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A pounding on his door woke him so abruptly that he knew there must be an angry little Slayer behind it. After all, it had been almost six hours. Still, knocking meant that she was bound to be the other girl. The one that flushed, and confused him into doing things he didn’t mean to do. The angry bitch of a Slayer would have kicked his door clear open.

“Hold your horses,” he grumbled loudly, putting an arm over his eyes as he clambered, bare-chested, to the top level of his crypt. “Don’t you know it’s the middle of the bloody day?” He muttered, stalking over to his door.

He kept his eyes shut, scrubbing them with a balled fist as he pulled the door open. “This better be good,” he said.

“The Slayer’s been shot.”

It was the Watcher that spoke, with the Queen’s sharp vernacular tautening each vowel. Spike’s eyes opened a crack, and he peered out at the suddenly old-looking man. He studied the hard, tired features, and felt the Californian air turn cold.

“Wasn’t me, Rupert.” He said quietly.

The man seemed to deflate, his face slackening. “I know.” He said. And Spike wondered how much he did know. The chip, the stunt from earlier with the doc. “That’s not why I’m here.” The Watcher insisted. “Willow and I were with her when it happened and we caught the little beast that did it. But we don’t know what he is, or why he…” The Watcher swiped off his glasses and turned them nervously in his hands. “It’s some kind of boy.” He said, struggling to explain. “He must be about eleven, maybe less. Maybe not. At least, it looks like a boy. We don’t know if it is a boy.”

Ah Spike thought, understanding. So the man wasn’t here to stick him through with a stake: he was after help. “I s’pose none of your Scooby Gang would much enjoy interrogating a kid,” Spike said slyly.

Giles shook his head, looking haunted. “He doesn’t answer any questions, and we’re not accustomed to… using force. We don’t want to.”

“Finn?” Spike prompted, but the Watcher shook his head again.

“He doesn’t know, yet. The doctor’s transferred him to an Initiative center, to keep an eye on him. I haven’t called him and it’ll be a few days before he gets back. I…”

“Keepin’ this in-house, then?” Spike asked, voice dark. The Watcher chewed his lip with unsightly strain.

“It looks like a boy.” He said again, shaking his head. “I don’t trust the Initiative. If it is a boy, then we shouldn’t… I mean, we can’t…”

“Right, Rupes,” Spike intoned, putting up a hand. He made a fist of his fingers. “I’ve cottoned on. I’ve got no soul- so I can interrogate the boy.” No soul, but a chip, Spike added bitterly to himself. Free to frighten, but not to hurt. Unlike the Initiative, who would take any excuse. “Is that it?”

The Watcher instantly pushed the glasses back onto his face, and then reached into his pocket to haul out a stack of notes. Like Watcher, like Slayer. “There’s five hundred dollars there,” he said. “Another five hundred once all of this is behind us.”

Spike stared at the money, feeling more like scum than ever. Funny, it was always Buffy, in a roundabout way. Still, if scum was how they saw him, then scum he might as well be.

“You think I’m going to do anything more than congratulate the little tyke?” he asked, his tone sharp. Watcher had misjudged him, just like the damn Slayer. “The kid’s got you scared, Rupert. I’m impressed.”

“I know you’re angry with her,” Giles said, seeming to change the subject. Spike would have been confused, if the Watcher’s words hadn’t struck a chord. He narrowed his eyes. “I know you feel like she betrayed you, Spike. But she didn’t want it to go that way.”

Spike felt his jaw clench. The Watcher was on dangerously thin ice. “She told you?” he grit out, in disbelief.

“I told her,” the man replied, raising his brows. “Buffy doesn’t read prophecies in her spare time, Spike. I went to her, and I told her to go about it in the way that she went about it. She didn’t want to, but I told her to. I knew it was the cleanest way.”

Spike shook his head, “No,” he said. “A bitch move like that? Only Buffy Summers could’ve come up with soemthin’ so cold. You’re just tryin’ to take the heat so that I’ll help you shake up her shooter. Not happen’ Rupes.”

“The boy could’ve killed her.”

Spike set his jaw, and turned his eyes away. “She’s the Slayer,” he said. “Comes with the territory.”

He couldn’t see the Watcher, but he could imagine the hard flashing of his eyes. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t have cared if Buffy were taken out that way?” Giles asked, “One stray bullet to the gut, and no room for a fight? Just a coward with freckles and an unfair advantage?”

Spike forced the image out from behind his eyes. The Slayer, on her knees before something she can’t possibly hope to fight. A biting bullet that sinks into her flushed flesh and snuffs the light from behind her eyes. No quips, no fight. Spike shook his head hard.

“I wouldn’t care,” he refused gruffly, not meeting the Watcher’s eye.

“Yes you would,” Giles replied. His voice was ice. “You’re a slayer of Slayers, Spike. You betray your integrity by pretending that it wouldn’t smart you to see Buffy killed that way. I know enough about you to know you believe in honor and dignity in battle. Killing Slayers isn’t about killing Slayers to you. It’s about besting them. It’s about the victory.”

Spike turned slightly, looking at the man over his shoulder. He looked older than usual, like all of the fight had gone out of him. And yet, his eyes were sharp as pick-axes, chipping away at Spike’s usual façade. Oh, the Watcher had him pegged alright. But it wouldn’t do to let him know it.

“Even if all that were true,” Spike said, his words measured and careful as he held the other man’s gaze. “There are different rules when it comes to your girl. She’s done too much to me. You don’t know the half, Watcher. I don’t owe her a thing.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t have to believe it. No skin off my nose.”

“Spike-”

“Look, Rupert,” Spike said. “I’m going to be straight with you ‘cos you need to hear it. Your Slayer- she’s done me a lot of damage over the years. Last week was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I’ve had enough of it. I’ve had it with her. I’ve had it with the whole lot of you. There’s nothin’ you can say now that’s gonna make a shred of-”

“Alright.”

Spike stopped, and looked at the other man. He was lax and resigned at last, and it reminded Spike of the way the Slayer had been when he’d had her pinned, with his fangs heading for her neck. That second’s reprise, before the chip kicked in and she sent him reeling. That quiet moment, when she had gone soft as cotton beneath him, and resigned herself to it. To him.

And then, she hadn’t told on him. He’d tried to kill her, and she hadn’t said a word to her surrogate father or to her best friend. Why would she keep that a secret? There would’ve been ample opportunity: she’d been patrolling with Rupert and Red just hours ago. But she’d said nothing.

Spike blinked, and the seconds passed.

He didn’t care. He didn’t. But it did smart a little, perhaps. Stupid, damn bint. Bane of his existence. Stupid Buffy Summers. Always her. Always you, he thought angrily. He wanted to pace a hole in the floor. He wanted a month to think about this. Buffy Summers. Always you.

The Watcher didn’t meet his eye. Spike let out a low growl.

Abruptly, he swiped the money from the Watcher’s hand, and he counted it as he’d counted Buffy’s. “I don’t know if this is going to be enough, Rupes.” He said at last, keeping his voice casual and his eyes on the cash. “It’s a big ask. Not my usual business, you know.”

The Watcher took a shuddering breath, as if recollecting himself. He looked at Spike. He looked at the cash in Spike’s hand. It took a second or two, and then “Okay,” he said. “I can get more. You’ll have to give me a bit of time, but you have my word, and my word is good.”

“How much?” Spike asked, keeping his voice lazy.

“Fifteen hundred.”

“Two grand.” Spike bartered, almost feeling a grin. Getting one over on her, maybe. Helpin’ them out, but not like last time. He wouldn’t be a laughing stock again. He wouldn’t have his friends and enemies questioning his loyalties, or his reputation. “Two grand,” he said again.

“Spike-”

“Alright, alright, seventeen fifty.”

The Watcher squirmed, seeming flustered. “Buffy’s…” He let a long pause slip by, but then he cracked. Thinking of that boy, and what would happen to him if they kept him for too long, or what would happen if the Initiative got a hold of him. “Okay.” He said. “I’ll have to find the money somewhere,” he said. “Alright.”

“Good,” Spike said, holding out his hand. “Then we’re in business.”

The Watcher hesitated, then shook his hand with little, if any, anticipation. The shake was indicative of a handover of duty- of responsibility. It took the wellbeing of a small, scared-looking boy, and placed that fragile thing into the hands of an infamously vicious monster. Because it was easier. Because none of them had been able to do a thing. It was… against everything that the tired old Watcher had always stood for.
And yet, that same boy had taken a gun and aimed it at the Slayer. How could a boy do that? Well, the answer was simple. A boy couldn’t. Not a real boy. So in any case, what did the fragility of his wellbeing mean to them? The Watcher would surely give up his own in the pursuit of truth.

“Better take me to the boy, I s’pose then.” Spike said, stuffing the cash into his back pocket.

“Right, certainly.” Said the Watcher, becoming grim-faced once more. “He’s in the basement of the Summers’ house. I know, I know,” he added, seeing Spike’s face, “but it was Joyce herself who insisted. And she wouldn’t hear reason, I’m afraid.”

“Those bloody Summers women.” Spike groused, shaking his head. “Well, at least I know how to get there by daylight. I suppose I’ll see you in fifteen.”

The Watcher nodded, and was gone. Spike took his stack of notes downstairs and stowed them safely, then grabbed a t-shirt and the brown blanket which spent half of its time smoldering. “Here we go,” he groused to himself, dashing out into the heat of the day.





It was Red’s bird that answered the door when he pounded, and Spike dashed past her into the relative safety of the house. They’d drawn the curtains, he saw. That was sort of nice, so Spike decided to be straight with them, rather than playing games like he might’ve done if they had treated him as they usually did.

The quiet witch at the door patted out a flame on his shoulder, and Spike smiled at her. “Thanks, pet.” He said. Her expression was a little drawn, and Spike struggled against an unwelcome desire to ask her if she was alright. “Rupert around?” he asked instead.

She nodded. “He’s w-with Willow.” She said, with a tremble in her voice as she glanced in the direction of the basement door. “They’re down with the boy.”

“Giles asked me-”

The witch was already nodding again. “Yes, I know.” She said. She still looked worried. “W-whatever you think, S-Spike, it’s not going to be easy. He’s just a boy.”

“We’ll see.”

The bird didn’t know the first thing about him, and even she thought that he was soft.

“Spike,” said Rupert in a stoic voice, as he appeared in the basement doorway. “You’re here.”

“My word’s as good as yours,” the vampire replied dryly.

Willow emerged behind the Watcher, and she looked very shaken as she shut the door. She sniffed hard, “I can’t get any kind of reading from him,” she said, looking at her quiet girlfriend and barely even acknowledging Spike, “He’s practically tingling with magic, but I just can’t pick anything up. He must be slathered in anti-detection spells.” The redhead shivered, “It’s really powerful magic, and I don’t know how to get through it.”

“Could it be a guise?” Spike asked, and Willow looked at him, blinking. “Could it be a demon, I mean, appearing as a boy?”

“That’s what we think.” She said, shaking her head, and looking more as if this was what she hoped. “I mean, it’s the only thing that makes a bit of sense. Right? I just can’t tell for sure.”

“Can’t you use a truth spell on him?” Spike asked. Willow shook her head again.

“He won’t speak.” She said. “A truth spell can’t force a person to talk- it can only verify that what they say is true. It only works if the prisoner is willing to speak, so usually, keeping quiet means that a person is guilty.” She sighed, looking tired. “But we already know that he did it. We saw it happen! We just don’t know why.”

“It’s alright, Willow.” Said Giles, soothingly. “You deserve a break. Why don’t you and Tara go and join Joyce and Xander at the hospital? I’m sure Buffy would love to hear your voices.”

Willow smiled, looking watery. “Yes,” she said. “Maybe there’s been some progress.”

Tara put her arms over Willow’s shoulders, and Willow smiled again, letting herself be led to the door. She glanced back at Spike. “Good luck.” She half smiled. Then the two girls were gone.

Giles turned to Spike. “Right,” he said, his voice frank and cold once more. “You won’t be able to hurt him, if he really is a boy, but I think we should wait on that front. If he’s a boy then it won’t do to have him knowing you can’t hurt him. I suspect he already knows that we won’t.” Rupert pawed off his glasses. “I think you need to go down there in full demon-form and do your best to frighten him. If we can frighten answers out of him, then that is much better than having to hurt him.” Giles paled for a moment, as if struggling with the idea. “We don’t want to hurt him, if we don’t have to.”

Spike vamped out. “Right,” he said, “Frighten the boy. Don’t hurt him- yet.”

“Yes,” Rupert said morosely. “Not yet.”

He looked strained, and very old once more. Spike fought the sudden urge to ask about the Slayer. Didn’t fit his image. Seventeen hundred dollars, that’s why he was doing this. Seventeen hundred dollars, and a bit of a chortle at the Slayer’s expense. Asking after her would make him look like he gave a damn.

Giles opened the basement door, and Spike walked into the great darkness beyond. He glanced back at the Watcher with cool eyes, and the tired man shut the door again with a gentle, regretful click.

It was cold in the basement. Spike wondered whether the temperature was tactical and he embraced his forearms, even though the cold didn’t trouble him as it would a small human. He strode down the stairs with confidence, seeing better in his vamp-guise than the old human one, and seeing the huddled brown lump on the chair by the wall. His wrists were loosely roped to his knees, but it was nowhere near the rough treatment that Spike had received at the hands of the same Scoobies when he had been chipped and helpless the year before.

The lump had a heartbeat which had sky-rocketed, the second Spike had entered the pitch dark room. The lump was breathing fast, and its heart was thumping, but it didn’t smell of fear. It didn’t smell of anything at all, in fact, which Spike found suspicious. He couldn’t think of any reason for a human boy to hide his own scent, or even know how to do it, for that matter.

As Spike approached the trembling thing, he saw that it sat up slowly like a boy, straight-backed and trying to be tall, but also whimpering a bit. Its shoulders went up and down, and the tied hands trembled on the tied knees. It looked around with strange, frightened eyes, which were a dark shade of blue. It had brown hair. It had a smattering of freckles, the kind that fade away as you get older. It wore a red sweatshirt and small, blue jeans. It had a shy face. It looked frightened, defiant and young.

Spike faltered. It looked so much like a boy. No more than eleven or twelve. Maybe younger, he couldn’t tell. It had been a long time since he’d last seen a kid. Years. He couldn’t think.

He stared at the thing, the boy, and then he straightened himself and fit the role he’d been assigned. The kid had used a gun, after all. Used a gun and disguised his scent. Practically tingling with magic, Red had said.

“Why are you shaking?” Spike growled, approaching the chair with long strides.

To his horror the kid went slack, as if the fight had all gone out of him. The boy, the thing, sank back in the hard wooden seat, and dropped its head, rubbing its eyes into its shoulder to get rid of the tears.

Spike stalked over to the dangling light cord, and he yanked it, flooding the room with a sterile white light that flickered and clicked. He turned back to the boy, and found those strange eyes blinking against the brightness, and then all of a sudden watching him. Those eyes were wide and they wobbled with tears that threatened to spill. A damn ruse, Spike reminded himself hastily. If not, who cares? If you’re brave enough to shoot a Slayer, you’re brave enough to face the consequences.

“What are you looking at?” Spike snarled, and the thing’s boy-like face became suddenly blotchy and drawn. “Can’t talk?” Spike asked.

The boy didn’t say anything.

Spike’s temper was fraying, and he walked over to the lump, circling his chair. “So, your voice must be the giveaway then.” He stated. “Maybe you could change yourself enough to look like a boy, but you couldn’t do your voice. Because you’re not a boy, are you? You’re a dirty, stinking demon, who thought he could get away with sticking a bullet into the Slayer.” Spike stopped behind the chair, and then leaned in very close to the thing’s ear, “Is that why I can’t smell anything?” he whispered, his voice menacing. “Because there’s another flaw to your clever plan, little boy. I’m a vampire, see? I can smell everyone – everything. But not you. I guess that means you’re not such a little boy, after all.”

The lump turned its head, looking into Spike’s eyes with its big ones. It had chosen a very clever disguise- but clearly it hadn’t guessed that the good-hearted Scoobies might have a nasty vampire under their employ.

“Do you know what I do to demons?” Spike asked, his voice still low and full of gravel. “You can’t even imagine it.”

The lump started sniffing again, its heart rate was slowly picking back up. Spike watched it snivel and shrink away from him, and he felt confident that he’d frightened it. He took a step back.

“So, why’d you do it?” Spike asked, crossing his arms and striding to stand squarely before it. He leaned forward, “Why, huh?”

Spike caught the thing’s chin between loose fingers, and he forced his face into a close tilt so that they were practically nose to nose.

“I’ve killed Slayer’s myself, boy,” he snarled, making the thing choke as its eyes flooded fast with tears. “I’ve done more terrible things than you can imagine, and those cowards upstairs, they’re going to let me do those things to you. So save yourself the hassle, and tell me who you are and what you want.” The thing was really crying now, and Spike was disgusted. He let the chair tip over onto its side, and took a step back, making himself tall. “Go on,” he said. “Talk.”

The thing coughed and sputtered, with its cheek flat against the chill ground. It was strange to see it crying. It twisted something in Spike- something unfamiliar. But it was only because it looked like a boy, and because Spike never could stand to see women or children cry. Yes, it was a very clever disguise indeed.





Spike went back up again, leaving the thing down in the dark. Giles was waiting anxiously in the kitchen, and Spike shook off his vampire guise, sitting down in front of him.

“That thing doesn’t have any scent.” Spike said abruptly, putting his hands on the table.

Giles frowned. “Not at all?”

“No.” Spike confirmed. “It’s as if he’s covered it up, to keep us from guessing at what he really is. And he won’t talk. I’ll need more time.”

Giles nodded, still frowning. “Not a boy, then,” he mumbled, looking a bit clearer in his eyes.

“Not a normal one, at any rate.” Spike said. He shifted his gaze uncomfortably. “You know,” he said. “I could find out for you. Put your mind at ease.”
Giles looked up fast. Spike could see the cogs turning, but the old eyes were clouded again. Damn Scoobies. The Initiative wouldn’t think twice, boy or not. The little freckled thing was lucky, really. If Finn hadn’t been taken away then things might already be headed down a very different track.

Spike sighed, and he knew he wouldn’t get an answer out of the watcher yet. Instead, he got up and went to the fridge. “Joyce here?” He asked off-handedly, reaching right into the back of the fridge, and grinning slightly when he felt the cool familiarity of a blood bag. Trust the Slayer’s mum to keep a supply.

“She’s at the hospital with Buffy.” Giles said, and Spike’s grin dropped prematurely. He tried to make it again, but it felt wrong. He thought about the way the girl had looked under his hands. He thought of that golden, awe-struck look in her eye. The kind of look he didn’t know a woman could fake- until he shagged Buffy Summers, that is. Damn bitch.

He shoved the fridge door shut, then tore into the plastic blood bag with blunt teeth, reaching for a yellow mug. He poured the thick, viscousy contents into the mug, and then dropped it carelessly into the microwave. He had nothing to say about Buffy. Not really. Could’ve talked about Joyce, but not now that the thought of her had been associated with the Slayer again. All trails lead to Buffy, Spike thought bitterly.

Nothing left to talk about but the boy. Probably for the best anyway, in the interest of maintaining his image.

“What happened?” He asked, after the microwave had pinged and he was sitting down across from the Watcher once more.

“I’m not completely sure,” Rupert said, looking down at his clasped hands, then back up at the vampire again. “She was ahead of Willow and I. We were only there as a bit of company, since she’d seemed so down since Riley’s surgery. I was… Worried about her. She was annoyed, perhaps. She went stalking off ahead, and then when we came around the corner we saw her with him. It didn’t look like much at first. It seemed like she was crouching down to talk to him- maybe she thought he was lost; wanted to help him. We were heading towards them, because we wanted to help, too.” Rupert’s hands were shaking, and Spike could see that he was upset. “When we got closer, we could see that the boy looked strange. He had this… This cold look on his face. It was frightening to see in a child, and we slowed. We shouldn’t have slowed,” he shook his head, “We should have gone over more quickly. Maybe I could’ve gotten between them, or gotten the gun, or-”

“Rupert.”

Spike’s voice was gentler than usual; nudging. The Watcher met his eye, and then he sighed.

“The boy, we could see then, had a gun. A little black pistol: some kind of antique. He didn’t say anything loud enough for us to hear, but Buffy was pleading with him. She was shaking: I’ve never seen her frightened like that. Bullets are different to demons, of course. Little boys, too.”

“And then he shot her?” Spike asked, his eyes dark with imagining. He’d fantasized about it, of course. Quick and satisfyingly brutal. But he’d never have done it. Not like that. Not to her. Even after it all.

“It wasn’t quite then.” Giles said, tapping the table with bent fingers. “He… He let her get close enough to touch. She… She put her hand out to touch his shoulder, and that’s when he did it. He staggered back from her and he found his angle. He aimed so swiftly that he looked like a full-grown man who had been shooting for years. He held the angle for a whole ten seconds, and then he pulled the trigger and the sound was astonishing. A loud crack that shook the whole town.” Giles caught his breath, and Spike pushed his mug of O-neg away with a sudden loss of appetite. “He dropped the gun. Dropped to his knees. Willow took Buffy to the hospital. I brought the boy here.” Giles shook his head. “He didn’t try to fight me. Didn’t say a word. I don’t… I wanted him to be immediately evil, but he was just like a boy. I took him down into the basement and I tied him tight to the chair. The whole time he was just quiet and white. It was like he wasn’t even there. Has hardly spoken since.”

Spike was quiet, his knuckles white. He realized he had curled his fingers into fists, and he smoothed them out consciously. “Why would a boy want to shoot the Slayer?”

Giles shook his head helplessly. “I haven’t stopped asking myself the same question.”





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