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AUTHOR'S NOTES: I updated twice within a day, chapter 24 is obviously first, so make sure to read that before you read this chapter! :)
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Seven days went by, the first two he spent burning everything. Drawings, poems, scribbles he'd never considered favorable but for the subject being written on. He got rid of every last figurative scarlet hand, without care for quality or significance.

It was already a half completed task. Spike had been in the process of taking down the entire wall before she... before Buffy found it.

There was no reason to keep the things now, but he couldn't burn all of them. The writings, the shadow drawings, they could fry. He was never very good at capturing her on paper, not when compared to the real woman, but the better ones of Buffy's face, and the photographs... Spike just didn't have it in him to let the flames consume them.

That was his reason for the boxes. He was packing them for the dump. It wasn't easy, and it was the furthest thing from fun, but after spending so much time with Buffy, the photos felt a new kind of artificial. Looking at the drawings and sneaky snapshots was like seeing a counterfeit painting from far away, versus the real one up close.

He'd felt that way for some time. The whole business started to unsettle him after getting closer to her than he'd ever hoped. Therefore, Spike began tearing it down, day by day, little by little, and the more of the wall he revealed, the less his life felt like a dream. His relationship with her felt solid, it felt real.

And the more he believed in it, the less sense having the pictures made, and the less comfortable Spike felt keeping them.

Obviously, he hadn't gotten rid of the damn things fast enough.

Just as delayed as the attempt was to erase his unhealthy exploitations, so was his return to work.

It took four days. The school was one of those places now that made him ill just thinking about it, and passing certain rooms caused his chest to tighten without mercy.

Faking sick was an easy solution, at first. Saturday he wasn't expected, and Sunday he was too drunk to find his front door let alone try and scrub a toilet.

Beer and whiskey as dual numbing agents stopped doing their best after a time, though, and he was sliding into the godforsaken gray uniform by Tuesday. Dragging a mop bucket through the empty halls felt like a kind of suicidal march.

It was proof that things were back to normal. Reality resituated, and flourished. Nothing felt surreal or too good to be true. His world was as black and white as a newspaper, nothing but depressing reports and sharp corners. Everything was proper, and as it should be.

He had to figure she was still at the school two days a week. Nothing would keep Buffy away from those kids, and he knew her schedule, so Spike came up with an excuse to omit Mondays and Thursdays from his timecard. Sometimes it paid to work two jobs, outside the obvious reasons. He used the cemetery for a white lie. Clem fortunately didn't mind taking on the extra hours, and there was a new guy interested in working part time.

Spike's initial instinct hadn't been to avoid her. No, never that. As a matter of fact, by the end of the week, he'd made up his mind to go and talk to her. He was starting to abhor the taste of alcohol and his stomach was beginning to protest the use of it as a daily sleep aid.

He knew, to keep sane, he couldn't just leave things. He also knew that Buffy was terrified of him; that very knowledge was what drove him to drink. The fact he was certain she would never talk to him again by choice, and possibly issue a restraining order if he tried contacting her, was the source of his exhaustion and frequent migraines. It was also the driving force of his control. He didn't want to threaten her with a visit, a word, or even so much as a glance.

Only he couldn't keep living like this. It felt like he was walking through a thick, suffocating mist. Every day he picked up the phone with the same sore temptation to call. He was itching to drive in the direction of her house. He was dying to say her name in something other than drunken misery.

Spike had known the risks. He'd known all of this might happen, that a temporary happiness would likely lead to permanent misery; but he'd also been helpless to resist taking the chance.

Before the pictures came down, and Buffy found out the truth, his love had become much different. It had changed. From the days when he used to follow her just to spot a smile, to the days after they had their first true conversation, everything did.

His affection grew, filled out like an inkblot, covering everything he touched and every emotion he felt. Spike had gotten the girl. Found the perfect woman, held her in his arms. He was happy. Old pictures became meaningless, stood as nothing more than scraps of fantasy.

And he felt sick handling them. Spike was more in tune now than ever before with just how severely he'd invaded Buffy's privacy. He realized, he acknowledged, and he endured self-disgust.

Then he lost her; and now, the whole process kept repeating itself.

This was perhaps why, on the seventh day, a brand new Friday supplying some kind of twisted motivation and courage, Spike drove to her house.

And he sat, in the car, smoking cigarettes, fighting instincts and fears side by side.

He barely survived it; but then again, he barely survived the week leading up to the moment, too.

***

A full week of silence, of deleted messages with her tired hands and equally tired ears listening for his voice... and somehow always relieved and angry at once when Spike never called.

She was working through the process of forgetting. Forgetting his face, name, accent and telephone number. Via her bad luck, Buffy had memorized all of them. She fought hard to remember the photographs, though, despite what discomfort it brought.

They were important. She had to think of them, and the feeling that hit when she discovered them. The rush, the realization; the pain and violation. Most importantly, the fear.

It was the only thing that was keeping her distanced. Buffy had no desire to press charges, or tell anyone about what had happened. But this did not diminish the importance she placed on being cautious. Remaining wary and watchful might mean the difference between a bruised heart and real physical harm.

Some inner portion of her psyche, maybe the love-struck part, sang of stubborn reassurance. Spike would never hurt her, it claimed. He didn't have it in him. He obviously had a problem, and likely a few others she didn't know about, but for some reason Buffy couldn't think of him as genuinely dangerous.

Not towards her, anyway.

Maybe it was all the time she'd spent with him. Maybe it was intuition. Maybe she was stupid. The only thing that really mattered was she keep herself safe, turn off her emotions, flip the proverbial switch she kept reserved for self preservation and damage control. If that meant quieting the angels that sang praises on Spike's behalf in her mind, then so be it. Buffy didn't think she could trust her judgment these days anyhow.

She pulled away, figuratively and physically. She didn't think about the dinners they shared, the first time he cooked for her, the incident in the alley behind the grocery mart, or how he fixed her car. She didn't think about him helping and befriending Jack, nor what the reason might be for Spike's neglect in mentioning it.

Buffy, however, did note that Jack seemed more cheerful lately. He was calmer somehow, too. Therefore, she was forced to acknowledge it was likely due to Spike's presence in the boy's life.

Which was yet another thing she didn't allow herself to think about for too long, at any point. Her more recent evaluation of the chance Spike could become dangerous, something which needed to be ascertained days after her traumatic discovery, allowed Buffy to relax over the prospect of Jack getting closer to the man. After all, she knew by the way he'd talked, the boy was not going to leave Spike behind anytime soon. And she damn sure wasn't going to tell Jack about the pictures.

He was safe, and she believed that. However, all things that indirectly related to Spike left her on edge. Buffy was forced to remain intelligently aware of every move she made, which was stressful enough. Training her mind so that she focused on the negatives was equally taxing; but so long as she didn't think too hard about him as a person, she managed to stay emotionally distanced in every respect.

Going to work was the hardest part. She had no idea whether Spike would be at the school, or if he would have found a way to avoid her. With the chance he might seek her out, she made it her business to always leave at least five minutes early. Buffy didn't care if it made her look bad. She didn't care if she had to tell a couple kids to stop by her store the next day instead of staying late for a meeting. She was being careful, and that was the smartest thing she knew to do.

Another smart decision she made was to throw herself headfirst into her work. She'd redone the floor plan at the antique shop several times already. Her advice to the kids was bordering on paranoid it was so thorough, and though Anya kept asking her if something was wrong, Buffy managed to play off a fairly believable and not at all nervous smile quite well.

She'd learned over the years how to shut sections of her mind off. She was good at it, too. On Friday, when she was locking up the store and counting down the register, the radio overhead remained silent and unobtrusive. Her hands were precise, her counting quick. She said goodbye to Anya without losing her place, and locked the doors up with every awareness kicking into high gear.

Buffy trotted to her car in the dim twilight, checking familiar corners and shadows. She sped home via a five minute bat-out-of-hell driving stint.

The carefully controlled watchfulness she was becoming accustomed to these days evaporated as quick as smoke when she pulled up to her house.

Spike's car, parked out of the way but still as obvious and shocking as a blinking neon sign, sat in her gravel drive. It felt like she was seeing a ghost, and she wanted to run the other way, maybe scream; but Buffy swallowed her fear and braked instead.

She spotted him almost immediately. He was sitting on her porch steps, eyes up, hands folded and a kicked puppy look about him. Her heart began lurching in her chest like a broken jack-in-the box.

Buffy turned off the engine and stuck her head out the window. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Spike flinched at the question. Maybe it had something to do with the iron around it, maybe it didn't. The man still answered her. "I wanted to talk," he replied.

"Go home, Spike." Buffy cleared her throat and added, "If you argue with me, I'll call Al right now."

He grimaced, swallowed, and stood up. "Why haven't you then?"

"What?"

"Why haven't you called him by now?"

That earned Spike a pause. It also made Buffy three times more irritated than she already was. "How do you know I haven't already told him everything?"

"'Cause my wrists aren't cinched in metal." Spike shook his head. His vocal cords wobbled and he had to strain himself to say, "Please, Buffy, just talk to me. I'm not going to hurt you."

*A bit too late for that,* she thought, then promptly shoved the pitiful thought away. "Just go home, will you?!"

"I will... after we talk."

She groaned a frustrated screech and rolled up the window. Her hands clenched around the warm steering wheel, her gloves sliding anxiously over the shape of it.

Buffy considered pulling out, driving off. She rubbed her forehead and peeked through the windshield.

She didn't know why, as it made little sense, but seeing Spike in the flesh affected her fear of him. She thought she could feel it draining away.

Just a little.

She was still concerned, still nervous, but seeing him again was like a strange reminder that she'd been alone with him much too often to think he could hurt her now.

Still, facts were facts. What if he changed because she knew his secret? What if he went psycho and tried to hurt her because she was trying to leave him? What if those pictures he shot were just the tip of the iceberg with the liberties Spike had taken? What if, what if, what if...

What if she got some answers to the myriad of questions she'd been avoiding for a week now in fear of what she might learn.

With a hearty growl, she built her courage enough to kill the engine and get out of the car. Her boots crunched five twigs on the stone cold ground. She noted the air was more bitter than it had tasted when she first left the shop.

Crossing her arms, Buffy ignored the flicker of hope she noticed on Spike's face. "How long have you been here?"

He scratched his head, tilting it. "I, uh, was waitin' for you to get home."

Her hackles rose and he immediately backpedaled.

"Not waiting for you, mind. I was just... I just wanted to see you."

"You've seen. I'm here. I'm alive. Now you can go."

"Buffy, I need to explain."

That jostled free a disbelieving laugh. The kind of unenthused exclamation that dripped with sarcasm and cynicism. "I'm sure you have a great story to tell, but I'm tired and I'm in no mood for excuses."

"They're not excuses."

"So you're saying you have a logical reason for stalking me?"

He looked down. "No. I- I don't." That expression of shame rose again. "But I have confessions."

She scowled, hugging herself tighter. " 'Confessions?' "

A nod.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I-" He choked on a word and swallowed thickly. "I don't want you thinkin' I'll be followin' you around anymore. I stopped doin' that after we talked the first time, and I-"

"Hold on." Buffy's brow was pinched so deeply her forehead hurt. "You took those pictures before we met?"

A blank look cast over his face. "Yeah, I thought..." Her clear disbelief caught him short, and eventually, Spike finished quietly with a sigh. "It was before."

Buffy closed her eyes momentarily. She shook her head and recoiled. "You were following me before I met you? You've been..." Her gaze landed on the forgotten DeSoto. "Oh my God. That day... your car wasn't really broken down, was it?"

Spike shook his head furiously. "No, it was. I swear it was."

"Then why did it break down in front of my house?!"

He bit his lip, rolling his eyes silently. "I was parked."

Buffy tensed. "Watching me."

He nodded yet again. "M'sorry."

"No." She took a few steps back and he reacted noticeably, looking as if his stomach had just fallen out. "No. 'Sorry' is something you say when you bump into someone, or- or spill a drink at dinner. It is not what you say to the woman you followed and took pictures of for- for-..."

Spike's jaw clenched, but he filled in the blanks. "Two years."

All her breath left her. That explained the amount of photographs she found. "Two... Oh, God."

She wobbled, he moved forward in concern and she immediately found her legs again. "Don't come near me."

He didn't respond to that directly. His face was granite hard, cheekbones stark and pale, lips compressed like an accordion, but his eyes spoke of turmoil. "I didn't break certain rules," he vowed.

Buffy found she was growing nauseas, and used every instinct to fight it.

"I didn't..." He took a second to gather courage. "I never... never did it when you were in a private moment. Didn't pull any peepin' tom moves or-"

"Oh, then I guess I should be grateful," she scoffed. "You never saw me naked without my permission. You just followed me, sat outside my home, and drew pictures of me when I was asleep. That's admiring."

Spike cursed himself and his stupid tongue. He didn't know what to say. He knew none of these ideas for confessions were good ones, but he still felt the need to tell her. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't hate him so much then.

He knew he was wrong, but it hurt too damn bad not to try.

"I know it was wrong."

"Then why do it?!"

"Because I never thought-" He cut himself off, a heavy breath storming through his nostrils and out his mouth. He didn't have a right to ask for understanding, and yet he kept talking. "Because I didn't think you'd so much as look at me twice. I didn't know you'd ever want... that you'd ever give a chance to someone like me."

"Someone like you..." She felt suddenly hollow, like a dead tree. And tired. Very, very tired. "The only thing I ever learned about you that freaked me out was this, Spike." Her voice lowered with her eyes. "Until now, I thought you were a normal... wonderful person."

He took a hesitant, quiet step closer. "What about the mugger?" he murmured.

She flashed back to the alley, a grocery store and a brick wall she'd gotten much too familiar with. "What about it?"

"You were frightened then," he said. "Ran away from me. Thought I was going to hurt you...?"

She looked up, scowling. "I thought you were getting too close. It had nothing to do with what you did or how. That was just me." Buffy sighed and stared at him, disappointment clear in her unblinking gaze. "But that was before."

His jaw fell open. "I've stopped. I swear it."

Buffy inhaled deeply.

"I haven't done anything, haven't followed or taken pictures since before we spoke that first time. And I'll never do it again. What you found in that room was all on the way out-"

"You did it once."

He frowned, heart beating a mile a minute. "What?"

"You did it once," she whispered. "You followed me, invaded my life, kept a display in your house. That isn't something you just move on from, Spike."

His voice cracked like an old porch step. "I made a mistake."

"No. I did." Buffy stuck her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out her keys. "I'm going inside. When I do, I'd like you to leave."

Spike grew silent, and still. She walked a wide arc around him and he moved back numbly so she could maneuver the stairs. "Buffy..." He felt his palms grow numb even as his fingernails dug into cold skin. "Please, love... give me a chance. I'll do anything."

She reached her front door, full body shivers overtaking and making her teeth chatter. It was hard to talk at all. "That's the problem."

Their eyes clashed.

"I meant it," he said, mouth stiff, eyes catastrophic. "I love you. I'd never-" Spike shook his head at the thought. "I'd never hurt you. Never."

"Prove it," she said, "and leave me alone."

Buffy unlocked her door and walked quickly inside, closing it firmly. Spike heard Tabitha chirp a greeting on the other side.

The cold surrounding him grew heavy, and as nimbly as water becomes ice, hope faded away.
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