She used the car's GPS to steer her to the hotel she'd chosen—L.A.'s tangle of freeways and streets made no particular sense to her otherwise. As she slowed for a light in an old part of downtown, Spike sprang into sudden motion, throwing open the car door, crashing out, rolling and tumbling to his feet, streaking into a run. Quickly as she could, Buffy curbed the car and ran after him. She was just in time to see him disappear behind a hulking abandoned building, ruined by fire. The smell in the alley when she reached it told her that more had happened here than a blaze. Spike was pacing in a tight arc, hands held to his head. His dive from the car had torn his thin scrubs, in the stray bits of light she saw the glitter of blood from the fresh road burns. He wept, paced, pushed his forehead against the greasy bricks in one particular spot, inhaling deeply, then springing back to do it all over again.


"Is this where you fought?" Is this where Angel died?


Spike went down on his knees, body curled over like a Muslim at prayer, and for a moment this seemed to give him relief, until he shot up again, and again pressed himself against the wall, scrabbling at the brick.


"What happened here? Can't you speak at all?"


He dove past her, into a heap of charred, wet, filthy garbage piled against the burned-out building. She tried to tug him out, as he rooted through the smelly junk, but he resisted, and then she saw why.


He emerged holding something in his hand, something as charred and broken and dirty as everything he'd dug through.


But then she saw what it was.


The hilt of a heavy sword. The blade broken off almost at the base. It fit Spike's grip like it had been made for him.


He held it aloft, as if its shining blade was intact, as if he was making some last promise to himself before the onset of battle.


Buffy stepped toward him.


Spike's back arched; for a moment it was as if the sword hilt was a hook he dangled from. Then with a cry, he threw it from him, like something red-hot, and crumpled to the pavement.


"Spike!"


He lay where he'd fallen, his face in a puddle. She pulled him around, onto his back. He was still fangy, but otherwise vacant. She laid a couple of light slaps on his cheek, wary that he'd lunge for her throat when he came to.


He grimaced, the stirring of his arms and legs more like a convulsion than a return to consciousness. When the amber eyes flew open, they stared past her, full of unfocused horror.


"Left me here. All gone an' left me."


"Spike! Spike, who left you? What happened?"


But he was gone again, his whole body rolling in the grip of some unseen force. She couldn't hold him. He shook and flopped, groaning like a tormented animal.


Then whatever it was, abruptly let go. He lay still. The bumps and ridges were gone, revealing a bruised human face smeared with blood and filth.


She'd forgotten, also, the effect of his eyes, the clear blue depths of them. When they opened, they were like a doll's empty and stark, and she was afraid that he'd been left vacant, the last bit of his mind somehow scooped out and gone.


She leaned in close to him, laid her fingers softly on his torn forehead. "Spike."


He blinked, his lips working, a cough rattling his chest. He turned his head, the eyes focusing out of infinity, to find her.


"Are you back now, Spike?"


"Bloody hell."


Relief flooded her. "You're all right now, Spike. C'mon, let's get out of here."


He shied away. "Who the hell are you?"







"I'll be right outside the door."


She left him to soak in the brimming steaming tub in her hotel bathroom.


Since the—incident—in the alley, he'd been anxious, a little hostile, but mostly biddable. Not only did he have no idea who she was, where they were, or anything about himself, he also no longer remembered the cage in the Council HQ, or her arriving to take him out of it. He might as well have been born in that alley, except that he had speech. His personality seemed unfixed--one moment he'd be typical back-talking Spike, the next, he'd exhibit a strange old-fashioned cautious kind of courtesy. Either way, he was clearly wary of everything, including her, not daring to try her patience with too many questions. Whatever effect her touch and scent had had on him before seemed gone with his earlier wildness. He betrayed not the slightest hint of any previous familiarity with her. They'd returned to the car, stopping at an Army-Navy store to get him a new outfit, then at a butcher shop for blood, before arriving at the hotel, where she hustled him quickly across the lobby and into the elevator before anyone could object to his half-naked, besmirched presence.


When she checked on him ten minutes later, peeking in through the cracked door, he was huddled beneath the water as if it was a blanket. Chin-to-chest, silently crying.


All the forces of her instinct urged her to just shut the door and leave him be. Get Giles on the phone and find out whom she could pass this problem off to. Delegate, delegate, delegate. She was Slayer Number One, she wasn't expected to deal with nagging little off-side details like this.


The sight of his weeping made her own eyes burn.


Before she could stop herself, she'd barged in. "What's the matter?"


He started, with a little splash, put his hands up before his face. "Please—"


She realized he was being modest. Hastily, she turned her back. "I, uh, actually can't see you, under the water, from where I'm standing. And ... I've seen you before. Not that ... not that it matters."


"You know me."


She hadn't really emphasized that, since the alley, because insisting on You're Spike, I'm Buffy thing somehow felt pathetic, and he hadn't asked. After the first thing he'd said, he'd avoided questions about identity, hers, his. Answered her queries about what he knew, what he remembered—which was nothing—and didn't volunteer.


"I'm sorry. You wanted privacy." She started to leave.


"Wait. You know me?"


"For years." She knelt beside the tub, touched his cheek. "Smell me. Don't I smell familiar?"


"Everything smells so strong. I don't know why."


"You'll remember me when you smell me. You always—" Always loved my aromas. My various aromas. You'd tell me about them, until I punched you in the nose to shut you up. She passed her fingers under his nostrils, and then, a little bolder, pressed her palm to his lips. The intimacy of this touch, the presumption of it, made her flush. He seized her hand, pressed it there, took a long searching inhalation. Let it drop.


"I'm sorry, Miss."


"Don't call me miss. Why do you call me that?"


"What ... what should I call you?"


"My name is Buffy. Buffy. Buffy Summers. The slayer? None of this is registering at all?"


"Know fuck all!" He struck at the water, splashing her. She drew back.


"Okay. It's all right. It's probably temporary." Like your demise. She should call Giles. Recruit someone to take this over. This situation. She went to the door, and paused there.


"Back in the alley, when you found the sword hilt—how did you know where it would be?"


He stared at her, and the tears came down out of his eyes, but all he could do was shake his head.