Disclaimer: All the characters and any borrowed dialog are Joss Whedon's, not mine.

Thanks ever so to the reviewers who keep me writing!


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Chapter 6 – Discussions
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“So how are you doing?” Willow sat across the table from Xander at a local coffee shop. She had woken up that morning to find the Summers girls still asleep. She had quietly poked her head downstairs to find the house’s other occupant also still out cold. Needing to process the previous day’s events somehow, she had called up Xander to see if he was available for some early morning coffee.
 
“Hanging in there,” Xander replied. “I still think that I did the right thing, but I miss her, you know? I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life second guessing the whole thing.”
 
Willow leaned forward and patted Xander’s arm. “It’s going to take a while, but you’ll heal. I thought the world was going to end when Tara left me. Sometimes it still feels that way. But I think we’re starting to be friends again, little by little.”
 
“I don’t know if Anya’s ever going to forgive me,” Xander said, shaking his head.
 
“She is still pretty pissed at you right now,” Willow said with a sigh. “She was still hurting when we saw her yesterday.”
 
“Oh yeah. How did the research go?” Xander asked. He had given up hope that Spike would have the decency to just dust quietly and be one less annoying thing in the life of Xander Harris, so he might as well hear what was going on with the vampire.
 
“Well, the good news is that we figured out that he was poisoned with some obscure poison from another dimension called watais root,” Willow said. “The bad news is that the only thing that can cure him is the blood of his sire.”
 
“That sucks,” Xander said, not particularly sympathetically. “So is Buffy going to put him out of his misery or what?”
 
“No. She’s planning to go after Drusilla,” Willow replied.
 
Xander coughed and sputtered as he choked on his coffee. “She’s going to do what??” he cried, grabbing a handful of napkins to mop up his shirtfront.
 
Willow shook her head. “She says she’s not going to let him die on her watch,” Willow said. “She’s been feeding him more of her blood, which seems to help a little bit, but she has every intention of trying to find Drusilla to cure him.”
 
“Is she nuts?” Xander said. “I don’t think I’d go after Drusilla for any reason, let alone to help the Bleached Wonder. What the hell is she thinking?”
 
“I don’t know,” Willow said. “She keeps saying she owes him, and she can’t let him just die, even though she says whatever they had going is over.”
 
Another mouthful of coffee went down Xander’s throat the wrong way. As soon as he stopped coughing he said, “What did they have going? Was she involved with him?” The idea absolutely floored him.
 
“I don’t know the details,” Willow admitted. “But she pretty much told Dawn that they had had some sort of relationship, but that she had broken it off.”
 
“How come none of us knew about this?” Xander wondered.
 
“Apparently she didn’t want to tell any of us because she thought we would freak out and she didn’t want to deal,” Willow said.
 
“That’s…” Xander paused. “Ok, I suppose I would have freaked out, given that I just freaked out. But why would she start anything with him in the first place?”
 
“That I can’t tell you,” Willow said. “I guess she was a lot more messed up than we realized. We were all sort of preoccupied, you know?”
 
“Guess so,” Xander sighed. “But what are we going to do about the current crisis?”
 
“I don’t know. I mean, I tried to remind her about the last time we dealt with Drusilla, but she’s got her mind made up. I overheard her calling Angel last night to try to get his help.”
 
“Did he agree to help her?”
 
“From the way she told him off before she hung up, I’m thinking not,” Willow said.
 
“So what does she plan to do next?” Xander asked.
 
“I don’t know. I got up extra early today and she and Dawn were both still in bed.” Willow said. She sipped her coffee and thought for a moment. “Do you think we should call Giles?”
 
“That’s a thought,” Xander agreed. “Maybe he’ll be able to talk some sense into her.”
 
“I’ll give him a call later,” Willow said. After another sip of coffee she mused, “Do you suppose we should talk to Buffy first? I mean, she might get mad about us going behind her back.”
 
“Yeah, but don’t you think Giles should have some background info?” Xander countered. “I mean, what if she calls him and doesn’t tell him the whole story?”
 
“She wouldn’t lie to Giles!” Willow protested.
 
“She’s been lying to the rest of us for a few months,” Xander noted.
 
Willow chewed on that thought for a while. “I suppose giving Giles a bit of a heads up wouldn’t be the worst thing we did this year.”
 
“You’ll call him then?”
 
“Yeah. Some advice would be of the good about now.” With that settled, they finished their coffee and moved on to other topics.
 
******************
 
Buffy woke to the sound of Dawn banging around downstairs. “I’ve gotta go! See you later!” Dawn yelled before flying out the door for school. Buffy groaned as she rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head. Ok, five points for getting out the door on time. Minus five thousand points for being loud enough to wake the dead. Speaking of which… She pulled the pillow back off her head and sat up, yawning. She got out of bed and grabbed her robe, making her way down to the kitchen. She saw a note from Willow saying she had gone out for coffee with Xander and groaned again. Probably deciding what sort of intervention I need, she rightly surmised. How many years do I have to do this Slayer gig before they decide I know what I’m doing? She made herself some breakfast, washed it down with coffee, then went downstairs to check on the vampire.
 
Spike was sleeping, which gave Buffy a chance to look at him. His face was a lot closer to his usual alabaster tone, as opposed to the ghastly gray it had been. But she could still see the curve of every rib, and there was no hint of his formerly sculpted muscles. Those arms which had held her, punched her, and fought beside her lay like two useless sticks on top of the blanket, and it nearly caused her physical pain to see it. He didn’t deserve this. He might have in the past, but not anymore. Her eyes trailed back up to his face, where his eyes had opened and were regarding her thoughtfully. “Not a pretty picture, is it,” he said.
 
“You’ve been better,” Buffy admitted. “But you’ve also been worse. I think after Glory you looked worse.”
 
“Thanks, I think,” he muttered. “Think you could help me sit up a bit, love? Getting rather tired of lying here looking at the ceiling.”
 
“Sure,” she said. She gently but firmly hoisted him upright and helped him turn so that he could lean his back against the wall. She arranged a pillow behind him and pulled up a folding chair for his feet. “Better?”
 
“Much,” he replied. He had reveled in her scent as she helped him, feeling the soft curves of her body as she put her arms around him. Had he been his normal self he would have been sporting an instant erection, but in his current state – nothing. God just fucking stake me. If a Slayer in her nightclothes doesn’t get me hard, then I’m beyond dead. Put me in an urn and call it done. He kept his thoughts to himself at the sight of her quiet, concerned movements, making sure he was comfortable without making him feel any more helpless than he was. For whatever reason, she was helping him, willingly. He couldn’t begin to fathom exactly what was going on in that blonde head of hers, but for now he only had the strength to accept her help, whatever the motive.
 
Buffy sat down next to him and held out her arm. “You might as well have some breakfast. I’ve got to work this afternoon, and I’ll need some time to rest up before I go.”
 
Spike didn’t waste his lack of breath arguing with her again. There wasn’t any point if the answer was going to be ‘shut up and drink’ followed by a threatened punch in the face. He rubbed her wrist gently with his thumb, brought it to his lips, and kissed it tenderly before vamping out and sinking his fangs in. The heat began to flow through Buffy again as he drank, but it stopped all too soon. “Are you sure that’s enough?” she asked with concern. “You didn’t drink very long.”
 
“Don’t want to risk you passing out at work,” Spike said. He deftly closed the wound and added, “I’ll hang in there with what I got.”
 
“How are you feeling this morning?” she inquired. She moved to a more comfortable position, but remained next to him on the bed, which surprised the vampire somewhat.
 
“Not quite ready for battle, I’m afraid,” he said. “Senses are nearly at full power now. Guess I can remain upright thus far.”
 
“I wonder if we just kept you on a Slayer diet long enough whether you’d get over it,” Buffy mused.
 
“At this rate it would take months and months,” Spike answered. “And when I get too long between feedings I start to get weaker again.”
 
“So you’d be having Slayer for breakfast, lunch, and dinner forever,” Buffy said. “That doesn’t sound like a winning strategy.”
 
“And you’re so skinny. Probably have to drain you dry to get any real improvement, and then I’d be out of Slayer and back where I started,” Spike said with a little smirk.
 
Buffy smirked back, then fixed him with her green eyes. “Do you have any idea where Drusilla could be?” she asked.
 
Spike blew out a breath and leaned his head back against the wall. “I heard through the grapevine that she had been around LA last year, although I can’t confirm that. That’s really the last I heard. I can sense her if she’s near because of the whole sire bond thing, but I haven’t sensed her since…”
 
“Since you chained us both in your crypt?” Buffy put in with a wry smile.
 
“Um, yeah,” Spike muttered ruefully. “Not one of my better ideas in retrospect.”
 
“So no ideas how to find her?” Buffy asked.
 
“When we were together, she’d run off sometimes, but usually not too far. And she would usually come back when the voices in her head got too loud or something. I used to have more of a connection to the demon world to try to get word of her, but lately I’ve been on the outs with a lot of my sources.”
 
“I guess that’s my fault, huh,” Buffy said, looking away. “I never really thought about what it must be like for a vampire to be helping the Slayer.”
 
“About the same as what it must be like for a Slayer keeping company with a vampire,” Spike answered. Buffy looked at him, trying to make sense of the tone of his voice. “I’m pretty fed up with being your dirty little secret, Slayer. But given the peanut gallery that you’re surrounded with, doesn’t really surprise me that you don’t want to announce your extracurricular activities.”
 
Buffy leaned back against the wall next to him and stared out into the cluttered basement while she spoke. “It’s all so fucking complicated. The whole thing with Angelus just scarred them for life, you know? They’re all guilty about pulling me out of heaven, there’s no leader anymore, everyone’s relationships are all kablooey. I can’t run away from home, and I can’t throttle them, so it’s easier to just say nothing and keep your head down sometimes.” They lapsed into silence for a few moments, leaning against the wall and staring anywhere but at each other.
 
After the silence had stretched out to the point of awkwardness Spike asked, “What’s your plan from here?”
 
“I thought about giving Giles a call,” Buffy answered. “See if any council resources could help.”
 
“Suppose it’s worth a shot, although he doesn’t seem to have a lot of love for yours truly,” Spike muttered.
 
“Maybe I’ll just tell him it was some Slayer dream that predicted some horrible fate unless I found her,” she said. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
 
“Say he does know where she is. Then what?” Spike inquired.
 
“Either we go to her, or I bring her here, I guess,” Buffy said with a shrug. “Those seem to be the only two options.”
 
“Buffy,” Spike said gravely. “Bringing her here would be dangerous. Not just for you either. She’s Angelus’ get, and she’d go after your Scoobies just as fast as Angelus would. Mind you, her reasons would all have to do with the stars and the fairies and what her sodding dolls told her that morning, but the effect would be the same.”
 
“Then we go find her,” Buffy said. “We’ll just have to figure out how.” Silence fell again as they both contemplated how that could possibly be done.
 
***************
 
“You need to smile more, Summers,” admonished Buffy’s annoyingly chipper coworker Steve. “It’s part of the Doublemeat experience!” Buffy plastered a false smile on her face and counted to a hundred. Again. Steve had only been there a few weeks, but he had apparently drunk the Doublemeat kool-aid by the gallon. He was rapidly becoming the manager’s shining example of all things Doublemeat. Buffy was seriously considering seeing if his head would fit in the fryolator. “Did you have a fight with your boyfriend or something?”
 
No, I’ve been donating a pint of blood twice a day for a few days now and I’m exhausted, you smarmy little toad. Keeping the false smile firmly in place she replied, “Sorry, I thought I was smiling. I’m just a little tired today. Had trouble falling asleep.”
 
“That’s too bad,” Steve said with what sounded like sympathy. The illusion was shattered when he continued, “But the show must go on!”
 
One…two…three… Buffy had counted to three thousand or more by her estimation. Her job sucked on a good day, but today it was hell. She was worried about Spike, pissed at Angel for being completely unhelpful, and wondering what the Scoobies were up to. She hadn’t seen Willow yet today, and she sincerely hoped that they weren’t talking behind her back about her doings with Spike. She had the energy to deal with Spike, and maybe Dawn, but not much else. She definitely did not have the energy to deal with Steve the Super Slinger of Special Sauce. She offered to go in the back and do the hated job of refilling ketchup dispensers, just to keep from strangling him and three or four customers for good measure. While she worked, she thought about what she would say to Giles. There’s the truth, she thought. You could just tell him the truth – you care about Spike.
 
She stopped dead for a moment. The admission had snuck up on her out of nowhere, but if she was honest she couldn’t deny it. She cared about him. It made her heart ache to see him in his current state. She didn’t think she loved him. They had too much baggage between them at present for that. But she needed to help him. To lose him was not to be thought of. In a strange way she felt lighter having finally clarified her position somewhat, at least to herself. With that thought, she survived the rest of the shift with Steve the Wonder Cashier with a slightly lower aggravation level. She managed to get by with only counting to one hundred once.
 
When the shift finally ended she mumbled a nearly inaudible reply to Steve’s cheery, “See you again tomorrow!” and headed home. How bad would it be, hypothetically speaking, if I fed Steve to a vampire? Actually, she was in the business of dealing swift death to demons, rather than drawn out torture, and having to listen to Steve blather fell into the latter category. The vamps would probably cover their ears and flee after thirty seconds. She toyed with the idea of walking in to work, setting her ugly uniform on fire in the middle of the grill, and flipping Steve and everyone else the bird before dancing out. However, the need to occasionally feed Dawn and pay bills won out over her need for senseless destruction.
 
As she reached her house she finally managed to put her workday behind her. She thought about calling Giles, but then smacked herself on the head as she remembered, Oh yeah. Time change. It’s like, the middle of the night there. Not a good time to ask someone for help. She silently berated herself for forgetting that simple fact and not calling earlier. Maybe it’s the blood loss. Or it could be that I haven’t called him in a month or two. She felt a twinge at the thought – she really should make more of an effort to keep in touch. But it wasn’t like he called a whole lot either, so she guessed it went both ways.
 
“I’m home,” she called as she finally opened the front door.
 
“Hey, Buffy,” called Dawn from the kitchen. She was munching some tortilla chips while she worked on her homework. “How was work?”
 
“Long, greasy, and annoying,” Buffy grumbled. “How bad do you need to have a house and clothes, really?”
 
“I’m pretty attached to being not rained on or naked,” Dawn replied. "So I guess you need to stay employed."
 
“Figured that would be the case.” Buffy sat down and flopped onto the table, resting her head on her arms.
 
“Tough day at the office?” Willow asked. She was a little concerned – Buffy looked even more wiped out than usual.
 
“Yeah,” Buffy mumbled without picking up her head.
 
“I went grocery shopping today. Can I get you something?” Willow inquired.
 
“Is there anything with caffeine?”
 
“One cola product, coming up,” Willow said. Buffy muttered a ‘thanks’ and drank the soda gratefully while stealing a few of Dawn’s chips.
 
“Anyone check on Spike?” Buffy asked after she had restored herself a bit.
 
“I chatted with him a little when I got home,” Dawn said. “I brought him a couple of books to read – he was getting bored.”
 
“I guess that’s a little improvement,” Buffy said. “I guess I’ll go check on him before patrol.” She finished her soda and headed down to the basement. She found Spike asleep again, but this time with a book splayed out on his chest. She recognized it as one of her mother’s – a collection of the writings of Oscar Wilde. She would have thought a biography of Sid Vicious would be more up his alley.
 
Spike stirred and opened his eyes. “Hello, Slayer. Guess I drifted off a bit there.”
 
“I never got into Oscar Wilde much myself,” she said, sitting down.
 
“Are you kidding?” Spike said, his voice animated, but still a bit weak. “This guy was hilarious. After all the boring moralist crap I had to read growing up, this guy was brilliant. I saw The Importance of Being Earnest when it debuted. Course they closed it when they found out he was a raging poof, but that’s beside the point.”
 
Buffy smiled. “Sometimes I really forget how old you are,” she said.
 
“Seen a lot in my time,” he agreed. He looked her over. “You look tired, pet.”
 
“I guess I am,” she admitted. “Do you think… could you wait until tomorrow to feed? I think I need to recover a bit.”
 
“Been trying to get you to do that for two days now,” Spike admonished. “I’ll survive. But you won’t if you pass out in the middle of patrol.”
 
“Admit it, you’re just trying to preserve your next meal,” she teased.
 
Spike wasn’t joking, however, when he answered, “It’s more than that, Slayer. You know it.”
 
“I know,” whispered Buffy. She took his hand and ran her thumb over his knuckles. “I realized something today,” she said, studying the web of veins in his hand.
 
“Yeah?”
 
She looked into his eyes. “I care about you Spike. I’m not just helping you because it’s the right thing, or it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s because it’s you. I still… I still don’t know how things are going to work out between us. But I just thought you should know. I do have feelings for you.”
 
Spike was struck dumb for a minute. He had never, ever thought she would get to the point of admitting that they were something more than comrades in arms or sex partners. “Thank you for that, Buffy,” Spike said tenderly when he found his voice again. “Means a lot.”
 
“You’re welcome,” she said, looking long and deep into his blue eyes before shaking herself out of her trance. She squeezed his hand and slowly stood up.”I’m going to go patrol, then crash. Need anything before I do?”
 
“You’ve already given me more than you’ll ever know,” he said softly. Buffy blushed, flashed him a nervous smile, and went upstairs, leaving a thunderstruck, happy vampire in her wake.
 
**************
 
Whatever Powers looked out for Slayers were clearly in a good mood that night, as Buffy encountered exactly two, easily dispatched fledglings and no other trouble. She still took the time to check out all the cemeteries. In Restfield she stopped to look in on Spike’s crypt. It seemed undisturbed, but she lit a few candles anyhow, just to make any passing demons think it was lived in. Her scent would probably scare away most of the local creatures, but she felt some need to look out for Spike’s place. She still felt lingering guilt about the torching of his lower level, although she also wanted a good explanation from him someday about why he had been keeping those demon eggs in the first place. I’ll grill him about that when he’s back on his feet.
 
Her front door was the most welcome sight she had ever seen when she finally got done trekking through Sunnydale. It was nearly 10:30 in the evening, and she was ready to crawl into bed fully dressed. She found the house quiet, for which she was grateful, and she tried to make as little noise as possible as she hung up her coat and took off her boots. Her efforts ended up being pointless as the silence was shattered by the phone ringing. Who the hell? she wondered as she lunged to answer the phone before it woke everyone else. “Hello?”
 
“Buffy, it’s Giles,” came the familiar British voice.
 
“Giles?” Buffy said. “Why are you calling so late? Is something wrong?”
 
“Well here it’s actually 6:30 in the morning,” Giles reminded her. “But I was hoping to catch you before you went to bed.”
 
“Well, you did, although just barely. Can this wait until morning? I’m really beat.”
 
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk with you sooner rather than later,” he said.
 
Buffy rolled her eyes and threw herself into a chair. “Fine. What’s up?”
 
“Willow called me at around eleven in the morning your time,” he explained. “She’s worried about you and this situation with Spike.”
 
“What did she tell you?” Buffy asked with a weary sigh.
 
“She told me that Spike was poisoned with watais root, and that you were keeping him alive with your own blood, and that you planned to go find Drusilla to cure him.”
 
“Well, that’s pretty much the story,” Buffy said curtly. “Can I go to bed now?”
 
Giles frowned at her impertinence. “Willow also seemed to think that you had some sort of relationship with Spike.”
 
“So?”
 
“Do you really think that’s wise?” Giles asked.
 
“I swear, the next person who asks me that is getting a broken nose,” Buffy snarled. “Giles, he’s been helping me keep it together since a certain father figure ditched me and told me to sink or swim on my own. Well guess what? I sunk. Badly. I treated Spike like crap and I was so freaking depressed I could barely function. Spike helped me despite the fact that I was a total bitch to him. I broke off the relationship we had because I was using him and I couldn’t live with myself. He’s going to die if he doesn’t find Drusilla, and I don’t want him to die. Understand?”
 
Despite the sting of her words, Giles couldn’t stop being a watcher. “You have a duty as the Slayer, Buffy,” he said sternly. “You cannot neglect that duty and put yourself and others in danger to help a vampire.”
 
“How am I neglecting my duty? I just got back from patrol, which I did after working at a fucking grease pit of a fast food place all day to support me and Dawn. Explain what duty I’m missing here!” she yelled.
 
“Who will guard the hellmouth and Sunnydale if you go off chasing after Drusilla?” Giles demanded.
 
“I was gone for the whole summer twice. I was dead for five months. I think Sunnydale will probably survive without me for a couple of weeks.” Buffy replied.
 
“Buffy,” Giles said, his tone softening a bit. “I regret that I had to leave you. I truly thought it would be the best thing for you. But you are talking about deliberately seeking out a notorious master vampire, on behalf of another notorious master vampire. Can you not see how I might be concerned?”
 
“Look, I’m sorry you got dragged into this. I don’t know why Willow couldn’t just, I don’t know, talk to me instead of calling you. But I’m telling you this now – I need to help Spike. If you have any information about Drusilla’s whereabouts, I’d appreciate it, as it would mean that I could get back to my hallowed Slayer duties faster,” Buffy snapped.
 
Thousands of miles away, Giles took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a long pause and a sigh he said, “We know she’s not in Europe. Last we had heard she was somewhere in North America. Aside from that, we don’t know.”
 
“Do you have any means of narrowing down her location?” Buffy asked.
 
“None that the council would approve of,” Giles replied. “The coven we work with could probably find her, but we’d have to tell them why, and they wouldn’t do anything of this nature without some clear benefit to the council. There is no benefit to the council, or anyone else, in the healing of a dangerous vampire.”
 
“There would be a benefit to me,” Buffy said quietly. “I wouldn’t lose one of my strongest allies.”
 
“Be that as it may, I cannot help you,” Giles said with finality. “And I do wish you would reconsider this task you have set yourself on. I can’t see it ending well.”
 
“I need to do this,” Buffy stated firmly. “If you’re not going to help me, I hope that I can trust you to at least stay out of my way and leave the council out of this.”
 
With another heavy sigh, Giles answered, “I will not mention this to the council. You have my word.”
 
“Then I guess that will be all,” Buffy said. “Goodbye, Giles.”
 
“Goodbye, Buf…” Giles stared, but he heard the click and the dial tone before he finished his sentence. He looked with dismay at the phone for a moment, then replaced it gently on the holder. He wondered for what had to be the hundredth time whether he had done the right thing by leaving.
 
*****************
 
Willow woke up the next morning when the door slammed, signaling Dawn’s daily departure. She squinted at the clock, groaned, then threw back the covers. She had hardly seen Buffy at all yesterday. After her coffee with Xander she had done some shopping and gotten home shortly after Buffy had left for work. The call to Giles was made reluctantly, but in the end she felt better for having done it. Giles had muttered a number of ‘Good Lord’s and ‘my word’s and she was certain that he had polished his glasses completely into dust. But it had felt good to unburden herself of her worries about Buffy, about Buffy’s unknown relationship with Spike, and her struggle to cope the last few months. Willow hoped that Buffy wouldn’t be too terribly angry at her for talking to Giles first, but she would rather have Buffy angry with her than in danger.
 
Willow threw on a pair of lounge pants and a t-shirt and went downstairs to see about breakfast. She found Buffy sitting at the kitchen island drinking coffee. “Good morning, Buff,” Willow said. “I must have fallen asleep before you got in last night.”
 
Buffy didn’t answer at first, staring into her coffee mug. Willow frowned slightly, then reached to get a cup of coffee for herself. She was almost startled into dropping it when Buffy said suddenly, “Any particular reason why you felt the need to talk to Giles behind my back?”
 
Willow blushed and stammered, “I, um… I was just…”
 
“You know what, save it,” Buffy said curtly. “I thought we had somehow moved on from that whole ‘doing things for Buffy’s own good’ crap, but apparently I was wrong.”
 
“Buffy, I just wanted his advice,” Willow said. “I didn’t know what to make of this whole thing with you and Spike and…”
 
“Then ask me for Christ’s sake!” Buffy yelled, jumping to her feet. “Here I am! Ask me! But don’t keep tattling behind my back like I’m some sort of unruly two year old!”
 
“Fine, then. What is going on with you and Spike? Because God knows you haven’t actually shared anything with any of us in, like, two months!” Willow shouted back.
 
“Hmm, wonder why? Maybe it’s because I’ve been a fucking wreck because I was dragged out of Heaven, then nearly danced myself to death, then got my fucking memory erased, and all that on top of trying to support this house on minimum wage!”
 
“How many times can I apologize?” Willow cried. “For the ten thousandth time I’m sorry, alright? But what does all this have to do with Spike?”
 
“I was sleeping with him!” Buffy screamed, finally just letting it all out. “I was numb and fucked up and I couldn’t feel anything, so I fucked Spike. Are you happy now? Do you know what you need to know?”
 
“But Buffy, why didn’t you tell anyone?” Willow asked, completely perplexed.
 
“Because Xander would have been disgusted, and probably tried to stake him, and you would have staged some sort of intervention, and I had enough crap to deal with!” Buffy exclaimed. “You all made it abundantly clear what you thought of Spike. I had no reason to believe you’d do anything other than freak out and make my life even more hellish than it was.”
 
Willow was shocked beyond belief. Her jaw wobbled around for a while trying to form some coherent words until she finally said, “Ok, but why did you break it off then? Did he do something wrong?”
 
“No, I did,” Buffy said, her voice getting ragged from yelling and from pent up emotions. “I was using him. He loves me, and I was using him for sex and then treating him like shit. I broke it off with him because he deserves better than a bitch like me.” Her voice was practically a sob by the time she finished, and she sat back down, burying her face in her hands.
 
Tentatively Willow approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Buffy, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we… made things so difficult.”
 
“Don’t,” Buffy said quietly, and Willow took her hand away, hovering uncertainly next to the woman she had thought was her best friend.
 
After a minute, Willow quietly asked, “Was Giles able to help?”
 
“Not really,” Buffy replied, sitting back and staring once more at her coffee. “She’s somewhere in North America. That’s all he knows. Or at least all he’s telling.” She finished her coffee and got up. “I’m going to check on Spike,” she said in a flat voice. She made her way downstairs without another word. Willow sat down and sipped at her rapidly cooling coffee, having lost her appetite for breakfast. 

TBD