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A Different Light by dreamweaver
 
Chapter 3
 
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The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.


Chapter 3

They were very stiff and awkward the rest of the day, avoiding each other’s eyes.

Buffy had sent a message to Lady Adara, saying that she wanted to discuss something. Adara couldn’t make it that night, but dropped in on her way to the Council chambers as Buffy was having breakfast the next morning. She declined the breakfast Buffy offered her, but accepted a cup of tea to keep Buffy company while she ate.

“No, nefai,” she said when the matter was explained to her, “I do not know what exactly was the cause of Baniel’s death. We know that he was at the tower in Eigen Forest where he lived. There was a storm and he was on the roof of the tower, attempting some procedure, when something happened. Most of the tower was destroyed and Baniel’s body was later found, charred almost beyond recognition. We surmised a lightning strike, but now you think...?”

“It’s just a guess,” said Buffy. “Isn’t there any way to find out what exactly happened? Didn’t he have any servants? Did anybody survive?”

“One of the apprentices with him did. The rest of his attendants died when the tower crumbled.”

“Can we talk to that apprentice?”

“We can have him brought here. It will take a few days. He is at the Collegium on the sea coast, quite a distance away.”

“Guess we’ll have to wait,” said Spike, padding into the dining room in his bare feet.

He lounged against the table, reaching desultorily to try this niblet or that from the various chafing dishes, dropping them carelessly after one bite. Not really interested, she thought; more for a change of taste than anything. Buffy hoped the chef wouldn’t be offended.

“Not like we have anything else to do,” he said. He looked bored and antsy. He smiled at the staffer who brought him the carafe of shibei. “Lady Adara, do your adepts have any way to tell if a force like this might exist?”

“There is a device that reads power concentrations. But it has a limited range, less than seventy ri.”

Ri?”

“The distance a man can walk in an hour.”

“Like our league,” Spike mused. “Roughly three miles to a league, so this device can only read about a couple of hundred miles at the most,” he said to Buffy.

Buffy sighed. “None of the disaster areas are within two hundred miles. That town we went to yesterday was the closest at three hundred miles away. Has the device ever shown any strange concentrations or fluctuations of power?”

“We never looked,” confessed Adara.

“Doesn’t mean there haven’t been any,” Spike shrugged. “Whatever it is may never have come near Emladris.”

“It was Baniel’s device. He was concerned about unlicenced mages within the capital. Do you wish to see the device?” Adara asked. “I must go to Council now and I will be there the whole day, but I can take you to see it in the evening.”

“Yes, thank you. Can’t hurt,” Buffy sighed to Spike as Adara left and the two of them drifted into the living room.

“Yeah.” He had picked up one of the several little clockwork mechanisms that dotted the cabinets and tables among various other knickknacks, and was playing with it restlessly.

“Geez, Spike, be careful with that!” she exclaimed. “It’s probably a priceless antique or something!”

“It’s new. Any one can see that.”

“Well, it looks expensive.”

“What doesn’t? This ‘bird in a gilded cage’ bit is driving me crazy,” he muttered. “Isn’t even any telly.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Can’t we find someplace to spar or whatever, Slayer? Gotta blow off some steam.”

“Not a bad idea. Rather not get out of shape lounging around here with nothing to do but eat.”

When appealed to, Dehren and Cadhi said that the Guild had training rooms down on the ground floor of the Hasjarad and they didn’t see any reason why anyone should object to Buffy and Spike using them.

The training rooms were empty when they got there. It was a sunny day, so those of the Guild who had dropped in for a workout were outside. Dehren went off to ask permission of the Guildmaster for their presence while Cadhi showed them around. Spike looked Cadhi over thoughtfully.

“I’ll bet that sword and dagger aren’t the only weapons you’re carrying,” he remarked.

Cadhi smiled. “No.”

“Concealed daggers?”

“Yes.”

He walked around her. “That belt buckle.”

“You are observant.” She pulled it out a couple of inches and a thin wire showed.

“Garotte?”

“Yes.”

He looked down at her boots. “And lockpicks in your heels, no doubt. What is that?” he asked as she nodded, pointing at what looked like a hair ornament of black wood clipping back her braid.

She laughed and detached it. It was like a tiny dumbbell, the shaft fitting into her hand, the hard wooden ends swelling on either side of her clenched fist.

Very observant, aver. To strike the nerve points. For a woman, more effective than one’s hand.”

“I should say. Hit the right point, could knock someone cold with that,” he said appreciatively. “Anything else?”

She flexed her arm and a couple of metal stars fell into her palm. Spike took one and examined it, then passed it to Buffy. The points of the stars were wickedly sharp.

Shuriken,” he nodded, took the second one from Cadhi and flipped it casually at a target set up on the other side of the hall. It struck dead center, the star vibrating with the force with which it had been thrown.

Cadhi said nothing for a long moment. “That was an unusual distance,” she said at last.

“Not really.” Spike grinned at Buffy. “Think you can match that, Slayer?”

Buffy grinned back and flipped her own. The star whirled across the intervening distance and slid into place exactly beside Spike’s, metal kissing metal.

“Yeah, I think so.”

They both laughed. Cadhi’s eyes were widening.

“Guild protection?” Spike murmured scornfully in Buffy’s ear. “All they are is this dimension’s version of humans. Could break ‘em in half with one finger. Hey, look. Quarterstaffs.”

He spun one expertly, then tossed it to her.

“You know how to use one?” she said in surprise, catching it.

“Oh, yeah.” He grinned at her. “Hundred and twenty years I’ve been at the game. There isn’t a fighting technique I don’t know. Fooled around with stuff no one’s used in centuries. Just for the hell of it. And you’re the Slayer. It just comes to you, doesn’t it?”

He was right. Throw her a sword or a mace or a quarterstaff and something in her swept out and encompassed it. Slayer ability, for lack of a better term.

They faced off, starting out slow, testing each other, then rapidly gearing up to top speed. The crack of wood on wood filled the room as they slashed, blocked, ducked in a whirl of laughing motion, enjoying themselves. Then Buffy’s staff shattered abruptly—she had struck, he had blocked, and they had both put too much force into it.

“Dang! There must have been a flaw in the wood,” she said, tossing the two jagged pieces away. “Don’t want to stake you by accident.”

“Appreciate that,” he grinned.

They became aware of Dehren, Cadhi and an older man watching them. Dehren and Cadhi looked stunned; the older man impassive.

“Nobiren, Guildmaster,” Dehren said and Nobiren inclined his head with dignity.

Buffy nodded, matching his inclination exactly, no more, no less, and sensed Spike doing the same beside her.

“You are more than skilled,” Nobiren said.

“Idea finally got through, has it?” Spike said mockingly and the Guildmaster gave him a long, cool look.

Buffy elbowed him surreptitiously in the ribs. Spike sighed deeply, but subsided.

“You’re no fun,” he muttered.

Buffy ignored him.

“You called for champions,” she said to Nobiren. “And instead of choosing one of the Guild, the call brought us here. What should be obvious?”

“That you possess more abilities than we do,” Nobiren conceded. “You are granted access to whatever weapons or aid that we can give you, avera.”

“Thank you.”

“Glad that’s cleared up,” said Spike. “Hand to hand, Slayer?”

“Sure. Wanna rub it in a little more?” she murmured under her breath. “Is that it?”

“No harm in underlining the point,” he grinned. “Arrogant buggers. And I can use the exercise.”

They went at it fast and furious, showing off more than a little bit, but as always enjoying fighting each other. She had never had a better opponent than Spike, who made her stretch herself to the limit. And from the laughter in his eyes, he was having fun too.

Except he was a little off. She could feel it. This wasn’t the way he had fought back on the campus. A little less power, a little less precision, everything just slightly blurred and ragged. She looked closer at him as they wove back and forth. Was he paler? She couldn’t tell for sure. The man was a vamp; he was always pale. Was the lack of blood already starting to get to him? If so, he’d never make the sixty days.

They battled back and forth while she wondered whether this was really wise and whether he should be husbanding his strength instead of using it up like this and whether she should stop the match right now. He got her with a spinkick while she was distracted, knocking her back. She did a back somersault to recover her feet, then made a slashing strike at his neck. Since that was the only blow she could make from the position she was in, she knew that he would have the counter move ready and fully expected him to block the slash. She was already planning her own next move when, to her complete shock, the strike connected.

It took him right under the ear, a paralyzing blow for anyone, human or vamp. He crashed to the floor.

“Spike!”

Then he was up again, snarling. The fangs were out. He’d gone into full gameface—ridges, yellow eyes, the whole enchilada. She heard gasps of shock behind her.

avera!” she heard Cadhi yell.

She looked around. They had acquired an audience, all the Guild personnel who had been outside and had trickled in to watch once word got around of the contest going on inside. They lined the walls and were now snatching at weapons.

“For God’s sake, no! Stay away from him, you fools! He can kill you in a heartbeat!”

She heard the Guildmaster snapping orders. She didn’t pay any attention, too intent on Spike. He was moving towards her in a slow, flowing, feline glide like some big cat. The yellow eyes were blind, their pupils pinpoints. Predator’s focus, like a leopard; tunnel vision. He’d turned into a killing machine, only instinct driving him.

She backed away slowly, keeping his focus on her.

“Everybody stand still! Don’t attract his attention. He’s out on his feet. Working on automatic, like one of your clockwork toys.”

The blow had knocked his consciousness out, but his defensive instincts had taken over, keeping him on his feet. He would kill without a thought, purely in self-defence.

A massive wooden sword-rack came between them as she moved backwards. He struck it aside. Full strength. The wood splintered and powdered. She heard exclamations of shock, ignored them.

“Spike! Snap out of it! It’s me. The...” Better not say Slayer. God only knew what that might trigger in him. “Spike! We’re just sparring! Wake up!”

Someone to one side made an incautious move and he started to turn in that direction.

“No!” If he went after the humans, she would be forced to kill him just to protect them. She was strangely reluctant to do that. “Not that way! This way!”

Her yell brought his focus back to her. She backed again, drawing him away from the onlookers. Her foot struck one of the pieces of the broken quarterstaff. A perfect stake. She refused to pick it up. She wouldn’t give up on him. Not until she was forced to.

“Spike! The truce, remember? We have a truce. It’s me. Buffy!”

He stopped, something struggling in his eyes.

“Buffy?”

“Yes! Come out of it, Spike!”

His irises went from gold to blue. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed.

She caught him barely in time before his head cracked on the polished wooden floor. She knelt beside him, holding him limp against her, his head in the crook of her arm, kneading his neck just below his ear with the heel of her hand to ease the nerve cluster.

“Is he now stable?” the Guildmaster asked dryly.

“I think so.”

He was unconscious, but the gameface was fading away into his regular human features.

“What is he?” someone asked fearfully.

Buffy looked up angrily at all the staring faces.

“He’s a vampire. I’m a Slayer. We are what you called out of the Void to help you.”

The Guildmaster was issuing orders. The Guild members went away until there was only Cadhi and Dehren left, squatting on their heels beside them in concern.

“Will he be all right?” Cadhi asked.

“I don’t know.”

He was pale and his skin was cold. Vamps were normally cool, only room temperature, but she thought he felt colder than that. He moved a little. Then his lashes fluttered and he opened his eyes, staring at her looking worriedly down at him.

“Hey,” she said. “Welcome back.”

“What...?”

“I hit you and you went all psycho on us. No big.” She grinned.

“Fuck.” He tried to sit up. “My neck hurts.”

“Yeah, I hit you there. Sorry about that. Just lie flat a little longer.”

“Don’ know your own strength, Slayer. Gotta sit up,” he mumbled and shoved himself into a sitting position, then twisted his head from side to side until his neck cracked. “Oh, that’s better.”

She kneaded his shoulders while he sat with his head hanging.

“Too slow on the block,” he said suddenly. “I remember. My fault.”

“Not really.”

He looked around at the empty room and then at Cadhi and Dehren watching them uneasily.

“Some impression that must have made.”

“Oh, you made an impression. Scared the living daylights out of everyone, by the looks of things.”

“Inter-dimensional incident. Great.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. She saw that the rims were red. “Let’s get back upstairs. I need some shibei.”

“I think they’ll be taking us seriously from now on,” she said when they were back in their gilded cage and alone once more.

He grimaced. “That bad, was it?”

“You went all fangy.”

“That Lehren git and his type won’t like that.”

“Got weapons’ access now, so that’s a plus.”

“Huh.” He knocked back his shibei and frowned at the empty glass. “Why didn’t you stake me, Slayer?”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t mean to.”

“Still.”

“I don’t know why, okay?” She spun away irritably. “It didn’t seem right, that’s all.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, aware of his gaze intent on her face.

He kept watching her over the next few days, a strange look, dark and silken that brought the color up into her face when she caught it. That wasn’t often. They were both avoiding each other’s eyes.

She wanted him to stay still and husband his energies, but he flatly refused, insisting that he was fine and coming along to spar every day. They were both more careful where they struck in those sessions and Buffy deliberately held back whenever she could do so without his noticing. He was losing strength. She could tell. He never took his duster off these days and very often she caught him holding it tightly about him, as if trying to conserve warmth. His skin felt icy now when she touched him, his eyes were constantly red-rimmed, and veins were showing blue at his temples.

He had insisted on coming along to see Adara’s power detection device. It was evidently one of Baniel’s designs again and operated all by itself in a small room, feeding out reams of paper and largely ignored by everyone else. Only Baniel had ever looked at its output. When Spike asked whether he could look through the last year’s worth of printouts, the device and several cartons of papers were promptly delivered to their premises, much to Buffy’s dismay. The Convocation apparently was glad to get rid of them.

“Know you don’t read, Slayer,” Spike said, making fun of her. Neither of them could read the language, but that wasn’t necessary to make out graphs. “Don’t worry. I do.”

At least it would keep him occupied and off his feet, Buffy thought. The staff were worried about him too. They kept fluttering about, unobtrusively trying to make things easier for him whenever they could without being noticed. Like all normally active people, he hated showing weakness and lost his temper at himself, not them, when he did. Because they all liked him, everyone tactfully pretended that nothing was wrong.

Baniel’s apprentice turned up, a very bookish, very shy and very young man.

“I was the least member of Baniel-aver’s staff, nefa’in,” he explained. “I had only just begun my studies with him. That was why I was out in the stable yard that day when the others were on the roof, helping him.”

“Adara said a lightning strike happened.”

Sessun shook his head. “The storm was over by then, avera. I tried to tell the Convocation, but no one listened. The sun was out. There was light all around, except...except upon the tower.”

“What do you mean?” Buffy asked, frowning.

“There was a great darkness upon us, even upon the stable yard. I could see the forest all around bright with sunlight, but where I stood was shadow. And bitter cold, as if wind was blowing from the snows. But it was summer.”

“The cold of the Void perhaps?” Spike asked quickly. “Did Baniel open the Void?”

“I do not know, aver. When I looked up at the tower, it was already starting to crumble. Then Cook came running out of the kitchen and I tried to go to her and the stable collapsed and I knew nothing more. The rescuers said that they dug me out from under the rubble, but I know nothing of that. Only that everyone I knew there was gone, even Cook. It was a terrible thing.”

“I’m sorry to have had to remind you of it,” said Buffy gently.

“Not much farther ahead, are we?” Spike remarked when Sessun had gone.

“I wish they had brought us when something was happening,” Buffy muttered.

“They don’t even know themselves when this thing might hit. But it has been in Emladris. Look at these readings.” He held out several sheets of paper that he had extracted from the cartons he had been steadily working through. “See the jump in power concentration?”

“Whoa!” The jump almost went off the charts. “It’s big!”

“Yeah.” He was frowning at the graph. “It comes and then it goes almost at once. And not just once. Several times.”

“And nobody noticed? Something that big passes through the city and nobody notices?”

“Power isn’t necessarily apparent, Slayer.” He grinned at her. “Look at you. Little bit of a thing, all tiny and fragile-looking. Wouldn’t know what you can do, at first glance.”

She laughed. “True.” That underestimation had worked in her favor several times.

“Not enough information.” He scowled at the graphs. “Dammit, this is going too slow!”

“Lehren thinks so.” Lehren had been busy agitating, Cadhi said. He wanted them gone. Adara had told them that he had even approached the Guild about putting out a contract to remove them from this world. The Guild had so far refused to take on such a contract, and Tariess had promptly delivered an ukase forbidding the attempt. Since Tariess was the one who had authorized their presence here, a strike at the champions would be taken as a blow against himself and would be met with deadly force, he declared. The Guild, relieved, complied. Lehren presumably retired, cursing.

Certain Councillors thought that people’s morale would improve if the ‘Champions’ were kept in the public eye and suggested that they be made more visible. Tariess vetoed that also, to Buffy and Spike’s relief. They had no desire to be lionized at political or social gatherings and preferred to keep a low profile, all too aware of the backlash that would happen when the next attack occurred without their being able to stop it. And since they still didn’t know when, where or what would strike, that was absolutely guaranteed to happen. Lehren, of course, was going around saying that if they really were champions, they’d have destroyed the thing by now.

“Like to rip that wanker’s lungs out,” Spike muttered. “They couldn’t find it in a year. He wants us to do it in a week.”

“It’s been a week,” Buffy sighed, “and we’re still nowhere.”

“Mm.” He poured himself another glass of shibei.

She heard the lip of the carafe rattle against the rim of the glass in a way it would never have done back in Sunnydale.

“You’re getting weaker.”

He put down the carafe hurriedly. “Still be here when the crunch comes, Slayer. Don’t worry. You’ll have back-up.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that.” She was thinking of what he had said before about turning into a living skeleton. The way things were going, he would be that before the sixty days were up. And did one even recover from a trauma such as that? She didn’t know enough and he wouldn’t tell her. There wasn’t even a way to research it. “You’re weakening too fast.”

“It’s this dimension,” he said tiredly. “Heavier gravity and less oxygen. Have to expend more energy just to exist. You wouldn’t notice. A Slayer adjusts without thinking. So would I, if I were at optimal.”

“Should you be drinking that much?” He had been drinking non-stop. But carefully paced, she had noticed—a glass every half-hour. Anyone else would have been totally plastered. He, for a wonder, wasn’t even close to drunk, just sort of blurry.

“Calms the Hunger.”

“Oh!”

She hadn’t thought of how much and how tightly he must be controlling himself to keep that in check. Any other vamp would have been a raving lunatic by now, slashing at any living body in sight.

He was slouched down low in his armchair, his head on the back, half asleep. He’d been sleeping a lot recently. The body shutting down, she supposed, trying to conserve energy. His eyes were half-closed, their vivid blue dulled. She was sad to see that, sad to see all that vibrant vitality gone. Spike was always full of quick, restless energy, dynamic and full of life. This lassitude was just so wrong.

“Bet you wish you were still with Dru right now.”

He laughed a little. “What, in Brazil and still dealing with chaos and fungus demons? No, thanks, pet. Better off here.”

“That hit you hard.” As hard as it had hit her when Angel left. “You really loved Dru.”

“Hundred and twenty years.” His voice was blurred with drink and exhaustion. He was struggling to stay awake and to keep his eyes from closing. “Never had much luck with women. Not as a human and not as a vamp. Cecily...But then I was such a nerd as a human. Sodding, sappy poet. Made that sadsack Harris look like James Bond. ‘Course she threw me out on my arse. Just in time for Dru to pick me up out of the gutter.”

So that was how...

“My black goddess,” he muttered drowsily. “That was Dru. Thought she was my salvation. But she belonged to Angelus. Took me a while to understand that. But you keep trying, right? You do your best. You try to be worthy.”

“I think you were worthy.” Dru hadn’t deserved that loyalty, she thought.

“Nah.” He sighed. “Something wrong with me, Slayer. Always wanted to be loved. Never was. Something wrong. Flaw somewhere.”

“Maybe you just pick the wrong women.”

He was silent for a moment. “No. Pick the right ones. ‘One bright, particular star.’ But... always above me. Still. ‘One’s reach should exceed one’s grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ Right? ‘Andrea del Sarto.’ Now there was a poem that resonated with me. Browning. He had the words. Never could find the right words. Had the feeling, but never the right words. Never really a poet. Only wanted to be.”

He had wanted to be a poet as a human? She couldn’t even visualize that.

“I think,” she said gently, “your genius lies in other directions.”

He grinned muzzily and bitterly. ‘Killing. Yeah, I’m an artist at that. Destruction, not creation.”

“Fighting.”

He laughed. “Cyrano, with fangs instead of a nose. That play resonated too.”

His eyes opened suddenly and fixed on her face. It was that focused look again, intent and dark and bewildering. He was wide awake once more.

“I have a fatal attraction to the best. Sodding, stupid romantic. Not good enough. Ah, well.”

He reached for the shibei and fumbled, the glass stopper of the carafe falling from his stiff fingers. Buffy moved forward automatically to help and he flung up a hand.

“No!”

“Sorry,” she muttered uncomfortably. “Know you don’t like...Didn’t mean to...”

“Stay away from me.”

She frowned at him. “What?”

“Don’t come near me, Slayer. It’s not safe right now.”

She realized suddenly that for the last couple of days he hadn’t come anywhere near her, had stayed carefully several feet away, hadn’t even come down to the gym to spar.

“I don’t understand.”

“Think I can’t smell the blood? I’m a vampire, pet. I can smell it. I can feel it, with every beat of your heart. Come near me and you’d have to stake me to keep me from taking it.”

She gasped in shock. As ridiculous as that seemed, she had never even thought of it! Stupid! Stupid! She had iron based blood, red blood. In this dimension, she was the only thing with red blood. And he had known it all the time.

“Why didn’t you just take it?” she exclaimed.

“Gave my word, didn’t I? Truce.”

“There is such a thing as being too honorable, you moron!”

He started to laugh. “Never thought I’d hear you say that, Slayer! Boy, you can turn on a dime, can’t you? Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, is it?”

“Who do you think you are? Angel?”

“Hey! Don’t have to be insulting!”

“Sickeningly noble! And you don’t even have a soul!”

He scowled. “Told you before. I don’t do rape.”

“You’ve taken it by force before. Why didn’t you now?”

He didn’t seem to know where to look.

“Because...because...Because it’s you, ” he finished helplessly.

And that didn’t make any sense at all.

“Why didn’t you ask for it? God! I’ve been so dumb! I didn’t even realize!”

He was looking at her in astonishment. “You’re the Slayer. C’mon! Would a Slayer give her blood to a vampire? Didn’t need to ask to know the answer.”

“You’ve been as dumb as I have!” She stalked forward, sat down on the arm of his chair and shoved her sleeve up. “Here.”

“What? No!” He tried to struggle onto his feet and she pushed him flat again with one hand on his chest. “Buffy...”

“You don’t have to take much, do you? A Slayer’s blood is powerful, right?”

“Slayer...”

She held her wrist to his lips and, at the scent of the blood in her veins, his fangs began emerging, despite his every effort to keep them back.

“Spike. Drink. You need it.”

He swallowed hard. Then his breath shuddered against her wrist and he went fully into gameface. His hand pressed her wrist to his mouth and his fangs slid into her vein.

She had expected pain. Both the Master and Angel had hurt when they had bitten her. But then the Master had meant to kill her and Angel had been out of his head at the time. Spike’s bite was as smooth as silk. And then, as he began to drink, a different sensation took over. A singing, voluptuous rapture. She gasped and leaned against his shoulder, weak with pleasure.

Angel had taken too much, had put her in hospital. She hoped Spike wouldn’t do that. He might, since, after a week of starvation, he probably needed it more. She didn’t know whether she had the willpower to stop him if he took too much, the sensation was that deliriously sweet.

His free hand came up, two fingers pressing lightly into the hollow of her throat. Then his fangs retracted and he licked the puncture wounds on her wrist to seal them.

“Whoa, Spike! What was that?”

He grinned a little. The color was coming back into his face and his eyes were clear once more. The fingers against her skin, that had felt icy at first, were now only cool.

“We can make it feel good when we want to,” he said. “Seduction rather than violation. Why do you think humans pay for it in the bite shops?”

“Wow. Yeah, I get it now. You didn’t take that much,” she said worriedly. “Was it enough?”

“Enough for a start. I’ll need more tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll have made up the blood loss by then. Dangerous to take more right now. I could feel your heart starting to falter,” he explained and his fingertips pressed delicately again on the pulse point in her throat. “It’s steadying now.”

Even though the Hunger must have been insupportable, he had still kept his control. Which was more than Angel had done.

“You look better.” The rims of his eyes were no longer red and his chapped lips were already mending. Vampire healing on overdrive, making full use of Slayer blood.

“Feel better.” His hand closed lightly on her wrist, holding her back as she began to rise. “Slayer. Why?”

She didn’t really know. He was looking at her in amazement and wonder.

“Oh, lots of reasons,” she said lightly. “Because we’re partners. Because I don’t want to be alone. Because we’re friends, aren’t we?”

His lips tightened. “Here.”

“Here,” she agreed.

But when they were back in Sunnydale, what would they be? She could see him thinking that too. They both looked away.

“You still didn’t have to do that,” he said under his breath.

‘You deserved it,” Buffy muttered. “You were...worthy.”

His head jerked up and he stared at her. His eyes had widened, all darkness and confusion. Something in them brought the heat up into her face and she turned away hurriedly.


TBC
 
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