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Time moved along, of course. It always does, even when the people living it claim the days go by at a snail's crawl.

Four cold weeks tiptoed into Christmastime. December folded into holiday parties, gift wrapping, and shopping. Snow fell reliably. Salt was poured everywhere pavement lie and silence echoed alarmingly in the short absences allowed between repetitive Christmas songs.

At the store, more sales were made throughout December than any other month this year. Anya became a fulltime employee due to the busy day-in, day-out holiday bustle. Buffy's hours at the school were cut out of necessity in the second week, and kids were off for Christmas break by the third.

She barely had a moment to sit down. Her shop was a storm of townspeople and their visiting family members every day. Anya and Xander were planning a big party on Christmas day, and Buffy was expected to show up early to exchange gifts and help with setup.

She was also amazingly busy preparing for Giles' arrival. Every year he came in for Christmas and New Years, which made December one of her favorite months despite the frigid temperatures. She could deal with the endless To-Do lists and the cold so long as she had friends and family around. Even an endless litany of Christmas music wasn't enough to burst her bubble when she had everyone she loved in the same zip code.

Of course, this year, it was a little harder to feel bright and cheery.

Buffy didn't blame Giles for not being able to fly in until Christmas Eve. She was worried he might get snowed in, sure, but he had a life too and commitments in England that she would not begrudge him. He was still coming and that was all that mattered.

Xander and Anya's upcoming party plans grew every day, which was fine, because Buffy shouldn't care if they invited half the town to their home on Christmas day. She didn't even mind that Anya talked endlessly about it or that she'd bought a planner which accompanied her along to the store every single day.

What bugged Buffy didn't even really bug her; it was the endless questioning though, which unsettled. Each week she received the same barrage of nitpicky prodding.

"It's going to be fancy, do you have a dress?"

"Yes, Anya." *Or I will... Macy's has online ordering, right?*

"What about a date? Did you find a guy yet?"

One deep sigh, camouflaged by a cough. "Why do I need a date again?"

"Because you'll stand out otherwise."

"Not everyone will have a date."

"Okay fine, I want you to have fun, not sit in a corner getting wine drunk because you're single during the holidays." She flipped through the big pages of her party planner, heedless and oblivious. "Or worse, deal with Roger talking your ear off all night."

Buffy squirmed through a shudder. Yes, the Roger thing was a possibility. Ever since she and Spike... Ever since word got around Buffy was on the market again, despite never having really been off it before things took a nosedive, Roger had been particularly chummy.

At least, he tried. But despite the recent change in her relationship status, Buffy knew she could never date him. For every second the man was flatteringly persistent, he was twice as annoying.

"I'll be okay, Anya," she promised. "Maybe, if I meet someone before your party..."

"What happened between you and William again?" she interrupted. "I mean, you never really explained it, and I don't see why you can't call him up to ask for a one night stand. No guy in his right mind ever says no to that."

Buffy swallowed hard, opening one of her log books. *God help me.* She scratched off a few things and stapled in some order receipts. "We just didn't work out."

"That's the same answer you've been giving me for almost three weeks now."

"It's the only answer I have."

"But what happened? Was he bad in bed or something?"

"I explained this to you. We never-"

Anya let loose a groan. "Of course you didn't. Okay, fine. Then what'd he do?"

Buffy pressed her lips together and dropped her pencil. "It doesn't matter. We just... got bored of each other."

"Yeah right," Anya scoffed. "The last time, and only time really, I saw you guys together was Thanksgiving. You were as smitten as two people can get. It was sickening, but I know those kinds of feelings, and they don't just evaporate."

"They didn't," Buffy slipped. A cold moment of silence and she backpedaled. "We just realized... we wouldn't have worked out."

Anya's frown was honest confusion. "Do you realize you're starting to sound like a parrot?"

Buffy gave her a look. "Then stop asking me the same questions over and over if you don't like the answers."

Anya huffed. She closed her planner when a customer came in, and soon there were three more. The momentary lull they'd been enjoying came to an abrupt end. The remainder of the day was spent inside a seasonable flurry of gift wrapping and credit card swiping.

It was the usual for her. All of it, the exacerbating questions, increased sales, and jolly hectic atmosphere tagged by occasional fake smiles had been Buffy's norm since the first of the month, and she was growing more and more accustomed to it.

Putting off Anya was becoming slightly more difficult, but she figured the woman's curiosity would ebb by the new year. With luck. If not, Buffy might ask Xander to talk to her, but that felt somewhat childish.

Anya and Buffy had grown much closer over the last several weeks. Buffy was even starting to consider her a friend. Not that she wouldn't have called Anya that before, but she'd always thought of her as 'Xander's wife,' not necessarily somebody she'd call up to go to lunch with or share gossip.

But things had changed. It seemed as if Anya felt the same, which made Buffy smile, and that was nice because she hadn't had another girl to hang out with in a very long time.

If only she would quit asking about Spike.

That was perhaps the hardest part about working at the store, but the greatest benefit of having such a hectic schedule. Buffy was thoroughly engrossed in her work, fastidious with furniture displays and bold on pricing, but similarly reminded of Spike every other minute.

She refused to blame her thought processes on any semblance of regret or nostalgia, because that made no sense. It was simply that Anya would ask her at least four times a week what had happened between them, and Buffy refused to give any more of an answer than the one she'd started with. Not just that, but the teenagers were still visiting from time to time, and nearly all of them were seeking relationship advice.

She didn't know what it was. Maybe there was something in the air, because she'd had fifteen- FIFTEEN -students come to her asking after presents that might be suitable for new girlfriends and boyfriends.

Did girls like antique jewelry? If a boy was a fan of art, would Buffy have anything really unique in her store he might like? Did buying a vase and putting fresh cut flowers inside make a good present? How much were vintage comic books going for?

Buffy loved her students, don't mistake that, but the constant reminder she was alone for Christmas was starting to rub her the wrong way.

She kept wondering about Spike. Not when she was at work, because she had enough distractions not to allow for it, but when she was home, at the end of the night... that was a different story.

Her house was quiet now, seemingly quieter than ever before, and Tabitha spent a lot of time cuddling in her lap. Buffy could lie in bed listening to purring and sleepy mews for hours, while she herself would remain awake. Spike's face shot through her mind like firework displays at random instants. She would think of him whenever she filled her car up with gas, or when she saw someone wearing a leather jacket. She thought about what his holiday might be like, and if it were even the least bit filled with people and laughter as hers was.

It seemed the weeks she'd spent with him were only going to fade after triple the amount of time had passed without him. This concept soured her mood on a daily basis, but Buffy worked hard to ignore it. She distracted from unreasonable guilt with indignation, and muffled such feelings with work, work, and more work.

Her life was a vicious cycle now. Somehow, she managed to deal. The only thing Buffy couldn't say she felt confident about was Jack.

Out of all the students to come visit her since school let out, he was the one that hadn't. She tried not to worry, and visited his home twice, only to wind up speaking to his aunt for twenty minutes, with no final estimate as to when Jack might be back.

Buffy saw the work he'd done on the garage. Evidently, tackling that mess had been his punishment for fighting at the cemetery. Buffy still didn't know all the details on that, asides from who endured what injuries.

She hadn't heard a thing about him getting into anymore trouble lately, but she hadn't seen him either. If it weren't thoroughly stupid and somewhat painful to consider, she might think he was avoiding her.

If he was, there could only be one reason.

Buffy wrestled with whether or not she should do something about that. Every day she tried, he wasn't home, and his aunt didn't know much about where he was. When she didn't get answers, or bother stopping in, Buffy worried he might be with Spike.

Worried more in the respect that if they were together, it only solidified the notion that Jack was angry with her for hurting Spike.

Which bothered her. It really, really bothered her, but Buffy tried to convince herself that she had done the only thing she could do. Spike was lucky she never spoke to Al about what she'd found in his house, or what he'd admitted to for that matter. She didn't have it in her, but the point remained she had every right to, and she chose to leave it alone. She chose to leave Spike alone.

And Jack didn't understand. Buffy felt like he might hate her, which again, upset her to a degree she hadn't known such a situation could. She loathed the thought of not being there for him. She despised the idea that Jack felt Spike needed him more than Buffy did. If he took sides, she was obviously the wrong one in his young eyes, and that made her feel guilty.

Moving on was proving a strenuous feat, and between the holiday season being in full swing and various days where Buffy didn't sit down for nine hours straight, her head felt like it was spinning more often than not. Her efforts to remain emotionally detached and sane were starting to dwindle due to genuine exhaustion.

By Christmas Eve, she was wishing for an end to it all, and hadn't she mentioned she never got the chance to buy a tree?

It didn't bother her. She'd been all set to rely on Xander and Anya's joyous Christmas celebration for cheery decorations. But after Buffy picked Giles up at the airport, the first thing to come out of his yawning mouth upon crossing her threshold was, "Oh, no tree this year?" in a voice filled with poorly concealed disappointment.

She felt like a failure.

It was silly. Buffy knew Giles wouldn't pitch an actual fit about not having a tree, but she also knew that he never put up one of his own because he flew in every year to see her. Perhaps he was more fond of the red and green color scheme than she had first realized, or he just really liked twinkly lights.

It didn't matter, and he assured her quickly after his slipup that not having a tree was more lucrative and would "save them both a lot of cleanup." This was said not very long before Giles tossed his suitcases in the general direction of the closet, cursed the airline for a sore neck, and fell asleep without brushing his teeth.

At half past ten, with Giles snoring away his jetlag in the guestroom and Tabitha pawing at her boots, Buffy ran out into a snowstorm to drive half an hour away for an artificial tree. The nice salespeople forced to work that night at Walmart had tagged it for her. She was assured that it was pre-lit, and half off.

All she needed to do to surprise her cousin with a beautiful Christmas tree by the morning was hang some ornaments.

Determination fueled her ambition. The fact she didn't work the next day and knew Giles wouldn't be expecting a Christmas breakfast helped reassure Buffy she would get plenty of sleep.

If she worked really, really fast, and drove even faster.

***

A month. It had been a bloody month.

Days spent looking over his shoulder, and dreading the prospect of going to work. Excessive drink, followed by weeks of headaches and nausea due to facing life without the cushion of alcohol. That's right, he'd given up drinking. Mainly because he just couldn't stomach blacking out anymore, and there was no safe in-between these days. It was either get plastered or don't bother.

Numbness was Spike's most recent, and sadly least attainable, goal. His life changed very little physically; it was the quality of it that went to shit.

Not that it had been so grand early on, but it was great for a little while. Buffy's fresh absence was as stark as her presence had been idyllic. Cruel and unforgiving now, his heart beat out of time with regular nightmares. The quiet in his mind demanded to be filled, and so it was, by Spike's own pitiless self loathing.

He wouldn't contact her. She'd asked him to stay away. She had asked him to prove she could trust him, that he wouldn't hurt her, so he miserably complied.

Buffy had no reason to be afraid. Not of him. Spike felt sick each time he remembered the discussion in her front yard, the fact finally made crystal clear to him that she was scared, and he'd caused the reaction. It made all the sense in the world, her running away that day, in his house, a memory like acid. It stuck with him as gum does to pavement.

He still didn't know why she'd been there, but he figured she got in through the open garage. None of it mattered, of course, in all likelihood Buffy was innocently seeking him out at the time.

Now, Spike was forced to realize she never would again, and recognized the futility in hoping for something different. Anything different.

The rising of holiday spirit did little to restore his faith. Christmas lights were strung across town, unattractive blowup snow globes dotted more than thirty front lawns between his house and the cemetery, and there was a lingering aroma of pine every place he went. It was like each season had its own cliché. Spring was dedicated to chocolate bunny rabbits, summer promised popsicles and iced coffee, autumn held the claim on pumpkin flavored fare, while winter seemed to thrive off of pine scent and bad music.

He wouldn't mind if he was anyone else, likely. Except he wasn't, and the days went by slower with every sunrise and set. Spike's nights were filled by hours spent at the cemetery, even when he didn't need to be there. He walked the grounds and felt the bitter winds hitting his face in order to focus on something, anything but the woman he couldn't see.

The woman he had always caved to, whom he could never resist, whose face he still dreamt about. Staying busy was the only way to survive. Spike had been driven to some desperate lengths over the last four weeks, but he could freely admit all of them beat the single thing he used to favor.

Solitude had gone from manageable friend, to toxic bitch. It was probably the first time in his life Spike had ever thought spending a night with other people was near to a blessing. Then again, he'd never been in this position before.

Jack kept following him around like a puppy. It wasn't so much because Spike encouraged him, the tyke had just taken to coming over all the time. He claimed it was because school was out and they had no other place to train, but Jack always seemed so damn cheeky about showing up unannounced.

Spike couldn't say no to the company, though. Mainly because he was too weak, and Jack had been kind enough not to say a word about what he'd seen that day, when he found a broken man in front of the fireplace.

Avoiding the topic didn't help Spike to forget. It replayed every other hour in his head, the entirety of that twenty-four hour period, but the fewer distractions there were, the worse the mental loop spun him. Not to mention, the more Jack and he worked together, the more Spike actually saw what kind of improvements the kid was making.

Before, they hadn't as much time to spar, but now school was out, and Spike's schedule certainly freed up, the training had been amped. Jack was not just learning technique, but discipline, too, and how to avoid an actual altercation with fancier blocking maneuvers.

This increase in activity was not Spike's only out for avoiding torture of the mental and emotional sort. His coworker, Clem, had been bugging him for what seemed like years to hangout or come to one of his friendly little poker games. And for years, Spike had said no, brushed him off and avoided the topic entirely.

Two weeks ago, he caved.

It started with one poker night where he won a load of money off some blokes he wouldn't trust as far as he could throw, then turned into regular invitations for Soap Opera showings and popcorn. Spike couldn't really say he and Clem were friends just yet, and hell, he didn't know if he wanted a friend, but over the course of December he'd had only two people to talk to besides his demons, and it was hard not to develop a soft spot for them.

And if Clem tried to pry out tidbits of information about his life, managing to discover Spike grew up a social leper bullied for years before moving to America, and was able to relate to such a past, it wasn't Spike's fault he opened up to the man. He'd never met anyone, before Jack, who could understand the pain of it, but Clem had lived inside similar social structures as a child and survived them.

Spike had since become capable of understanding Clem's obvious need for companionship. While he had grown distant as the result of a harsh past, Clem had grown thirsty for social acceptance. It was two different outcomes for people with similar back stories, and in some strange way, they both understood each other now. It certainly paved the way for a bit of peace.

However, even that comfort was tentative. Spike spent the time just because he had to, trying every day to make the hurt fade a little. Nothing changed over the month of December. Not one morning came where he didn't wake in a cold sweat from nightmares all too true, or a full day where he didn't fight with his car or his bike or something in the house that needed fixing, just to shut off his mind.

Nothing worked. None of it.

Around the holidays, he often missed his mother. But over the last two years he'd felt what it was to be engulfed by bittersweet craving, watching Buffy from afar, enjoying her happiness but never really a part of it. He loved seeing her smile on Christmas day despite that. He loved her, as he felt he always would. The entirety of the situation caused Spike peace and pain in one dual holiday gift.

This year would be different. He couldn't watch. He couldn't go near Buffy or her home, and that was the hardest thing.

He faced the consequences of his actions, and the need to make it right by keeping away. He hated himself for the photos, for following her, for the drawings. He hated that his life had been shaped like that fool's from St. Elmo's Fire, and that in the end he'd done the very thing he never, ever wanted to do.

He hurt her. He'd made her afraid of him, and the only way Spike knew to make it right was to leave her alone and prove that he wasn't an obsessed lunatic bent on carving her name into his skin or kidnapping her.

It was Christmas Eve tonight, and he had plans. Amazing that was. He was thinking of canceling every other minute, but something- likely persistent misery -kept him from calling Clem to pass on his regrets.

Plans meant something other than choking on his own ruminations. Plans meant he could try to focus on something besides the many questions flitting through his mind regarding the one person he wasn't able to see. Plans meant he wouldn't obsess over not getting her a gift, though he'd thought of a million different things she might like. Plans meant Spike could pay attention to Clem's corny jokes instead of wondering whether she had gotten to and from the airport safely after picking up her relative. Plans out of the house, out of his head, meant he didn't have to think about whether she'd be going to the Harris' party with a date or not.

Yeah, he'd heard about that, but only because Anya telephoned. He remembered hearing the woman's chirpy voice one morning after a night spent on his bathroom floor. That time it hadn't been because of too much drink, but because he'd worked out for hours on an empty stomach and learned the hard way that starving himself and tearing down his muscles was a sure way to get as sick as a dog.

Anya called with little to no concern for Buffy's approval, and she made that point very clear. Spike was cordially invited to the party on Christmas day, and she claimed Buffy didn't need to know when he shakily inquired whether or not the lady had been informed. The truth felt like a knife in his stomach, but Spike swallowed the bile and simply told Anya he wouldn't be able to make it.

Thinking back on her obvious attempt to get Buffy and him talking again, and thereby realizing Buffy had not told anyone why they'd broken up, had Spike thinking he might allow himself to get pissed tonight. It could be a Christmas present to himself.

He'd been good for weeks, it was about time to fall off the wagon. Just for a night. Clem was sure to provide liquor, and Spike had already been instructed to bring something.

He chose a dusty relic of scotch that had never been opened and tossed it into the front seat of his car before leaving. He figured he'd end up passing out at Clem's after the poker game and enough alcohol, so made sure to fill up the tank for his morning drive home.

At half past eleven, Spike made it to the highway. Clem lived about two towns over, only thirty minutes out, and he hated the drive simply because Spike had to practically break his speakers to muffle his mind. He was just hoping the end results would be worth it.

I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones blared through his car like a plume of endless smoke. He kept his eyes on the icy roads. They were great with salting the streets of town, but highway crews were always busy doing something else. Black ice was a huge problem this time of year.

Again, he thought of Buffy driving to pick up her cousin from the airport. She'd done it the last two years and always got home safe. He knew because he checked, and right now the urge to turn around and drive by her house was almost too strong to resist.

Spike clenched his jaw and turned up the radio. He had no right, and if she spotted him, he'd be truly finished. There was nothing he could do about the concern, and he was probably being paranoid anyhow.

But that didn't help relieve his pain.

Spike took a deep breath. He stared at the barely lit road ahead.

Maybe calling Anya was an option. Maybe he could ask her to check on Buffy, just make sure she'd gotten home all right... but no, because Anya was bound to tell Buffy about something like that.

Perhaps he could drive by the Harris residence tomorrow. After all, he didn't have plans, and he'd been invited. Buffy was unlikely to notice him if she was inside, but he could look for her car. That way he'd know she was okay.

In twenty-four hours. He couldn't possibly know before then, not without driving by her house.

And Spike refused to do that.

It wasn't his right.

It wasn't possible, not after what she'd told him to do.

"Leave me alone."

He blinked rapidly. No. He couldn't break his unspoken promise. He couldn't do it. Wouldn't. He might check at the Harris' tomorrow, but that was it. That was all that he would do.

He was sure she was fine.

Buffy had been driving like a bat out of hell for years now. She was too adept at maneuvering and too lucky with breaking the rules to be thrown off by a little ice. Besides, there was no one on the roads between town and the nearest airport at night, and if she stuck to routine, then she would have picked her cousin up after eight o'clock, no earlier.

It was strange the bloke hadn't been able to catch an earlier flight. Spike only knew that Mr. Rupert Giles was flying in today because of Anya's phone call. The woman was awful chatty, but he'd gotten to hear a bit about Buffy and all the business they'd been doing at the antique shop, which nearly made the conversation worthwhile.

Spike swallowed hard, and stared hard at the ghost-town highway ahead. Piles of snow were lining the edges and leafless trees created clumpy shadows on both sides. The sky was clear, when he glanced up, starlit and dark, beautiful.

It reminded him of diamonds in black ink. Sometimes he wondered whether or not Buffy enjoyed looking at the stars. That was one thing he didn't know about her. Amazingly enough, Spike had to suppose she would like it as much as any other person; but did she go stargazing on clear summer nights? Did she ever sit in awe of a harvest moon?

He knew she didn't like wintertime. The cold got to her, but she survived it just fine so long as she believed spring was on its way. She truly loved summer. The lady always had a tan enough to prove it, too.

As the radio buzzed and his song faded, Spike turned the volume down while rounding a curve. A late night host was talking about some upcoming concert, and the moon was casting a pale glow on the snowbank to his left.

He watched for wildlife and kept a firm grip on the steering wheel. He noticed tire tracks in the first arc of smoky sludge that reached into his lane. He inevitably followed them as he took the turn. At the end, just before the road grew straight again, he saw his exit.

Spike slowed down, and blew the red light that served as a precautionary measure at the top of the off-ramp. He was just kicking up speed again when he saw a car parked on the side of the road. He slowed down.

He made out the foggy image of a person kneeling beside the unidentified vehicle. As he got closer and his lights illuminated the scene, he realized the car in question was not unidentifiable at all.

It was a cherry red Jeep, guzzling exhaust into the cold night air, with a little blonde woman kicking one of its back tires.

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