"New plan."


Spike took a couple moments to tear his gaze from the TV. He'd found some South American soccer match.


"Turns out you might not be so well-received back in Scotland as I hoped. Maybe things will go better if we get out of the city. There's a sort of safe-house slash retreat-house the Council has, up the coast. It's quiet there, lots of outdoors. You can swim in the ocean. I dunno, it might be conducive to you getting better."


"What'll I do, when I get better?"


"I ... I hope you'll work with the Council. You'll probably want to continue with the mission. You used to have a very strong, dedicated sense of the mission."


"Work with these punters you say won't receive me now?"


"It'll make sense to Spike."


"There's all sorts that's supposed to make sense to this Spike. Spike, Spike, who is Spike?" He made it into a little jeer, like a football chant.


She slid into the other chair near his. "Spike is a good man. He's someone who made a decision to turn his back on his demon instincts, and work to be a man. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams."


"By dyin'."


"To save the whole world." She felt she was telling a story to a child, a child who was anxious and needed to be reassured. But it was her own heart that swelled as she issued these promises. She'd cheated him of the comfort he craved in his last weeks, had admitted to a certain intimacy that was still short of the intimacy she knew he pined for. Couldn't give the love he probably deserved—love not being something a person could produce just because it would come in handy. At least now she was getting a chance, however painful and awkward and potentially disastrous, to show him a little kindness.


Though with this thought came the stinging sense that between her and Spike, mere kindness was another kind of withholding, another disappointment. Spike hadn't wanted kindness from her, at least without the accompanying lashings of blinding, passionate, full-on connection he seemed sure she was only holding back out of sheer perversity.


He tipped his chin at her, like a polite guest making small talk. "How'd I do that, then?"


"There was an amulet, that had to be worn by a particular kind of warrior—a champion. Not a plain human, not a mere demon. You insisted on being the one to wear it into the battle."


"So I put on a trinket, and that was it?"


"It required enormous courage. The amulet focused the force of your soul, your determination to beat back the invasion—and its power destroyed you along with the enemy. This vast vast army was all burned and buried, the world was saved, because you were there, with the amulet on, but you had to stay until the very end. You burned too."


"An' then I got better."


"Uh ... yes. The amulet was somehow restored to its source, and you with it."


"Its source?"


She tried to explain about Wolfram & Hart, about Angel, but having had the story only from Andrew, replete with exaggerations, elisions, and long wild-eyed hard-to-follow digressions during which spit built up in the corners of his mouth as he talked, she didn't get very far before Spike turned the sound up on the TV again with a shrug.


When the next commercial came on, he said, "So, we're goin' to this holiday house together, but it's strictly a hands-off arrangement."


"It has to be."


"Startin' to think this Spike bloke's in purgatory. Workin' off his sins in a long round of stiflin' frustration. Never thought the accommodations in purgatory would be so posh, though. Anyway, it's the mackerel snappers believe in all that." To her questioning look he answered, "Catholics, pet. Church of England, me."


"Really? Since when?"


"Dunno. Always. Not that I ever went in for it much."


"How do you know that?"


"Just do."


"What church did you go to when you were a child?"


He frowned. "Quit that. Interrogatin' me's not helping. Just makes me cross."


"Okay, okay." She sprang up. "I'm going to get my things together. We'll leave this evening."








Getting ready for bed this time was strange. He'd already seen her in her pajama bottoms and tank top ensemble, but now she felt like her mere presence in the room was an unfair tease. Unfair to both of them. He stayed put in the chair, with the TV on, when she finally slunk out of the bathroom and dived under the covers. She thought she could feel him not looking at her.


She knew he couldn't help smelling her, feeling her pulse; sometimes in the old days she'd felt like Spike could read her mind. He had to aware, at least in part, of how full of bullshit she was. It was kind of amazing, that he stayed put. That he trusted her this much. She wasn't sure, if she was in his place, if she'd do the same.


The hours of the afternoon ticked by, and she dozed, awakening a couple of times an hour to the heightened blare of the TV ads, then drifting again. Spike barely moved.


Then he was shaking her. "Sun's down. C'mon, let's be off."









She pulled over abruptly. "Before we leave town—"


"Why're you stoppin' here?" He looked out his window at the dark burned-out hulk of a building that filled a whole city block.


"This is where you found the sword hilt. Where you had your second black-out."


"Oh joy."


"I think we should go back there again. The spot seemed to be ... pretty powerful. Maybe this time something there will spark something."


"Don't think so, pet."


She squinted sidelong at him. "Are you afraid?" Then in a gentler tone, "I'll be with you."


"Not afraid. Why should I be afraid of some place I don't even know?"


She thought his bravado rather telling, and didn't press him. They sat for a few moments in the silent car, as traffic flowed by them, and Spike looked at the building.


"Seems to be an old hotel."


"So I gather."


"This big battle, finished up here?"


"Yes. It's where you were found afterwards, and when I was taking you away from ... from the Council's HQ here, you leapt out of the car and ran back there when we were driving by. You don't even remember that?"


"Do nothin', do I, but dash your expectations on that score. Not as clever as you'd like me to be."


"It's nothing to do with clever. You were always clever—smart—you still are."


Spike gave the shrug that was already becoming a familiar gesture, and sprang the door lock. "Let's get it over with then, if we must."








Despite his fear, he led the way, around to the back of the building, into the long smelly, greasy alley. Buffy was nervous herself, and hung back a little, hoping that would make her anxiety less likely to transfer to him. He paced forward with his habitual swagger, the stride, she realized, watching him from behind, of a smallish man who always had to assert himself, to seem bigger than he was. Big Bad, he used to style himself.


When he reached the center of the space, near where she'd found him dashing himself against a particular patch of bricks the other night, he paused.


Buffy waited. Better not to suggest, to prompt. If something was going to happen, it ought to happen for him spontaneously.


He sipped the air, opening his mouth to taste it better, turning his head slowly, eyes closed. "Stench of death here's overwhelming."


"It's rank, yeah."


"You don't know a thousandth of it." He made a face. "There's more sorts of nasties died here than you've probably met up with in all your adventures."


"Think so? Anything else coming to you?"


He moved around slowly, taking soundings. It took some time for her to notice that as he ranged, putting on a good display of taking it all, he kept shy of that one place. Passed it over and over without pausing, always contriving to be facing the other way.


When he'd trailed off towards the far end of the alley, she stepped over to make her own inspection.


It was too dark to see a lot of detail, but as far as she could tell, this section of the wall wasn't particularly stained, or broken. She tested it with her palms; it held firm. Everything smelled just as charred and icky here as everywhere else in the alley, as far as she could tell.


What a terrible place for Angel to have to meet an army, for Angel to have to go down.


"I can't believe you're gone." She whispered into the blank brick, leaning against it as her knees went watery. She'd always counted on Angel being somewhere, part of some potential future for her that she never took seriously anymore but clearly hadn't entirely dismissed.


"Eh?" Spike had drifted back towards her, was still a few yards off, but then he could hear a pin drop in the next street if he listened for it.


"Nothing."


He came a little closer; and his eyes went gold. Closer still and the ridges rose; she saw his fangs descend, as the low rolling growl reached her, skirling down her spine. She came around so her back was to the wall. "What?"


He didn't seem to hear her, or even to see her. Suddenly this patch, that he'd ignored up until now, engaged him utterly. He bent at the knees, as if planting himself against some onslaught, lips peeling back in a snarl. She sidestepped, got behind him.


"What is it, what do you see?"


Spike skidded backward, as if tackled and driven by something huge and heavy that flung and pinned him. His howl was the same she'd heard from numerous vampires in the seconds before she staked them, animal rage.


Buffy dove at him, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him out out of range. Afterwards she wasn't quite sure why this had seemed the thing to do, but the effect was immediate. The howling stopped, Spike went limp, the game-face gave way to the human.


"Spike—!" If he started in again with the who-are-you-where-am-Is, she'd kick herself all the way to Santa Barbara for trying this.


But when his eyes opened, Spike immediately looked for her, tipping his head back to fasten on her where she crouched above him, then rolling with agile quickness up and over, snatching her into his arms, lifting her off her feet.


"Hey!"


He ran with her, out of the alley, and once clear, set her down. Oddly, he was panting.


"What's going on?"


"Can't look in there!"


"Look in where?"


The expression on his face, haunted, flinching, filled her with dread. He was still holding her; she let him. He buried his nose in her hair and took snuffing breaths.


"Spike," she murmured, calm and careful. "Look in where?"


"Eh?"


"You just said, can't look in there—where?"


"Dunno."


"You said—"


"Did I? Let's get out of here."


"Not until you tell me—"


Slowly, he let her go, put his hands to his face. "Feel like a steamroller ran over my head."


His eyes were moist with tears. He reminded her of a little boy, stunned by a sudden tumble.


"Gotta get out of this." He started off, in the wrong direction. She sped after, plucked his arm. "The car is this way."


He spun. Confronted her for another long moment that made her fear she'd lost him again.


"I'm not gone."


"You're right here. We both are. What?"


He seized her hands. "I'm not gone. Don't leave me alone."


She recalled then, her whisper into the bricks. Angel. Spike's hands were cold, and so white and dry, wrapped around hers. She squeezed his fingers. "Don't worry, I won't. I'm going to stick by you until this is over."


He blinked, and a tear tracked down his cheek. He brought one of her hands to his lips, sketched a cool kiss on the back that made her shiver. His murmur, "You are a sweeter lady than you know," sounded more like the man who hadn't wanted her to see him in his bath, than like any Spike she'd ever met.


Embarrassed, she fumbled free. "Let's go now. It takes a few hours to get to the safe-house."


Once they were well away from the old hotel and its spooky alley, Buffy said, "I think there's something here that doesn't want you to get near it."


Spike didn't answer. Since they'd gained the car, he'd been slouchy, slow, and curiously silent; when she glanced at him, she saw he was asleep, head tipped back, lips parted, brow knit as if in pain.


Here was a reason to call Willow. She could fly in and work some mojo on that place, get under the cloak of whatever the magic was at that spot. Without having to meddle with Spike himself.