“We’ll figure something out. I’m going to head home and go through some of the books Wes left at my house, maybe something will jump out at me. Either way, I’m going to call his cell and inform him he needs to bring his butt back to Sunnydale first thing in the morning, ok?” Fred wrapped her arms around Spike to give him a consoling hug before saying, “Hang in there. This had to happen for a reason, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m beginning to think that reason is to punish me.” Spike replied sourly. He forced a small smile on his face for his long time friend to soothe away the worried look on her face. “Call me if you find anything, big or small, yeah?”

“Of course I will.” Waving to Gunn and Angel, Fred scurried down the stairs in a hurry to get home. There was nothing like a little preternatural mystery to get a girls blood flowing.

“Man, you have certainly got a knack for strange shit happening to you.” Gunn teased, uncomfortable as per usual with the high level of emotions that radiated from Spike since Buffy’s arrival years earlier. When Spike growled in response to his kidding, he changed his tune quickly. While he might be a good sized man in tip top shape, Gunn knew he was in no shape to physically take on a pissed off Slayer. “Anything I can do to help?”

“’s not a whole lot to do other than wait for the moment, mate, but thanks for offering.” Spike looked over at Angel, who was still struggling to catch his breath and asked, “Oi, thought you had a date tonight?”

“I left her downstairs, didn’t think she needed to be up here after I saw Buffy on the dance floor.” Angel’s eyes doubled in size when something occurred to him. “She probably thinks I ditched her!” Making a beeline for the stairs, he clambered down them in search of his date.

“I’m going to go get a drink; you wanna come or stay up here?” Gunn asked. Before Spike could answer, knowing that he was going to dwell in the shadows and watch Buffy, Gunn cleverly added, “Could meet Angel’s date and al if you come downstairs.”

“Right then, let’s go. Can’t pass up the chance to meet the girl that says yes to Angel, can I?” Spike said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

The duo descended the wrought iron stairs, which creaked and moaned with every step giving the illusion that they might crumble to the ground at any moment. With every stride, Spike made sure to keep one eye on Buffy the entire time, never letting her bouncing blonde locks out of sight for one moment. His stomach churned with a sickening mix of jealousy and frustration as he watched her laugh and dance with a man that wasn’t him. It took every ounce of self control not to stalk across the room, pull the guy away from her and pummel the bloody wanker until he got the message to stay away from his girl. Course, the rational part of his brain told him that wouldn’t be the way to win back Buffy’s heart, so he followed behind Gunn until the reached the crowded bar and located Angel and his date.

Cordelia Chase had never been overly fond of dance clubs. Not because she didn’t like the attention, which she got plenty of any time she stepped foot in them since they tended to radiate with overly hormonal men. No, unless she was called to a club for business matters she hated visiting them since her attentions were always pulled away from having fun and focused on the desperate cries from the scorned that echoed in her head the moment she walked in. Apparently, broken hearts tended to mingle together and for some reason they liked to do so while dancing. Of course, this was a problem she no longer had to deal with since having her powers stripped for granting the Slayer’s wish.

Focusing her attentions back to what her date was saying, Cordelia smiled and nodded along with what Angel was saying. Even though they had only been together for a couple of weeks, she felt closer to him than she ever had with anyone else in her eleven hundred years of existence. Looking up into his chocolate brown eyes, her heart filled with a warm fuzzy feeling that had her baffled and yet, completely happy at the same time. She found comfort when she was with him and just being in his presence pushed all her worries about not being a vengeance demon anymore right out of her head. She just hoped that in the end he didn’t break her heart as she had seen done time and time again throughout the ages.

“So, like I was saying, some of my friends are here and I want you to meet them.” Angel shifted nervously on his feet, worried that his sudden disappearance hadn’t pissed his date off too much. He certainly didn’t want her to be in a bad mood when she met Gunn and Spike.

“Of course I want to meet your friends, silly. I’ve only been trying to do just that for like weeks now!” Cordelia reached into her purse to retrieve lipstick and a compact mirror, but was stopped by Angel.

“You look perfect, as always.” Angel assured her and gave her a quick kiss before announcing that his friends were there. “Hey guys! Cordelia, I’d like you to meet my friends, Gunn and Spike.” He motioned to each one respectively and watched the expression on his date’s face when she recognized Spike.

“You’re friends with the Slayer?” Cordelia asked, her stomach twisted in knots of anxiety. She hadn’t laid eyes on the Slayer since granting his wish and since her boss, D’Hoffryn, had fired her the next day she hadn’t heard a thing about the outcome of said wish granting. Since all of her vengeance wishes tended to go as planned, she figured that granting a wish for something good to happen would go along smoothly, too. However, the minute she laid eyes on Spike, saw the same heartache in his eyes, and remembered what Angel had said about his friend grieving over the loss of his girlfriend, her heart clenched. Had the wish not been granted? And, if so, why had her powers been stripped?

Before she could stop herself, Cordelia cringed after hearing the next sentence pour from her mouth, “Why isn’t Buffy with you?”


Chapter End Notes:
*holds hands out pitifully* Please, sir...may I have some reviews?



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