Author's Notes: Thanks for all the reviews on the previous chapter. I’m so glad so many of you are enjoying this. Just a reminder: I am not some super speedy writer who is pounding these chapters out in a single night. Most of this story is written up to around chapter 70 or so (actual number may vary depending on how I split up later chapters). My usual method is to edit each chapter like mad, then pass it back to my beta for final edits, then I do a last round of them before posting. I’d like to post every day, if I could… but a great deal of that depends on my beta’s availability. So if I skip a day here and there, it’s just life getting in the way for a little bit.

That also means that the way things are going to play out is pretty much set in stone. If something doesn’t happen as soon as you think it should… be patient. All things come to those who wait.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognizable characters, locations, and dialogue belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the various writers. Show writers and any other quoted authors have been credited in individual chapters. I'm making no money from this—it is purely in the name of fun.

Credits: This chapter contains dialogue from the episode "I Was Made To Love You" written by Jane Espenson.

Betaed by Phuriedae

Banner by Phuriedae

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Chapter 24
Warming Up

Later, when I'm in the bath and finally warm, I feel like I have time to think about what just happened. Okay so…Drusilla came back and wanted Spike to go with her to LA to make Angel evil again. Spike, because he's convinced he's not evil any more, turned her down. Which doesn't really make sense because Spike is as crazy about Drusilla as she is…well, just crazy. Except he didn't act like he was so crazy about her anymore. He acted like…like he was over her. Which since vampires can't really love without a soul is entirely possible. They just get twisted and obsessed and lusty. Spike is like the poster boy for Vampire ADHD so…maybe his crazy-for-Dru wore off?

On the other hand he has been acting less evil lately. I'm still mostly convinced most of that is the chip. It keeps him from doing evil stuff. Or, at least the evil stuff that results in hurt, bleeding or dead people. Like Giles says, it’s not a soul. The only similarity between Spike's chip and Angel's soul is that if either of them loses it, they both start killing again. It can’t tell him right from wrong. It can just zap him when he does do wrong. And maybe it’s like those experiments we talked about in Psych last year—he’s just gotten so conditioned by the zaps that he doesn’t think he wants to do bad things anymore. But if you took it away… It even sounded like Drusilla agrees with me on that, with all her babbling about electricity lying and him thinking he's not a "bad dog" and all. And she's supposed to be psychic, so wouldn't she know?

And what was with her ranting about the cold and the sun being turned off? Spike didn’t seem to know what she was talking about but, again with the psychic stuff, right? Maybe she knows something we don’t? Definitely worth bringing that up with Giles.

I turn it all over and over but most of it still isn't making with the sense, until I realize I'm starting to drift off in the cooling bathwater. The last thing I need is to wake up in the dream room still soapy and naked.

And that's another thing. As I towel dry and slip into my pjs I keep coming back to that weird feeling in the middle of the snowstorm, when I couldn't really see Spike and his hand was on my elbow. I know Mr. Gordo has done that to me before. I remember the first time he led me back to bed when I wanted to go for a walk. I don’t remember if Angel ever walked with me like that, but …Angel was so much taller than me…mostly I just remember his hands on my shoulders.

Could Spike be my Mr. Gordo?

That makes even less sense than Spike not wanting to be evil anymore. I've been dreaming of Mr. Gordo for months, and I know it started back when Spike still actively hated me and wanted me dead. Mr. Gordo doesn't have a chip, so if he'd been trying to kill me he could have. I've been sleeping next to him, totally vulnerable, for ages now. And…except for that one time when he was asking if I trusted him, he's never tried to bite me or hurt me. Even then he wasn't really trying.

Plus there's the whole disappearing injuries thing. And Mr. Gordo is right handed, not left. And the tingles…

Maybe it was just…a weird coincidence? I mean, lots of guys do that elbow grabby thing, right? It's not like I wanted Spike to hold my hand, after all.

And…and Spike said he sleeps naked, which Mr. Gordo totally doesn't.

And …and …Spike’s mouth! I mean, with the talkiness. Spike can’t shut his mouth for more than two minutes. Keeping his big trap shut every night for hours, during sparring and…he couldn’t do it. He’d blurt out something rude or awful or innuendo-y and give himself away.

It's a coincidence. It's just a dream. There's no way in hell that Spike could possibly be Mr. Gordo.

Besides, he's my dream vampire. Wouldn't I know if I were dreaming about Spike?

***

Still, when I wake up in the dream room alone I can't help but wonder. I wander around to his side of the bed, feeling tired but restless, my brain too busy to let me sleep. When he doesn't show up immediately I decide I need to walk anyway. With his side of the bed at my back I start forward, hoping no magical dream furniture pops up out of nowhere to trip me.

After awhile I start to feel nervous. I don't know how far behind me the bed is and I'm not sure if there are walls in this place. At least with Mr. Gordo at my side I had some sense of location, but this…it's creepy. Carefully I turn around to face the direction I came from, and start walking back.

Only, eventually I reach the point where I should have hit the bed…and I don't. I keep going, hoping maybe I'm wrong and wondering why I didn't count my steps, but it's no good.

Crap. I'm lost in a huge room with only a bed in it.

Then I feel the tingles and almost sigh with relief.

"I lost the bed," I say, sheepishly, when I feel Mr. Gordo approaching. He taps three times.

"I just wanted to go for a walk, and you weren't here so…” I roll my eyes at my own dumbness. "And now I'm tired and I can't find the bed. It's been a really long day. Point me in the right direction?"

Maybe I meant to get lost. Maybe I wanted to see if he does the elbow thing again.

Only he doesn't. Instead he takes me by the shoulders, rotates me a little to the left, then gently pushes me back two steps. When my calf muscles bump into the mattress I feel like an idiot. "Oh," I say. "Guess it wasn't that lost after all." He chuckles softly, but it doesn't feel mocking. It's friendly. Then he moves around the bed to his side and climbs in.

Spike would have mocked me.

Spike wouldn't have kept his mouth shut for the past nine months.

It can't be Spike.

I don't want it to be.

Even if, suddenly, when I try to picture what Mr. Gordo looks like, he's got blue eyes and impossible cheekbones and bleached blond hair. I wait for the image to slide away, like all the other times I've tried to imagine his face…but for once it's persistent and it sticks.

Stupid vampire even screws up my dreams.

***

On the upside, due to the storm, classes are canceled this morning, which means now I've got a few days to actually watch the movie for my Lit test. On the downside, I have to trek to the Magic Box on foot through almost a foot and a half of snow because the roads are shut down and Mom's car is stuck in the driveway. On the news they mentioned bringing in some equipment from up north to deal with the inexplicable snow problem. In the meantime my neighbor has gotten fancy, trying to clear his walk with a regular garden shovel and a rake.

When I get downtown the going is a little easier, though the sidewalks are slippery with ice from all the feet that have trampled the snow down. Giles is moving stiffly around the shop, still wearing his gloves while he waits for the heater to chase the chill out of the air. Anya is arranging a vase of red roses on the counter with a soft little smile on her face.

"What's with the buds?" I ask as I pull off my hat and drop it on the counter.

"Xander gave them to me last night for Valentine's Day," she says with a grin. "Normally I associate Valentine's Day with, you know, getting revenge on men for all their slimy ways. It was always a busy time of year for vengeance. It's kind of nice to be on the happy end of it for once."

"Oh," I say, trying not to think about the fact that, historically, my Valentine's Days have been about as disastrous as my birthdays usually are, and maybe it's a good thing that I totally forgot about it. The door chimes as Willow and Tara come in.

"So what did you do last night?" Anya asks me.

"Spike," I grumble, with a frustrated sigh.

Giles and Anya's heads both swivel in my direction. Willow and Tara stop dead in their tracks and stare.

"What?" I ask, confused.

"You…and…and…uh, S-Sp-Spike?" Giles asks, sounding faint.

"How many orgasms did you have?" Anya says, beaming and looking thrilled.

"What? No! No orgasms!" I say, backing up. Wait a second.

"But vampires have such amazing stamina," she protests and I so don't need to know how she knows that.

"I wasn't doing Spike," I tell them. "There was no doing. None. Whatsoever."

"Oh, thank god," Giles sighs with relief.

"Did-did you make him dusty?" Willow wants to know as she and Tara step down into the main part of the shop.

"No," I say. "The thing is…he sortakindamight'vesavedmylife. In a way that wasn't just to, you know, save his own skin."

It's like someone attached fishing wire to all of their eyebrows and jerked up. It'd be funny if it weren't so…funny.

I sigh and fill them in on most of the events from last night, skipping, of course the bit about Spike and the almost nakedness and my little wig out when I thought he might be Mr. Gordo. Since none of them know about Mr. Gordo, it doesn't really matter, and I'm sure Giles appreciates not having to hear about Spike and his…his…rippliness.

When I'm finished, Giles is in full on polish-mode, Anya has actually stopped counting money in the drawer to stare and Willow and Tara are both sitting at the research table and giving me odd looks.

"The thing is," I tell them, outlining the thought that had hit me that morning on the walk to the shop, "he could have just let me try to walk home on my own, or ditched me in the middle of the storm. Since he wouldn't have actually been hurting me, the chip wouldn't have fired. I never would have made it home on my own, and Slayer powers aren't any use against a blizzard. So…he had the opportunity to kill me, and he didn't even seem to think about taking it. And he really didn't want to go with Drusilla and…could he be right? Could he, you know, be changing?"

Giles gives his glasses a final polish, but doesn't put them back on. "It would be…extremely odd, if that were the case," he says. "You're certain you've found no connection between him and this demon in the prophecy? You sounded sure, before, that he was hiding something. Perhaps he's trying to throw you off the scent."

I slump in my seat. "I thought of that, but if he is, he's doing a much better job of hiding it than usual. I don't know. And if he was then…why help out fighting all those demons? And why did he fight off the ones that attacked my house? And…and with the thing last night, why not just let me freeze to death? It doesn't make any sense, and all this thinking? I'd almost prefer a railroad spike in the brain to all the headache he's causing."

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious," Anya says.

"What?" I ask.

"I was a demon for more than a thousand years," she reminds us. "Not all demons are the same, and vampires aren't really all demon anyway. They're half-breeds. If the chip is suppressing his demon side, maybe his human side is taking over. He's always been a little weird for a vampire. It makes sense."

"Anya," Giles says, and I can hear lecture mode starting to creep into his voice. "Vampires may be half breeds, but…when the demon takes over, it…it evicts the human soul. All they retain are the memories of their human pasts and their physical appearance. Spike has been a soulless killer for more than a century, and his human life was, as far as we know, equally murky. In addition, he has a history of playing us false to meet his own ends. Buffy, I would still advise you to be extremely cautious around him. While his current behavior does seem to suggest that he…he might have changed to some degree, we don't know how much or how far, or even if it can be trusted. As you pointed out, his motives seem…rather spurious."

"Spurious?" I ask. Why can't English guys speak English?

"Dodgy?" he suggests, which isn't much better.

"Okay, so, Spike's still listed on the Suspicious Chart."

"Has Drusilla left town?" Willow asks, leaning forward.

"As far as I know," I say. "We'll have to wait and see. I tried to get a hold of Angel this morning but he's still not answering his phone, and I can't reach Cordelia, either. I guess maybe they're busy dealing with Darla or something. Do we have any news on this Ice Demon thing?" Shiny new change of subject means I don't have to think about Angel and his evil ex-girlfriend.

Giles sighs and gets up. "Not yet," he says. "Ms. Markham and I have deciphered a little more of the prophecy, but, as with most prophecies made by madmen there's as much actual information as there is…frothing at the mouth and gnawing on the furniture." He rolls his eyes.

"That bad, huh?" I wince.

"There was an entire section dedicated, apparently, to the merits of potatoes," he says dryly.

"Ick."

***

Since there's no school, and the cold is keeping away most of the customers, today turns into an impromptu research party. We order pizza, and spend most of the day pouring over old books looking for more info on our Cold Demon.

"Nothing, nothing, and more nothing," Willow moans as she tosses another book on the pile.

"Who drew mustaches and…and…uh, boy parts on all these pictures?" Tara asks, blushing and flipping through another.

"Let me see that," Giles says, frowning as he takes it from her and skims through it himself, then goes wandering off muttering about "libraries," "high school students," and "pillocks."

The door chimes as Xander opens it, then ushers Lydia in first. Xan's face is red and wind burnt from the cold, but he's smiling and carrying an enormous tray of takeout cups from the Espresso Pump next door. "I come bearing hot chocolate," he says. "Let the women now descend upon their hero to bestow their gratitude and sexual favors."

"Be careful, we might rend you limb from limb," I tell him as I grab for a cup.

"I know which limb I want," Anya says as she gives him a kiss.

And I should have seen that coming.

Lydia is carrying a bag full of books, which she sets down on the table, flexing her fingers in relief. "I thought London winters were cold," she says, "but this is…well, positively supernatural."

"I think that's the problem," I say, poking at the book in front of me. "Are there any donuts left?"

"If there are, I call dibs," Xander says. "I've just spent the entire morning trying to tarp off the building we've been working on. The wind yanked up most of them last night and there's snow packed around some of the studs."

"And nobody likes a cold stud," Willow says.

"Very true," Tara agrees, with a grin.

"Oh, good lord," Giles groans and heads for the storeroom to escape.

"So," Xander says as he sits down and picks up a random book. "Are we research partying all night?"

"There's a Snow Blows party going on at the Porter dorm tonight," Willow suggests. "Maybe we could party party?"

"Party parties sound good," I say. "Is it indoors?"

"Most of it," Willow says. "They were setting up the bounce house when we walked over this morning. There might also have been a Slip n' Slide."

"In this weather?" I ask.

"It's a guy thing," Tara says with a shrug, which is probably true.

"Speaking of," Willow says leaning toward me with a grin. "You know that cutie guy in European Lit? Um…Eric something? He was asking if you were going to be there."

I try to remember who Eric is and all I can pull up is a fuzzy image of a guy with brown floppy hair that looks way too much like Parker. I pull a face. "I don't know. I don't think I can do the college guy thing again so soon."

"Too Riley?" Willow asks softly.

"Yeah," I say. "I don't know. I mean, on the one hand, I kinda want to move on, but…what if it just happens all over again, Will? I just…I wanna know that there's a guy out there who I won't…chase away or turn evil."

"There will be," Xander says. "Promise. He's out there. He could come along any minute."

"Yeah, and the minute after that I can terrify him with my alarming strength and remarkable self-involvement," I grump.

"You're not like that," Xander says.

"Maybe I could change. You know, I could work harder. I could spend less time slaying. I could laugh at his jokes. I mean, men like that, right? The…the joke laughing at?"

"Or maybe you could just be Buffy, he'll see your amazing heart and he'll fall in love with you," Xander says.

"Awwww," I say, and it turns into a chorus as Willow, Tara, and Anya all look at him adoringly.

"Isn't he sweet?" Willow says.

"And I think I need to go see where I left my testosterone. Must have dropped it on the way in," Xander says, getting up and checking his pockets. He stops as he heads for the back room. "You know, Buff, you ever think maybe the reason you haven't found a great relationship on the Hellmouth is…because it's a Hellmouth?"

He might have a point.

Face it, at this point the only lasting and well-adjusted relationship I've had with a guy I'm sleeping with is with an imaginary invisible vampire who can't talk.

***

I head home a little early to check on mom and change. While I'm not so sure I'm ready to get up on the dating wagon again, Mom's already climbed aboard. She's got a date tonight with some guy named Brian who she met at work over antique cameos. She's in the middle of trying on dresses and grumbling that all of her best ones are too thin to wear with the cold weather when I come in. I know how she feels. I'm mentally inventorying my wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear for the party, too.

"So, what's the plan for tonight?" I ask, laying on the bed, stomach down and kicking my feet. When I was a kid I used to do this when she and dad would get dressed to go out for the evening. I loved laying there, watching her get ready, putting on pretty dresses and doing her hair and makeup. Right now she's twisting in front of the mirror, trying to see the back of the black evening dress she's trying on.

"Dinner and then a movie," she says. "Or maybe it was…a movie and then dinner. Which might be better because…you know, then we could talk about the movie." She frowns then, turning back to me and leaning against her dresser. "Or maybe a movie isn't a good idea at all, because, you know, you can't talk during, and…and then, you know, what's the point of any of it?"

"It'll be fine," I tell her. "Just don't go see anything that sounds like it's about food, okay? Trust me, food movies and dates are non-mixy."

She nods, distracted, which is of the good because I so don't want to have to explain about that one.

"About the restaurant…do you think that…that it should be one with candles and romantic music, or is that pushing it? Should I try to make things romantic or…sorta let him set the pace?"

"Oh, no," I say. "Love Doctor Buffy is not in. I am not qualified to give dating advice. I've had exactly two boyfriends and they both left. Really left. Left town left."

Mom sits beside me on the bed. "Honey, you just had some bad luck. Maybe you'll meet a nice boy at that party you're going to tonight."

"Or maybe Brian has a son," I say with a grin. "And we can go on unspeakably awkward double dates."

"Oh, god…Brian. What time is it now?"

"4:24," I tell her, checking my watch.

"Are you sure this dress is okay?"

"It's fine. Perfect. Beautiful. He won't be able to resist you…. Do I need to stay over somewhere?" I ask, half joking, half horrified. Oh god. Mom sex. Ew.

"Maybe," she says, giving me a little grin. It's so good to see her happy like this. After everything that happened in the fall…I'm just so glad she's okay. My mom is the strongest person I know. Not, physically, I mean, because, aside from me that would probably be Spike. But…she's gone through so much, you know? With my dad, and raising me, and I know I haven't been the easiest daughter in the world to look out for…and then with the cancer…I'm in awe of her, sometimes. The way she keeps going. Sometimes I think I'm becoming too cynical. Mom's always optimistic, no matter what. I love that about her, even though sometimes I think it's a little naive. I mean, she likes Spike of all people.

"Mom?" I ask, frowning a little.

"Hmmm?" she says, fussing with her hair in the mirror.

"Did you like Angel?"

She turns to look at me, surprised. "Why?"

"I just…I'm curious," I say, folding my arms on the bed and resting my chin on them. She sinks into a chair and studies me for a while.

"No," she says finally. "Not really. The truth is, Buffy…I never really got to know him. He seemed moody and distant. And far too old for you, and that was before I knew he was a vampire." She smiles at me softly. "Ever since you …became the Slayer, you've become far more serious. Sometimes maybe a little too serious. I always thought, someday, you'd meet a nice boy who'd make you laugh, let you have fun. Angel…he was very dark."

I think about that a little. "Maybe," I concede.

She sighs and fiddles with her necklace. "I try not to think about …how dangerous it is, what you do. I liked that Angel was strong enough to help protect you, but…I never felt like he would. Not really. And Riley, while he seemed like a nice boy, I never felt like he really appreciated you. I know that…that…” she stops for a moment and draws a shuddering breath. "I know that most Slayers die young. You know that that's…not what I want for you. I'm your mom, and I love you, and I want you to live a long and happy life. But realistically…life is too short to be with someone who makes you gloomy all the time, or someone who can't see how amazing you are and want to be by your side."

I nod, because I'm not really sure what to say. She moves over to sit next to me and I turn so that my head is in her lap and she can brush her fingers through my hair. It feels nice, like when I was little, and I wish I could go back to that and be that little girl again. Life was so much simpler, happier. Only then I wouldn't have Giles and Willow and Xander, would I?

"I want to meet a guy like that. One that'll make me laugh, and appreciate me, and who I won't chase off. One who will just…love me, forever," I say softly. "Do you think he's out there?"

"I know he is," she says, and because she's my mom, and moms almost never lie…for a little while, I believe her.

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