She can feel his stare burning into her, searing her to her very core and inflaming her with its intensity. She can’t turn, can’t meet his eyes- not when all she’ll see in them is disgust and anger, not when she can’t bear to face his disapproval. It would break her.

So instead, she stares straight ahead, nodding mechanically at his mumbled words and muttering something about washing up. For a vehicle that had made it to Italy and back in less than a day, Spike’s ship is going to take a surprisingly lengthy two or three hours to LA, where the main offices of Willow’s tech firm are located. But she doesn’t question it, not this time, just hurries to the bathroom with gratitude that she’ll have some time to compose herself.

She yanks off her clothing as though they’re poison, climbs into the shower, braces her hands against the wall, and sobs her heart out.

She’s ruined it again.

Bitter disappointment mingles with horror and fury. She's screwed it up again. When will she learn? When will she stop clinging so hard to the people she's lost before, jumping them against common sense and dealing with the inevitably horrific consequences?

And Spike...why does she always ruin everything with him, destroy that tenuous bond they've forged with nothing more or less than a kiss? She cares about him too much to lose him for the promise of destructive romance. And she knows better than to think that he'd be up for it. 

They'd been caught up in the moment for minutes, maybe longer, and both of them had been reduced to gibbering messes, that old passion they'd never been able to find with anyone else rising up to overwhelm them again. And amidst that incoherence, that empty babbling that Spike had always been prone to, he had never once let slip the words I love you. 

Her sobbing begins anew, tears of utter desolation spilling down with the shower water. She'd lost him. And it shouldn't leave her so devastated- she isn't a schoolgirl with a crush, has never been one when it comes to Spike- but that love had meantsomething, and now that it's gone she can't help but feel bereft. 

This is the most she's cried since Gi- since before the funeral, and with that thought she stops, suddenly ashamed. What is she doing, crying that Spike doesn't love her- that Spike might not even like her anymore? It's not as though she wants something between them, anyway; and since when does Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer, break down over something as meaningless as romance? She'd locked those parts of herself away long ago, committing herself to a higher cause, and that's one thing she's rarely regretted. No matter how much she cares about Spike and sorrows at what might be the end of their tentative friendship, it's not worth turning into a bawling mess in his shower. 

She turns her face up to the water determinedly, letting it wash away her tears; and by the time she escapes the comfort of the shower, she's breathing easily and all business. Her composure nearly shatters when she emerges from the shower and sees Spike reading silently on his bed, but she manages a tight smile and tries not to focus on the fact that, for the first time since she's started taking advantage of the magnificent water pressure on Spike's ship, his eyes aren't raking her up and down in her bathrobe and the leer is absent from his face. 

"Long shower," he grunts, his eyes fixed on his book.

She swallows. "Sorry."

"S'fine." 

"Thanks." There's an awkward pause that Spike doesn't seem to notice, and she lets out a frustrated huff and snatches her spare top from his closet. "How much further?"

"An hour."

"An hour!" It had taken him only six to make it all the way to Italy when he'd been hunting Simone.

"S'a land flight," Spike informs her. "M'not leaving the atmosphere and coming back in for such a short trip." He glances up for the first time since she'd emerged. "I don't know why you're so surprised. We've done this trip before."

"It felt shorter last time," she mumbles, and the amusement in his voice comes as a relief. 

"Well, you haven't started with the primping yet, love. That always speeds things up."

As does being able to talk to you without a big honkin' elephant in the room, she thinks. Instead, she tosses him a scornful look and stalks back into the bathroom with a haughty step to go dry her hair.

She’s halfway through applying her mascara when she hears a soft “Buffy?” from just behind her.

She whirls around, her heart pounding, mentally cursing her unconscious reliance on the deceptive mirror in front of her. “God, Spike, lurk much?” she demands.

He runs his fingers through his hair sheepishly. There’s a nervous energy that thrums around him, keeping him on edge and welcome to her. He’s unsure, too, and it feels natural. “I…uh…sorry. It’s just…” His eyes say what his words don’t, the worry that their friendship has been shattered foremost in his mind, too.

“Hey.” She pats him on the arm, struggling to keep it playful. “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”

In her mind’s eye, his face darkens, he demands, This means nothing to you? and then he’s kissing her again, his lips harsh and punishing and utterly intoxicating, and she takes him in, gasping out her feelings- feelings she doesn’t want to contemplate even in her thoughts- and is pulled into a warm embrace as he returns them.

In reality, he tugs her hair playfully, the relief suffusing his features simultaneously calming and dismaying her. “Alright.”

She smiles with him, the old insecurities washing over her again. He’d rather forget, of course. Rather pretend that it had never happened. And why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t love her anymore, doesn’t want those complications.

Neither do you, she reminds herself forcefully. You don’t want any of this.

But watching Spike grin and steal her makeup, loudly contemplating taking up guyliner again and tossing her more of those tentative beams, it’s getting harder and harder to persuade herself of that fact.

--

Willow works out in Silicon Valley, but whatever she’s found is in LA in a silver skyscraper just a half a mile from Ang- from the Wolfram and Hart headquarters, and Buffy studiously avoids asking Spike how he knows the area so well. She doesn’t want to hear about that year, doesn’t want to remember that it exists right now and what it’s stolen away from her, so instead, she follows Spike’s path through the trees and doesn’t speak until they’ve landed on the roof of the building with a gentle thump. 

Willow’s already waiting by the door, a stubby little man in a suit beside her. He smiles at them with a gentleness that’s incongruous for someone as corporate as he, and Buffy can feel Spike’s twitchiness at that.

“Mr. Orkanel,” Willow introduces him. “My boss.”

“Oh!” Buffy’s eyes round in surprise. “Sorry about the…” She gestures vaguely at the ship.

“Not a problem,” Mr. Orkanel smiles again, and there’s a vaguely familiar serenity about it that makes Buffy look to Willow curiously. “I admit, I merely wanted an opportunity to see the brave young woman who saved us all.” His eyes move to Spike. “And her vampire consort.”

Spike lets out an unamused grunt, and Buffy yelps, "No! Just friend! No consortiness at all!" to Mr. Orkanel's sudden dismay. 

"My apologies. I'd heard so much about you, and I'd only assumed..."

"Orkanel was an adjunct from Althenea's coven," Willow says hastily. "We...uh, we met after Tara." She tosses him a grin. "He wasn't with our people during the last fiasco because he'd been building up this company. But after everything that happened, he called me and offered me a job here."

"I remembered Willow had a way with computers," Orkanel says fondly, and Buffy finally places his serenity as the characteristic Wiccan attitude around slayers. She’s often suspected it’s more of a defense mechanism than anything, a way to keep calm around so many volatile girls, but on Orkanel, it almost seems real.

"And you wanted her?" Spike says from beside her, earning a sharp nudge for his tone. "Best friend of the girl who took your magic away in the first place?"

Buffy tenses. It's a good question, one that’s been niggling at the back of her head. Why had he seemed pleased to meet her, when she'd been certain that the magic users of the world despised her?

But Orkanel looks at her with a quiet sort of sympathy that seems to understand her completely, and, for only the second time since she'd betrayed the world, someone tells her, "Destroying the Seed? You did what you had to do. It was the only option."

No. No, it couldn't have been. It's why nobody talks about it, why Dawn and Xander avoid the topic and why Willow won't discuss her plans to undo it. No one wants to blame her outright, but everyone knows that it's all her mess. 

Everyone except her personal cheering squad-the vampire tense beside her- and a man who'd clearly never heard the first part to that story. Who’d never heard of the horrors that she’d very nearly unleashed on the world, that the girl held responsible for averting apocalypses was the one to bring the worst one forth. Who doesn’t know that he’s paying the price for her sins.

Spike's fingers curl around her wrist in warning, and it's probably a good idea to listen to him instead of spilling all to the high-powered executive who's lost his powers thanks to her stupidity in unleashing Twilight. She gives him a small nod and focuses on Willow. "You said you had something to show us?" 

"Right." Willow's been staring at her with eyes that know far too much, and they both shift, uncomfortable with that knowledge. 

They don't talk, not like they used to. Not now that Willow’s lost everything that matters because of her. Not now that there are secrets between them. It's been a long time since they watched the sunset together and talked about Willow's plans for the future, a long time since the distance spanning the place between their worlds was last crossed. 

It hurts. And she can't tell that to Willow, because the last time she'd poured her heart out to Willow, the witch had just patted her hand awkwardly and told her in a disturbingly patronizing tone that she was imagining it. That it was because she’s lost Xander and Dawn to each other, and now she was transferring her neediness to Willow. She'd been in a foul mood for days afterwards, taking it out on Spike until he'd lost patience and slammed her against the wall repeatedly until she'd promised to talk about it. She'd gotten a call from her landlord the next day repeating several complaints and requesting that she keep her "liaisons" a bit quieter from then on, and she hadn't been able to look directly at Spike for days. 

She peeks at him now, sees that he's gazing at her worriedly. He always knows when she's contemplating what she's lost, can always see it in her gaze. She manages a weak smile for him, forcing it into something faux-friendlier for Willow, and slides her hand upwards to squeeze his own in reassurance.

"Thanks, Orkanel. I'll see you later," Willow murmurs, her eyes zeroing in on where Buffy's palm is clasped against Spike's hand. Buffy drops it hastily, blushing deep crimson, and Spike rolls his eyes at her with a complete lack of patience. She tosses him her best pleading expression and he melts, whatever annoyance has been eating at him gone for good, and only Willow's voice is enough to remind Buffy that now is not the time to be sharing moments with Spike. 

"It's downstairs." She leads them to the rooftop elevator, punching in a code to get it open. 

There is never a time to be sharing moments with Spike. Not anymore. She remembers his kisses wistfully, the wild abandon with which she'd let herself go completely. It's the little things she remembers most clearly. Spike's hand twining itself into her hair, yanking her ponytail free to get at the object of his fascination. How soft his lips are against her own. How much harder they seem when he's attacking her neck. He'd always tamped down that particular oral fixation back in Sunnydale, and she'd assumed that it was because he’s been afraid that she'd reject him, but she'd always known; because the moment he'd fall asleep when she'd still been in the crypt, his mouth would be at her neck, nuzzling and kissing and even, on one or two occasions that had had her frozen with indecision, nibbling with blunt human teeth. She would never mention it the next time she'd see him, unwilling to disclose the fact that the closeness to a slayer's anathema, the flirtation with death that it felt like, could be so potent to her. 

Tonight, he'd had no such compunctions. He'd gone for her neck with rapid eagerness, quick to find that pain-pleasure that she'd always needed and never doubting that she'd accept it. And tonight, his teeth at her neck had felt like life.

"So...uh...are you two...?" Willow's speaking again, jerking Buffy out of her Spike-induced reverie and back to the present. 

She glances at Spike. "Oh. N-no." Her voice quavers on the "No," and she feels, rather than sees, Spike take a careful step away from her. Gee, I'm sorry I'm so unlovable, she thinks irritably, glaring at him for a moment. He looks away.

"Sorry," Willow murmurs, and there's that quiet understanding again that shakes Buffy. "Uh...we're here."

The elevator flashes "B3" and stops with a loud buzzer that makes Buffy jump. 

"We're here," Willow repeats. "She's...she's over in that corner." She gestures vaguely to somewhere on the other end of the empty parking lot. "When Orkanel brought me here to take a look, I didn't recognize her at first, not with the...well, you'll see. But that hair..." She shakes her head. "We both agreed not to get police involved. There's too much we can't explain."

"Simone," Spike murmurs, striding toward the corner Willow has indicated. "You found her?"

"Are you sure it's-" Buffy begins, but Spike cuts her off immediately. 

"Think I can sense dead slayer, slayer."

"Dead!" She breaks into a run and they both halt abruptly, frozen by the sight before them. It is Simone, but Buffy can see why it had taken Willow a while to figure it out. The tattoos she'd noticed at the coffeeshop, running down her hands and fingers in a dark lattice, are now even more defined, black and glaring against skin pallid with death. They've crept up her neck, too, halting just past the edges of her face, slightly indenting the skin below them and marking it angrily. 

"Fuck me," Spike breathes, and there's a quiet horror in his voice that would have struck her as odd if she weren't so focused on the body before her. 

Simone had been...well, Simone had been different. Twisted. Evil, and she'd done it with powers bestowed upon her. She isn't one of the good guys. 

But something had killed her, and while she can't bring herself to mourn Simone, dread overcomes her at the idea of a new threat that can take down a slayer, bit by bit, and all from the inside. And there are thousands of slayers she can't warn or defend, thousands of slayers who don't want her help when she's the only one who can give it.

"I've been looking over those markings for hours," Willow explains from behind her. "It looked like...it looked a little like magic. But I don't think it is," she added hastily. "For one thing...hey, impossible?" She spreads her hands disarmingly, even as the tension in the parking lot ratchets up another level. "And I've never seen anything quite like it before, even in books."

"Simone had a friend," Buffy remembers. "Another slayer. If we can find her, she might know something."

"I'll talk to Orkanel, see if we can try to lure her out. This Simone thing doesn't make sense, though. Wasn't she after you?" Willow's brow is furrowed in confusion. "Then why was she wandering LA?"

“I don’t know, maybe she had someone to shoot here first? It could-“

“Buffy.” The voice is strangled, as though it’s too much effort for him to even get the words out, and she turns immediately to face Spike, his tone unsettling her.

The look on his face sends a cold dread through her, the sudden awareness that something is about to change for the worse chilling her to silence. Guilt. It’s all over Spike’s countenance, clear and dangerous and ready to shatter her. “What have you done?” she whispers.

He turns to speak to Willow, and that burns more than anything else that’s happened today. “Faith has the same markings on her leg. They’re barely visible, but they’re spreading.”

“You’ve been keeping up with Faith?” Willow asks curiously. “I didn’t know that.”

Spike ignores the question. “She’s sick. I was there earlier today and she looked like death.” He shudders, staring back down at the body. “It starts early, then.”

“But Simone was able to make it in to threaten Buffy,” Willow points out. “How’d she look, Buffy? Did she seem about-to-drop-y?” She pauses. “Buffy?”

She hears Willow’s question but doesn’t respond, too fixated on Spike. Spike, who doesn’t love her. Spike, whose mysterious daytime trysts are with Faith, Faith, who’s the last hero of the slayers, who made it through the apocalypse without causing any of her own- recently, anyway- who has all of Giles’s worldly possessions and the broken vampire she used to love more than anything and now… now Spike, the one last person in the world that she had trusted unconditionally, has been spending his free time with her, too.

She isn’t sure what hurts more, that it’s Faith or that he’s been keeping this from her. Is Buffy just an afterthought, someone he drops in on nightly to pay his duties before heading back to his real life in England? ‘Lo, I’m back, just had to catch up on what good ol’ Buffy’s doing. Nah, nothing important. This is where the real action is.

She’s being irrational. She knows that. But this is a betrayal she’d never expected, not from Spike. Not from this Spike. He doesn’t hurt her. He’s promised that. He’s never promised that he would never lie to her, never hide things from her, even things that would invariably hurt her if she’d discovered them.

And in that, her trust’s been misplaced, and she can’t even think about this anymore.

She lifts her chin, her throat very dry, and croaks out, “You need to go.”

Spike’s eyes are narrowed, but she can see something else below the hostility. Is it fear? Sorrow? Guilt? “Buffy, there’s more at stake here than-“

She cuts him off swiftly. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Will you now?” Spike demands. Willow mumbles something about checking the body and bends over Simone, her hair falling in front of her face as a shield. “You can’t shut me out. What’ll you do, chase after vampires, and pretend that Faith and Angel don’t exist?” She flinches, and he repeats the name. “Angel. You can’t even say it! And as enjoyable as that was at first, there’s more at stake now than your lovers’ quarrel!” He throws up his hands in frustration. “Faith’s in trouble, and you’re going to-“

She doesn’t want to argue anymore, doesn’t want to hear him talking about Faith and friends like they’re the crux of his existence. “Just go, Spike,” she murmurs. “I need…I need to work with people I can trust.”

He stops his diatribe short, his face a mask of hurt. She stares at him, knowing that he can see the pained betrayal on her face, too. Knowing that he’ll see that she means this.

He reaches for her, hands outstretched and toward her shoulders, and she doesn’t know what he’s going to do but she wonders with faint hope if this’ll be reassurance enough to forget all this and return to how they were before tonight and everything might just be okay… but then his fingers brush her shoulders and she flinches.

It’s a minute twitch, borne of a split second wondering again just how close he is to Faith, but it’s enough, and they both know it. Spike’s eyes close with weary defeat, and he bends to brush a kiss against her forehead. “This isn’t over,” he promises, and she glares at him silently, unable to think beyond the feel of his lips on her and the nagging question of who else those lips have touched recently. He must have seen some of that in her eyes, because suddenly he’s arching an eyebrow at her skeptically and it’s so much easier to hate him when he’s acting like none of it matters, and then he swings around, mutters something in Willow’s ear, and stalks off toward the stairs.

She watches him go silently, and then there’s Willow’s arm hanging loosely around her waist, supporting her the way that she’s done so many times before it all went to hell, and she sags against her old best friend again.

“He’s right,” she mutters. “I hate it when he’s right.”

Willow pats her side affectionately. “Come on. I promised Spike I’d give you a ride home, and then you need to figure out what you’re going to do about Faith. “

You. And there’s the difference between Spike and everyone else in her life. 

With Spike it’s always we.