The marble floor, cold against her cheek, gritted with bits of leaves and twigs, felt upside down, like she'd fallen up to the ceiling. His boots filled her line of sight. He'd expect her to return the blow, so that was what she wasn't going to do.

Anyhow, the way things were spinning, staying down was all she could manage at the moment.

When she could look up, Spike was goggling down at her.

"How'd I do that? The chip—"

"The chip was removed, over a year ago." Her lips slippery, wet. Buffy touched her nose. Please let that not be snot pouring out. Blood on her fingers, blood trickling out of both nostrils. Slicking her tongue, where she'd bit it. He'd gotten off a smart one, in his assumption that he wouldn't get a second chance. She sniffled.

Then Spike was kneeling, peering at her closer.

"I don't believe this." More awe now than incredulity.

Dizzy, she started to sit up. Then he was helping her, his hands on her shoulders. She wiped her smarting nose and lips on the hem of her skirt, and was shifting to get her feet beneath her when Spike, saying it again, I don't believe this, snatched her to him.

Covered her mouth in a kiss like freefall.

Threading his neck, pressing close, she gave herself to his plunging invasive tongue, this violent demand for proof of the impossible, or anyway, a lucky dip for the forbidden prize. He grappled her close with one hand, the other taking a rough tour, squeezing her breasts through the thin cotton of her dress, pinching the nipples, daring her to throw him off, to quash him like he deserved.

He hadn't handled her so aggressively, not since those frantic couplings in Sunnydale, and the rush that blew through her taught her how she missed that crude lust. She was already so wet, so ready for everything, anything—there was no question of stopping him.

"What you do to me," she gasped. "See? See how it is?"

"Somethin's turned you into a right slag, see that plain." Pushing her breasts together, he buried his nose in her cleavage, took a long sharp breath. "Christ you're a slut on heat."

"For you."

"That what I am, your undead toy? That's your fancy now? Wouldn't have thought it, but then was a vamp that fucked you first—you're imprinted for it. Finally quit pretendin' you don't like a monster." He thumbed the scars on her neck. "You make me fuck you with my game-face on, bite you, an' then you wipe my mind 'til the next time you get the itch. Clever, that is."

"No. No, that's not how it is at all."

He dropped her; she came down hard on her coccyx, bit her tongue again. He was already at the other end of the little folly, up on the bench, like he was trying to avoid mucking his boots.

"Spike—wait a minute." She scrambled up. "You remember Angel?"

He put up a hand, as if to ward her off. "What angel?"

"You said—" Why did it still make her flush, to say certain words out loud? "You knew it was a vampire I first ...."

His eyes flashed gold in the dark. "Everybody knows that."

"But how? Who was this vampire?"

"Don't bleedin' care, do I? Think I'll take my chances with gettin' over that wall." He jumped down, jostled past her.

"Spike, wait." She caught his arm, wheeled him around. "This could be important. You might be having a break-through."

"Oh, can't have that, can we? Would ruin your fuck-toy, yeah, if I knew too much? Better wipe me again."

"You really have that exactly wrong. We're trying to help you get all your memories back."

His lip curled. "Don't believe a word out of your mouth."

"Then maybe ..." She pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Maybe you'll believe your own."



"Bloody hell, what'd you do to me?" At first sight of himself on the tiny screen, he grabbed at his head.

Buffy hit the pause button to freeze the image. Spike had taken off out of the summer house, cursing. She remained huddled on the bench, eyes fixed on the glowing little rectangle that showed the two of them, shot at her arm's length, cuddled together on her sofa, her head on his shoulder.

Her little beacon.

She waited.

Spike's roar of fury echoed across the water. Evoking the threat of wolves in the hills.

Suddenly he was back, a cigarette glowing between his lips. "You lot have been plunderin' my brain, else why'd you shave my hair off?"

"Believe me, it wasn't my idea. I like you blond. You did that yourself. You said you didn't like it."

"Sure. Sure, that's just what I'd do."

"Will you shut up and look at this before you start arguing with me again?"

"Give us that." He snatched the phone out of her hand, fiddled it. She had to resist the urge to grab it back. What if he erased it? Or crushed the delicate thing beneath his heel?

Then the voice emerged from the tiny speaker, tinny and low. His voice. "Here we are, then. I'm to make a little speech, on orders of my pretty darling here, Buffy Summers the vampire slayer, in case tomorrow I lose what few wits I've got left. What shall I say? Well, today's August first two-thousan'-an'-five, and I'm Spike. Who used to be a fellow called William Pratt in life, an' is currently a vampire the watchers' books style William The Bloody. Buffy tells me that I left off bein' that, that I'm a good man, only demon in history to want his soul back an' win it. That I'm a great warrior, an' a hero. I've got to take her word on it, because I had some kind of mishap a few weeks back, in Los Angeles California, an' now my memory's all bunged up. I don't know my past, or not enough of it, anyhow, to stuff up a gnat's arsehole. An' when I do get back some bit here or there, it's ugly an' leads to me makin' a fangy nuisance of myself. Which is why I've asked the witch Willow Rosenberg, to hex me up in the mornin', so I might remember myself again and be a whole man, or whole demon, or whatever it is I really am. Chancin' it, though I'm wary of magic, sensible vamp that I seem to be. Suppose that's the story, an' all. Hopin' I'll come out all right at the other end of the big spell."

Then her voice: "You have a little more time."

"Shall I say I love you an' fear to lose you?"

"That's what I was going to say. I love you so much, and I'm afraid, but I support you, no matter what happens after."

"Good girl. Shall I give you a kiss for you to look at later?"

"For us both to look at, yes."

Watching this. Spike did a good imitation of a pillar of salt. Nothing moved except his thumb, getting the video to play over again, and then a third time.

Buffy sat quietly, letting it do its work. Hoping it would do its work.

He was silent until the end, and went on staring at the screen even after it dimmed.

"Gnat's arsehole."

"Uh—what?"

"Down in that cell you had me in before ... crossed my mind that I was locked up tighter'n a gnat's arsehole."

"Yes?"

"And here I am sayin' same thing in this little flick."

"I guess it's your phrase du jour."

"Bloody hell."

"That's your other one."

He dropped down onto the bench beside her. "Can't believe this. Lemme see that again."

She set it playing. This time she could see it too, could greedily absorb every little visual detail, how he held her close the whole time, smiling indulgently, with bravado, casting little glances down at her with every few words, to check her reaction. When he folded her into a kiss, the video went a little blurry as her hand jostled in the air, but it was there, every bit of it, and watching it made her eyes burn.

The man in the video was no more the complete Spike she'd loved too late than the anguished version sitting beside her, but she'd stopped caring so much about such nuances; she loved him in all his states, even as she knew he needed to be restored before he could fully choose or reject her.

She hoped that when that happened, he'd remember how she'd dealt with him now.

Next to her, Spike propped his arms on his knees, cradled his head, and moaned.

She longed to touch him, but kept her distance.

"That can't be me." He scraped his boots on the marble floor. "That isn't me. It's a trick."

"You know it's not."

"What's wrong with you, then? You'd never let me touch you. You're not that girl."

"You're not the Spike you think you are. If you remembered the time between two thousand and now, you'd know why I love you."

"Couldn't happen. Couldn't happen. Couldn't happen."

She didn't know how to answer. This could just devolve into a he-said she-said, a piece of absurdist theater.

He glanced at her. "You'd let me have you right here, wouldn't you?"

There was such contrary despair in his tone.

"I would, if I thought it would comfort you. But not if it would only make you more confused and unhappy." She twisted her fingers together. "You have to wait a while, for Willow to ready another spell. We've got satellite TV, and Jack Daniels, and blood, and if you'd like someone else to keep you company—that girl who gave you the cigarettes would be pleased I'm sure to sit with you ... that's okay too."

"Sit with me. You mean, keep guard over me."

"No, that's really not what I meant."

He frowned, his reply licked with irritation. "Guess everythin' I think you mean is wrong."

"It doesn't matter, Spike. I know this is hard."

"Don't get you. Don't bloody get any of this." He lit another cigarette, took a deep long drag, that he held for longer than a breathing man ever could, then expelled in a stream without a cough. Staring straight ahead, he said, as if expressing a choice between the beef or the chicken, "Think I would like to throw a fuck into the slayer, if it's all the same. Probably never get another chance, be an idjit to pass it up."

"That would prove to you that I'm nothing, wouldn't it?" Buffy said. "If I part my knees for you?"

"That's about it, yeah. Still, I'll have it."

He hadn't moved, except to bring the cigarette to his mouth.

"You missed the part about you having your soul."

"Heard it, but as it's bollocks, I'm not paying it any mind."

She squeezed her paired hands between her knees. Her nose still stung, and her nipples hadn't yet received the message to stand down. The early morning was chilly now. "Don't you feel ... your conscience?"

"That what it is, that makes my head ache?"

"I don't know."

"Can't remember sinkin' my teeth into anybody. Though looks like I've been into you, or someone has."

She rocked a little, hugging herself. "Maybe we should go inside. Like I said, there's blood and TV and—"

His hand shot out; the next moment he was on her, pinning her, his fangs nicking her ear. "Which shall I take first, Slayer, your cunt, or your throat?"

She held herself still. Held her breath.

"Go on, lady's choice." His tongue traced the line of her last scar. She shuddered. "Or stop me."

"I won't stop you," she whispered. "But you would. You would stop yourself. Of that I'm sure, because I know you, Spike."

For a space in which her heartbeat reverberated in her inner ear, five times, six, seven, he kept her there, letting her feel the sharp incisor scraping flesh, letting her feel the hard bulge of his angry arousal against her hip.

Then he was on his feet. His sudden absence a vacuum that made her gasp. It was all she could do not to reach for him. Her fingernails bit into her palms as she forced herself to keep still.

The lighter flared, his cragged face orange in the glow, a new cigarette lit. "Get me a bottle, that's what I want. Get me two. Christ, I've had about as much of this as I can take."