They made it to the bedroom, she was starting to undress, when the trembling began. Strength gone from her fingers so she couldn't undo the buttons of her blouse. Knees shaking so she had to sit down before she fell down. A delayed wallop.

"What is it?"

"You were going to kill yourself."

He sagged. "I ... yeah."

"You were going to kill yourself!" Seizing up the nearest object, Buffy hurled a wide photo frame full of shots of Dawn and her mother at the wall. It shattered with the jagged crash of her own heart.

Spike started. He seemed suspended, for a moment, like he was going to off into himself again. Then he knelt at her feet. "Seemed like the only thing for me this morning, but now I'm glad it didn't come off. I'm sorry, Buffy."

Her belly twisted around itself, erupting in acid. "Are you? Or are you just resigned? Because I know all about the resignation thing, the sticking around for other people thing. If—"

"No, pet. No no an' no." He took her hand in his whole one. "Got no interest in leavin' this—leavin' you—anymore. Believe that."

"How did ... how come your hand got fried?"

He told her about going up onto the battlement, then returning to write a note, and encountering Xander. The absurdity, the serendipity, of this made her laugh, probably because the only other response open to her would've been a round of uncontrolled screaming. Two attempts in one morning, the first nothing particularly to do with Xander wielding a broken bottle in his face. Shit.

He laughed a little too, but she could tell he was perplexed. They were still on the roller-coaster, and he was a few cars behind.

"This whole situation, God—! It must feel insane to you. Like you're trapped in a bizarre dream that just goes on and on. We must all seem like such desperadoes to you, and you ... with just these little glimmers of self-knowledge." I don't know how you stand it. "I guess I can't blame you for wanting the exit."

"Was the coward's way. Your friend was right enough about that." He rose to sit beside her, his leg touching hers. "No need for it now I'm more sure about you."

"You should always be sure about me." You always were, even when I wasn't. Especially when I wasn't. "Once I start to care about someone ... it doesn't happen very often ...."

"Got it, yeah. Poor little miss, you're still trembling."

"And you're white as a ghost. Maybe ...."

Together they moved up on the bed, ignoring the clothes still strewn across it, still wearing their own, to lie huddled together.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart. When you wake up, you'll feed again, and your burn will hurt less."

She waited for him to close his eyes, but he kept them open, kept them fixed on hers, as if he was searching down through the clear water of a pond to spot one particular sparkling bit on the bottom.

"D'you call all your lovers sweetheart?"

The question was like a boomerang, coming from the opposite direction of her attention, whanging her.

"I haven't had that many lovers. Four, to be precise. Don't laugh at me." Her giggle broke the air between them like a burp. "But ... no. No, I never went in for endearments before now. You just ... you just bring something out of me I didn't really know was there."

"Don't suppose you let me say sweet nothings to you before, either. When we were re-enacting the Clash of the Titans in bed."

"We almost never actually did it in a bed. Pretty much everywhere but."

"Ah-ha."

"And ... no. I didn't let you say any of the things you wanted to say. I was a No Tenderness zone. When you were soft with me, I was harder with you. Punished you for all my own ... my own ...."

"Poor girl."

"I was very sick with sadness. I think you kept me alive those months, even though what we had was so black. I owe you lots of ... lots of softness now, to make it up." She moved her face closer, laid her lips against his. They tasted coppery, bitter. She kissed him, and his mouth opened like the catch springing on a box. A groan rumbled in his throat.

"Suspected there was backstory, from the beginnin'. When you wouldn't sleep with me. An' then when you did. Didn't say anything, but I felt like you'd been through my territory before. Like you were returnin' to somethin' you knew."

"You used to make me frantic. Physically. You'd only had to look at me ... or I only had to think about you ... and I'd be throbbing. I hated myself for—I'm sorry, Spike. It's only the truth."

"Tell me the truth, can take it."

"I hated myself for desiring you, but boy howdy did we—do we—fit. The first time we did it, it was like we both just knew, exactly how each other's bodies worked, how to work each other into a frenzy. It was ... we were magnificent together. Except for the me being all swollen with guilt and remorse every time." Hard to think about, hard to relate, but it seemed crucial now, to spill it. She wasn't Catholic, but she thought of the confessional. "The reason why—not just chemistry. Though we were all fizzy with chemistry, we were a chemistry set. But it was because you knew me, Spike. That was the uncanny thing about you, from the very beginning when you came to Sunnydale gunning for me ... you figured stuff about me that no one else guessed. Stuff I didn't even want to know about myself. And you'd tell me the truth about things, and ...." A laughing little gasp. "And here you are not knowing anything, but the crazy thing is you still knew me."

His smile was tentative. "Was something about you, from when I first clapped eyes on you in that alley ... that disturbin' ... didn't know why. Still don't, really."

"Somehow, even back when we were enemies, there was this ... intimacy. I could never explain it. Andrew would say it was destiny with a capital D. Andrew loves to tell about us like we're in a comic book, like our story was all fore-ordained, epic, everything fore-shadowing something else."

"P'raps he's right."

"Andrew is a little twerp. And don't be fooled because he looks like Tintin, his hands are dirty too."

"What, him? He likes to hang about in the kitchen while I'm doing the bread. Gets hard in his pants watchin' me knead dough an' thinks I don't notice him rubbin' himself against the edge of the counter."

"Okay, gross."

"He's a murderer?"

"We all are. Even Xander. He once summoned a demon who danced a bunch of people to death. And somehow ... we never really talked about it afterwards. God. I don't want to talk about it now. But just so you know, you're not the only one here with a past you're living down. Nor are you the only demon. Anya—she's dead now, but she was with us for a good while—she was one too. A vengeance demon, for, like, a thousand years."

"Makes me a piker."

"Precisely. We're all trying to balance the scales. To keep the good from getting swamped."

"Go to sleep, Buffy. Your sweet little lashes are flutterin'."

"You first."

"I won't go anywhere."

"You'd better not."

"Can cuff me to the bed post, if you don't trust me. Know you've got cuffs handy."

"I trust you. I've trusted you for a long time, Spike. I wouldn't stop now."