Buffy had no liquor except for the vodka in the freezer. It was the preference of neither of them, but Xander poured two juice glasses full, and made sure Spike went ahead of him into the sitting room.

"We're alone here," Spike said, dropping into a chair. "You're not afraid of me? Aren't I supposed to be evil?"

"The stink off that arm is evil—keep it down-wind of me if you won't let me wrap it up."

Spike stared at the blackened flesh; Xander thought he might be on the verge of having another one of his 'episodes', as Willow styled his bug-shagging crazies. But he only nodded.

"Down wind it is." Spike picked up the glass. "Za Vas!" Tossed it back, one long chug. With distaste, Xander watched his adam's apple bob. Spike wiped his lip on the back of his hand, then held it out for a refill. When he had it, he said, "Been keen to know, since I first clapped eyes on you, why you hate me. Can't just be because I shagged your girl."

"No, it can't just be that."

The venom didn't seem to reach him. Spike waited, his pallid face impassive in a way that made Xander want to punch it until it was as much of a mess as his charred hand. He'd meant to start off by impressing on him that it was a cosmic mind-fuck of the first order, an insult to all that was decent and right, that he kept pulling out fresh chances, swam in oceans of slack, while Anya, dear sweet little Anya who had tried and tried and tried the entire time he knew her, just got heart-break and death. She was stripped of life forever. No new chance to clarify things, to get her right, to make it up to her. No way to ever assuage ....

But all of that was too complicated, too diffuse, it could lead to too many explanatary convolutions. Also, it was none of Spike's damn business. What Spike needed to be told was one thing and one thing only.

"You raped Buffy."

It only occurred to Xander after he said it that it might've been a good idea to get a big axe out of the weapons chest beforehand.

But Spike made no sudden moves. He stilled. Not so much as an eye blink. No air in, no air out. Frozen. Staring. A statue sat in am armchair.

Xander downed his own vodka, and poured himself another. "You raped her." It was easier to say it the second time, the words less like razors on his tongue. Loosened, he pressed on. "And before you did that, you stalked her for months. No, make that years. Forced your debased, disgusting urges on her notice. Made tough times tougher for her by your constant presence. Got her to do things with you that ... that she never would've wanted to do, if she hadn't been ...."

Hadn't been dead. The Buffy who died would've never touched Spike. Resurrection ruined her. She was nver the same Buffy again. He'd convinced himself otherwise, back after Spike left town. And when he came back again at least Buffy had held him at a distance, not remotely far enough, but a distance all the same, until he died and that chapter was closed.

Only it wasn't closed, because Spike kept recurring like malaria, and Buffy's behavior towards him now was proof he'd been wrong about her. How could his Buffy, his friend and leader, how could she love this?

The vampire moved then, just enough to bring the glass to his mouth and drink. "Hadn't been—?"

The taste in Xander's mouth was intolerable. The vodka made it worse, but he drank more. It made his head feel tight and dense, his joints like rusted flanges. That wasn't what a drink was supposed to do to you, but it was what it did, apparently, when you drank with Spike. When he recalled now how he'd let him stay in his place, let him be around all those months while Sunnydale fell to shit, Xander wanted to clock himself. How could he have been so complacent? Spike. While good people, Tara, Anya, were gone or soon to be.

"If she hadn't been in a bad way."

Spike seemed to absorb the phrase, a bad way, into himself; it registered on his face, and the curling and uncurling of his hands. "This ... rape. She doesn't remember it?"

"How she manages not to think of it every time she sees you, I'll never know."

"When you think of it every time you see me."

"It happened."

"Harris, I don't doubt it." He drained his glass, let it slip from his fingers. It bounced on the rug, rolled under the coffee table. Spike let his head loll back on the chair cushion. "An' this business of me bein' a hero, makin' the grand sacrifice ... what's the real story there?"

Xander had things he was going to say; he hadn't been planning on answering questions.

"This soul I supposedly went out an' won. What's it mean, really? Know you'll tell me the truth."

"That doesn't—"

"Thing plagues my mind the most. She's your friend, an' you know her. So tell me, what does Buffy want with a wicked demon in her bed? This some elaborate revenge plot I can't work out now I'm shell-shocked an' simple?"

"Shut up." Snatching up the bottle by its neck, smashing it against the table edge, Xander grabbed Spike by the collar. "Just shut the fuck up."

"Can't kill me with that."

"I know. But I can carve a chunk out of your stupid face."

Spike dangled, no resistance.

"I tell you you raped her, and you dare to ask me questions about heroism? I tell you you raped her, and you have nothing to say about that?"

"It's not you whose pardon I'd need to beg. Wasn't for you I was on my way to—" He raised the arm, the skin black and red, peeled and blistered, oozing and raw. "Was just on the point of gettin' out of her way for good, only didn't want to breed confusion, so was lookin' to leave a note. An' then there you were."

Oh shit.

"No need to write a line, now we've had our chat. You'll fill her in. Just tell me one thing, Harris."

Xander's fist, curled tight around the stuff of the vampire's shirt, ached. In his other hand, the broken bottle seemed to urge; he longed to thrust it forward, into Spike's eyes. Vampire healing wouldn't bring those back, would it? Buffy wouldn't want him if his face was an eyeless gash. She couldn't, could she?

"One thing only, Harris. What sort of woman is she, that she wants her undead rapist for her lover? What's wrong with her?"

"There never was any rape."

Buffy crossed the distance between the doorway and his hand faster than Xander's eye could track; in a blink he was relieved of the bottle, of Spike, and shoved hard into a chair.

God, if he'd just dawdled a while over his first cup of joe, Spike would be dust now. "I shouldn't have come up here."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "You really really shouldn't have." She turned her back on him then, and it was like the slamming of some dense enormous door.