"You're a cunt. Tryin' to drive me insane."


"No."


"Usin' me while I'm round the twist. Deceivin' me."


"Spike, no."


"What d'you call this then? Trickery. Mental cruelty. Don't deny it. Usin' me for your pleasure."


"No—that isn't—we made love—you said you love me—"


"That wasn't even enough for you, though. Had to taunt an' goad me into nearly killing you."


"That isn't how it was!"


"You think I can ever forgive you for that? For havin' the taste of you in my mouth forever? Pretty piece of revenge, Slayer, but it's too much. Didn't deserve such cruel punishment. You're a wicked girl, to torture me so."


"No! No! No!"


"You're a liar. Been lyin' to me an' using' me for a long long time an' nothing'll ever make that right."


"Oh God—Spike—"


"Ruined me, you have. Ruined me."


"No. No no no. I didn't lie, I didn't lie, I didn't lie! I'm sorry!"


"Buffy!"


She came awake with a lurch, gorge flopping, head pounding. Willow was in her face, saying her name, and her own noise echoed in her ears.


She tried to look around, but her neck was stiff. The wound throbbed, beating a tattoo at her throat. A dream. It was a dream. Spike was right there, his arm around her.


His lips against her ear. "What're you sorry for, Buffy?"


A dream. Only a dream. A horrible horrible dream. How much had they heard?


"I need to pee." She fumbled with the seatbelt. Spike opened it for her, helped her to her feet. She dared a quick glance at him, afraid to see the hatred, the anger he'd just unloaded on her. Everything she'd dreaded and expected every minute. All those accusations, pure justice. She still wasn't sure he hadn't really said them. It was so real, the words still reverberated in her head. His voice, his voice.


They moved towards the tiny toilet cubicle, away from Willow, who'd put on earphones, to show she wouldn't eavesdrop.


He only looked at her, sedate, a little uncertain. "Okay, girl?" Hand wrapped around her arm, supporting her. She dropped her gaze in embarrassment.


"Was I talking a lot in my sleep?"


"Cried out that you were sorry. You're still all pale, look like hell." He slipped her hair back behind her ear. "This hurtin'?" Her throat. Willow had cleaned and bandaged it, and she'd put on a turtleneck sweater, so it wouldn't be the first thing the others saw when they arrived.


"Spike, are you angry at me, about before? Tell me if you are. You must be."


His expression didn't change, but his eyes did; they had a way of shading into a darker blue; she would've said she'd never noticed it before except that she recognized it perfectly now, that subtle sign that he wasn't saying all he thought. She curled her fingers around his arm. "Please. I take full responsibility for what happened in the training room. I know it was awful for you. More awful than I can imagine. But please please please don't—"


"Buffy ...."


"Don't let it make you hate me. Please."


He frowned.


"What? Spike—"


"Don't like hearin' you plead to me. Doesn't seem right."


"Oh God." It took all her strength not to break down.


His finger on her chin, tipping her up to meet his eyes again. "Apart from anything else, got to go along with you, don't I? Got no one, nowhere else to go. An' you're the expert, aren't you?"


"The expert?"


"In dangerous demons."


"Spike, you are not—"


"Think we pretty much disproved that theory today, yeah?"


"You're entitled to be angry at me. To ... have lost faith in me. But not to blame yourself. Please, not that."


"Not that."


She couldn't tell what his tone meant—restrained disgust, hostile teasing, mockery, plain denial. She heard all of those things. And a kind of blankness, that he retreated behind, when he stopped trusting his instinct for her and recalled only that they were strangers and he was a stranger to himself.


"Don't get you. Why're you so keen on me? Why's any of this happening?" He shook his head. "S'like bein' a marionette, yeah, an' I don't know who's got my strings."


"No strings." Don't say I'm using you. It's not like that anymore. "I thought what we have right here ... that it's mutual."


"You tell me nothing."


"Because I can't tell you your own memories. I can't tell you your past. You said yourself, the other day—whatever I told you, it would be useless. My perspective. No context." Prejudicial. She didn't say the word. Too risky.


"Easy for you—"

Not easy. None of this is easy. Spike. I see that you're suffering. But I need you to believe one thing. If you still care for me, could you just try to hold on to it? No matter what happens, will you promise me you won't forget what I'm about to tell you?"


"Will I—?"


She laid a finger against his lips. "Right here. Remember. That I said. You are the love of my life. That started before I found you in L.A., and it will continue even if ... even if."


She saw the wonder, the questions, in his eyes, and could only imagine what he was thinking—that there was some unspeakable shame in this somewhere, that it had to be, in some way he'd know when he knew himself again, intrinsically wrong. Wicked, like he'd said a little while ago—was that really just a dream? She could tell, by the way his mouth stayed unyielding at her touch, by the way his eyes, rapidly moving back and forth across her face, searched for clues, for the bigger meaning, that he mistrusted this. Her. She wanted to tell him there was no bigger meaning, that this was it, the biggest.


Part of her feared that none of this was going to matter, because after all, what was love, her love, to him? He must've long since outgrown the self who thought he needed it. Hadn't he proven that, by ignoring her all this last year? He'd recall that, when his dependency on her was over.


He'd be so angry. He'd think she was a fool.


"Why are you so afraid of me?"


"I'm not. I'm not."


"That's not how it should be. You pleading. You afraid."


"I'm not." She was blushing. Stupid. Stupid to deny it.


Again he shook his head. Dubious, not telling her what he was thinking—it made her want to thump him. He reached behind her, opened the toilet door. She gave him another glance, and shut herself in.


In the tiny cubicle, she peed, and regarded herself in the mirror, and refused to give way to the tears that boiled up hot behind her stinging eyes. He would know, and Willow would know, if she cried. She'd been crying too much. It weakened her.


A glance at her watch showed her they were nearly there.


When she emerged, he was still standing there, leaning against the bulkhead.


"These people of yours ... they gonna be all sweet reason like the witch here?" His smile, conciliatory, wobbled. One eyebrow jerked and twitched.


She was putting Spike, her highly flammable demon lover, out of the frying pan and into the fire. How would he do, suddenly confronted by her friends, by a whole keep full of slayers?


How would the slayers and her friends do with him?


She smoothed her hand over the turtleneck. The bandage was hidden. No one had to see it. "They're good friends. They'll be your friends too." If I have to kick every one of them in the ass, twenty times over.


"Somethin' I forgot, before."


"Forgot?"


His hands, dry and so cool that she shuddered as he slipped them through her hair to draw her face towards his. "To kiss you. Do it now."


His mouth too was cold, dry, made so by the recycled refrigerated air on the jet. He rested his forehead against hers for a long beat, while she tried to put all of herself into the contact, the reams and reams of things she would tell him if she could, if it would do any good.


"I'm at your mercy, Buffy Summers."


"No you're not. I'm at yours."