Chapter Forty-Four




Very slowly, Spike allowed his head to drop forward from the support of the tunnel wall. Dawn was staring at him expectantly, her blue child’s eyes anxious and almost tearful. He could see from her expression that she was seeking some type of reassurance from him, some show of solace. But he had none to give her. Because if it were true—God, if Buffy hadn’t wanted to return—then the betrayal wouldn’t seem quite so complete. She’d lied to him, of course. He couldn’t forget that; he wouldn’t allow himself to forget that. It was too bloody important. But, maybe it hadn’t been a game for her. Maybe the lies weren’t meant to hurt him after all.

Maybe.

He tilted his head at Dawn, narrowing his eyes, not quite believing the words. But wanting to. Oh, yes. Wanting to very badly. It took him two or three tries before he was able to answer, and when he did, his voice sounded weak and ineffectual.

“And what makes you think that, Bit?”

Dawn raised her eyebrows a fraction of a centimeter. “Uh…the way she’s acting makes me think that…I’ve told you how weird she’s acting…” She spoke slowly, heavily, as if to a very young and very dimwitted child.

Spike shrugged impatiently and looked away. He wanted her to say something more. He wanted to shake out of her the answer that he wanted. He clenched his jaw and said very carefully:

“Could just be trauma, you know. Her little gang of idiots might be wrong—they bloody are wrong—in their line of thinking when it comes to where she ended up. But coming back—traveling across the goddamned fabric of time—it would fuck with anyone’s mind. Reckon she’s no different in that respect. Maybe she’s just…stunned.”

There was an odd look on Dawn’s face, one full of not just skepticism, but something else as well, something he couldn’t quite define. He almost expected her to argue with him some more, to try to convince him of Buffy’s unhappiness, her longing for another life, another place. He wanted her to insist upon it; he wanted that reassurance.

But after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded slowly, and agreed in a quiet voice: “Maybe.” It made him want to slap her. However, the desire quickly left him when she added, with an arch look, “But there’s still the bracelet.”

“Yeah…what about it?” The words sounded hard, off putting; but his tone was anything but. His tone was low and calculating, leading her to the place he wanted so badly for her to go.

She looked annoyed. “Well, you don’t really think she’d be so attached to it if she wasn’t attached to the person who gave it to her, do you? If she was in a place that she hated—somewhere they were mean to her—she’d be glad to get rid of the thing. She’d be ready to hock it. God knows we could use the money—”

He raised his eyebrows at the last.

“Money troubles?”

Dawn’s gaze shifted away from him. “Nothing,” she muttered. “Never mind. She doesn’t even know about it yet.”

“From the sound of it, she’s probably better off not,” he replied with a shrug. He looked down at his bandaged fingers to hide the concern in his eyes.

“It’s all Willow’s fault.”

“What is? The cash problem?”

“Everything!” she burst out angrily. “She was the one who decided to move in after Buffy left—she and Tara—so I wouldn’t be alone. Giles would’ve done it, but Willow wanted to instead. It was her idea to clear out the bank account to pay bills—”

“Bills got to be paid, Bit.”

“Yeah, so does rent. And she’s not paying any!”

He snickered at that.

“I’m serious, Spike! She acts like she owns the place; she acts like she owns all of us. She keeps making decisions for everyone. Like calling Angel—”

His head shot up as if a switch had been flipped.

“She’s calling Angel?”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




Buffy slept until well into the afternoon, slept so deeply that no sound could penetrate it. She slept without dreams, without pain. She wished she might never wake up.

She did, of course. Awoke to the sound of a door slamming below, to the sound of Dawn’s voice asking someone (Who else was here? Did they live here?), if Buffy was awake yet. An indistinct response from the other person, and then Buffy heard Dawn’s light tread on the stairs. It paused outside her door, and she could almost see her sister through the thick, white-painted wood, standing with one hand resting on the doorknob, silently contemplating whether she should knock. After a moment, Buffy heard a sigh, and then Dawn’s footsteps once again, this time fading away as she continued down the hallway.

With a soft groan, Buffy threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Her body felt sore from striking the pavement the night before, but she hardly noticed the discomfort. There was a hollow ache in her chest, as if someone had carved out a piece of her. And, as the merciful numbness of the night before began to dissipate, it was replaced by an overwhelming sense of horror. She was back.

And she hadn’t changed anything.

Tears welled in her eyes at the thought. Because, as painful as it would have been to believe that William had lived out his life and died in the past—even with another woman, a family—it was so much worse to see what he had become. His soft features hardened with cruelty; his blue eyes jaded. Not William at all, but just his body, just a host for that—for that—

Monster.

But even as she thought it, she felt a flicker of doubt. The night before, his eyes hadn’t been jaded, or hard. They were stunned, confused, blatantly hurt; they looked just like—

Stop it, she told herself angrily. It’s not him. He might look like William; he might even have some of the same characteristics. But it’s not him.

Annoyed with herself for even considering it, she marched over to her closet and flung open the door. For a moment after, she paused before the row of hangers. All those familiar clothes, so pretty and stylish, seemed oddly at variance with her glum mood. After a moment of indecision, she chose a pair of blue jeans. From her dresser, she pulled out the first shirt she came across: a long-sleeved gray Henley that had once belonged to Riley. Since its liberation from him, she had used it as a sleeping garment. It was too large for her, and it was indescribably ugly; but she couldn’t bring herself to care about clothes right now, and she didn’t have the energy to look for a different one, so she pulled the shirt over her head.

She brushed her hair into a ponytail and applied some light makeup to cover up (or attempt to cover up) the ravages of grief. But when she reached for the bottle of cologne on her nightstand, she stopped before her fingers could brush the slick glass. It was vanilla-scented, her favorite; but, somehow, it didn’t really feel like her anymore. Or, at least, it didn’t feel like the person she wanted to be. The person she had spent five months of her life pretending that she was. That person—the prim little Victorian archetype—had smelled of violets. Her perfume was made of fresh violets, so that it was sweet and heady, not at all overpowering. She’d picked it out herself, had never used anything else since the day he nuzzled her ear and told her she smelled lovely. She closed her eyes and remembered how he smelled, how soft the skin of his neck felt when she kissed him there.

She stroked her fingertips over the bracelet, opened her eyes to look at it. There was dirt between the stones, and the gold had been scratched by the pavement; it would need to be polished by a jeweler. She knew it looked odd with her casual attire, but to take it off was out of the question. It was the first gift he had ever given her, and the only part of him she had left. She would never take it off.

The house seemed eerily quiet as she padded, barefoot, down the hallway to the bathroom. No lights were on; there was no sound. Was it for her benefit, because they thought she was still sleeping? She supposed she should have felt grateful for the thoughtfulness, but instead found herself resentful and uneasy, wishing for some noise to crack through the funereal silence. Again, when she entered the bathroom, she was struck by how bright it was, how ominously cheerful, like the smile of a friend who was about to stab her in the back. She wet her toothbrush underneath the tap, applied Aquafresh; but when she looked into the mirror, she froze. She looked—

Just like my old self.

It should have been comforting to see how easy it was to slip back into that life—her life—but it felt anything but. As she stared at her reflection—blush, lip gloss, eyes lined with kohl—she wondered what he would think of her now. It wasn’t hard to guess: he wouldn’t like it. She could almost hear his voice in her head, gentle, wheedling, telling her how unnecessary it all was. Her face was too lovely for paint; cosmetics were for cheap or ugly women. Those hoop earrings were too large for her delicate ears, and why must she bind her hair, when it was so lovely falling down her back? To say nothing of the shock he would express over her clothing. A brief and watery smile flashed across her face at the mere thought of it.

But above everything else, she knew he would have been concerned by her expression. He could read her so well, those innocent blue eyes searching her own, his soft mouth slightly turned up at one corner in the hint of an anxious smile. Because the face in the mirror was already regaining some of its old hardness—the protective mask she had shed for him in London. He had worked so diligently to remove that wary look from her eyes, the bitterness from her smile. It would have killed him to see them return.

Her eyes filled at the last thought. It would have killed him.

Spike.

Determined to push the thought from her mind, she shoved the toothbrush into her mouth, scrubbing with far more force than necessary and making her gums bleed in the process. But she didn’t even feel it. She didn’t feel anything; she wouldn’t let herself. Already, she could feel herself teetering on the brink of hysteria. If she brought Spike into the equation, she knew she would fall, painfully and irretrievably, down the precipice into insanity.

Trying unsuccessfully to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat, Buffy replaced her toothbrush, rolled down the long sleeves of her shirt to conceal her bracelet, and headed downstairs.

She didn’t really have any other option.

In the kitchen, Willow was rinsing an empty soup bowl under the tap. She looked up sharply when Buffy walked in, an insincere smile fixed upon her face.

“Hey! You’re awake,” she said brightly. “I was starting to wonder if you were going to sleep the whole day away.”

“Long trip,” said Buffy dryly.

“Oh, yeah. Cross-dimensional jetlag must be—”

“What’re you doing here?”

Willow looked taken aback by the question, although clearly it was not asked with any malicious intent. In fact, Buffy looked genuinely confused. After all, her friend had not lived there before her disappearance. When Willow did not answer her right away, she pressed:

“Do you live here now?”

“Well…yeah, we do. We have been ever since…” Willow’s voice trailed away uneasily, and it took her a moment to regain her bearings. “Someone had to look after Dawn, so Tara and I…”

“Tara lives here, too?”

“Um, yeah,” Willow replied. Her face was red; clearly, she was as uncomfortable with this rapid-fire examination as Buffy had been with hers the previous night. Her voice took on an edge of defensiveness as she began, “See, the thing is—”

“Does anyone else live here?”

“No. Just us. And Dawn, of course.”

Buffy nodded, her eyes glancing across the kitchen surfaces, as if trying to determine whether they, too, had changed in her absence. “Where do you sleep?” she asked finally.

“Well, the only other bedroom besides yours was your mom’s. And since it was the biggest—”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Buffy’s face, and Willow’s voice stopped so abruptly it sounded as if someone had pulled a plug.

“It was the only other one,” she said softly. “The only one besides yours. And we knew you’d definitely be coming back—”

“Yeah,” said Buffy in a bitter tone. “I was definitely coming back.”

She pretended not to notice the questioning look Willow gave her, but the latter refused to be ignored. She dropped the bowl into the dish-drain and stepped forward to take Buffy’s hand.

“Hey,” she said comfortingly. “It’s all right. Whatever happened to you—wherever you were—it’s okay. You’re home now.”

Buffy yanked her hand away. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m really not.”

She left the room without saying anything more.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




She’s calling Angel.

Spike sat with his back to the tunnel wall, his head resting lightly against the rough stone. His eyes were glazed, and outwardly, at least, he appeared tranquil. Inside, he was anything but. His emotions were tangled and inconsistent, cycling rapidly between stupidly hopeful and bitterly cynical. All of his thoughts, all of his feelings, revolved around that one sentence: Willow was calling Angel.

Calling him for what was what Spike wanted to know. He asked the Bit, but she didn’t seem to understand it much better than he did. All she knew was that Angel had been here not too long ago, just after Joyce’s funeral, and that Willow had called him then, too. Willow thought that if anyone could get Buffy to talk about her experience, it would be Angel.

Because, of course, Buffy loved Angel.

The mere thought of it enraged him, although he knew, to a certain extent, it was probably true. Long before she’d known who he was—who he’d been—she’d loved Angel. That love might’ve faded over time—for God’s sakes, it should have if she gave a tinker’s damn for him—but knowing Buffy, it hadn’t died out completely. She probably still loved him as a friend. At the very least, as a friend.

It felt like a betrayal.

Still, when you got right down to it, he’d betrayed her as well. The very act of falling in love with her again—falling in love with her slayer identity—was an act of betraying what he’d had with her one hundred and twenty-one years prior. He’d been with Drusilla before that, of course. For well over a century, he’d been with Dru. He’d laughed with her, cried with her, cursed her, fucked her every which way from Sunday…and that was all right. Because, although he loved Dru, and although he would have done damn near anything to keep her safe and happy, he was not in love with her. He could shag Dru a dozen times a day, every day, for a hundred and eighteen years and—after a certain point at least—it didn’t seem like he was being unfaithful to Elizabeth’s memory.

When he fell in love with Buffy, however, it felt like infidelity. Of course, at first, he hadn’t known that he loved her. He had pushed it down and denied it for three years. But it had been there since the beginning, and a part of him had known that. He hated himself for the weakness he felt when she looked at him, and he hated her twice as much for the same reason. He hated her for making him love her, when his heart was supposed to belong to only one person. It had nearly killed him to choose Drusilla over her…to leave her to Angelus’ cruelty while he drove off into the night. But it was his choice. Because he thought that, at least if she were dead, then the confusion would go away, the scab she had ripped from his heart would once again heal over, and he could return to the life he was meant to lead.

And it didn’t.

And he hadn’t.

Yeah, same woman or not, when you came right down to it, he’d been, in a way, very disloyal.

And, now, Willow was calling Angel. Angel, for Christ’s sake.

Pour a little more salt into that wound, you bitch, he thought savagely, wishing Willow were there so he could tell it to her face. Because she’d already fucked him over once. And now—

She’s calling Angel.

He wished he had a cigarette. His nerves were all but shot. There was a pack in his coat pocket, but there was no point in going through the struggle and discomfort of trying to get it out. His hands were on the mend, what with the blood and the splints; but his fingers were in no shape to work a lighter.

Dawn had been thoughtful enough to leave him some bourbon to ease the pain, and for that, he was everlastingly grateful. But she didn’t leave much—only a single glass with a straw in it—because, as she said, she didn’t want him drinking himself into a stupor. He’d felt like reminding her it wouldn’t be the first time if he did, but that seemed poor form considering all she’d done to help him. And she did leave him blood, pints of it, the entire supply from his fridge. She’d scattered the containers about on the flat stone floor, near enough so he could reach them without much effort, but not so near he might accidentally tip them over if he fell asleep. Over the course of the day, he grew quite adept at transferring his straw from one vessel to another using his teeth. He was ravenously hungry, as he always was when he was injured; and the blood was more healing than time...more healing than the makeshift splints Dawn had constructed. The more he drank, the stronger he felt. And the stronger he felt, the more restless he became, until, finally, he could not bear to sit any longer.

He staggered to his feet in the same ungainly manner as before, though with less difficulty, and paced a circle around the dark tunnel. He wondered what time it was. It seemed like hours since Dawn left. He wondered if it was dark yet.

Don’t be daft, he told himself. Doesn’t make one damned bit of difference if it’s dark. You can’t bloody well go out into it; you can’t confront her about this.

That was true. He couldn’t. But—

She’s calling Angel.

It was maddening, the mere thought of it. Angel, the smug bastard; the source of so much of his misery. Angel: the wrench that always seemed to get thrown into his life to fuck up the works.

If he touches her—if he motherfucking touches her—

Then, what? He was in a hole under the goddamned ground; he wouldn’t even know about it.

Yes, he bloody would!

Plowing through the empty glasses on the floor, and breaking most of them, Spike swiftly made his way over to the ladder. Tilting his head back all the way, he could just make out the opening, the dim moonlight that filled the crypt’s upper level. Then, his gaze dropped a little, and he counted the rungs of the ladder. Nine. Not that bad, all things considered.

He looked down at his hands. They were knitting together, it was true; but the fingers were far from functional. He could hardly bend them, and his grip had all the strength of a nine-year-old girl’s. Still, the steps weren’t steep, and he had regained enough strength he figured he could managed them fine, even without the use of his hands for balance and leverage.

And he was right.

True, he didn’t exactly rush up the steps with his usual quick grace, but he didn’t fall down them, which was pretty much all he was asking for at the moment.

Dawn had shut the heavy iron door behind her when she left the crypt, but that wasn’t any hurdle for a vampire whose legs were uninjured and who was used to kicking down doors. He regretted it, in a way. Because the door opened inward, and the only way he could get it open to the outside was to knock it complete off its hinges, which left him with very little privacy until his hands healed and he could fix it. But he’d left the modesty behind long ago, and, anyway, this was far more important.

He felt lightheaded as he strode across the lush and quiet lawn of the cemetery, but that was due more to his rage than his injuries. Each heavy step he took made his head pound with jealous anger, the thought that Willow had called Angel. That Angel could, at this very moment, be talking to her. His woman, his sweetheart, his love.

His.

Spike was so distracted by his thoughts, he didn’t notice anything amiss until, suddenly, another vampire stepped between the rows of headstones to block his path.

“Spike,” the vampire said, and his tone was anything but affable.

It took Spike a minute to recognize the hulking figure; the game face obscured the vampire’s features somewhat. When he finally did put it together, he merely rolled his eyes.

“Oh, you. Sorry, mate. I’m a bit busy for conversation right now.”

“This isn’t about conversation,” the other vampire replied. “This is about debt collection. You owe me money.”

“For what?”

“The three games of poker you lost. Or, have you forgotten?”

Actually, he had forgotten. The games in question had taken place almost a month before, and he’d been pretty pissed during them. Now that the other vampire (who, as he vaguely recalled, had the unimaginative name of “Tom”) mentioned it, he had lost some games that night. He’d paid part of his bets down, but the group had let him put the rest on tick, figuring he’d win back his money another night, anyway. Except that he hadn’t, because he’d forgotten all about it. Now, here was Tom standing in front of him, expecting him to shell out four hundred dollars he didn’t have, on a card game he couldn’t clearly remember.

Buggering hell.

He sighed, told the other vampire humorlessly: “I’ve got a solid twenty quid in my left front pocket. You can get it out if you promise to steer clear of the knackers.”

Unlike Dawn, Tom did not find this remotely funny.

“You owe me four hundred,” he said coldly. “That leaves you short…” His voice trailed away, his brow furrowing as he attempted to do the math. Spike rolled his eyes.

“Three hundred and eighty,” he said.

“Right. Three hundred and eighty!”

“Well, I don’t have it on me right now,” Spike told him. His teeth were clenched; he didn’t have time for this, not when Angel was coming.

He expected Tom to yield at that; he didn’t remember him as being particularly assertive. Instead of leaving, however, Tom stepped a bit closer, his legs spreading apart aggressively.

“Find a way to get it then,” he persisted; he was still blocking Spike’s path. A low growl sounded from the depths of his throat as he added, “Right now.”

“Sorry, not going to happen, mate. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“It is going to happen right now,” Tom snarled. “Or”—he glanced at Spike’s bandaged hands—“I’m going to put you down like the crippled dog you are.” And, clearly having come prepared, he pulled a wooden stake out of his pocket.

Spike cursed softly under his breath at that, but he didn’t hesitate before falling into his demon’s face.

Sorry, Bit. But it looks like I’m going to have to mess up all your good work.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




Dinner wasn’t even over when Buffy rose from the table and announced she was going outside. She said it blandly, but with a clear desire that no one should follow her. No one did, although she could see that it cost them not to. Giles and Anya had come over after closing the shop, and Xander had been there since his construction job ended at five o’clock. Willow and Tara, of course, hadn’t left. Or, at least, not for long. There were a few hours of classes, and then they returned, marching into the house as easily as if they had owned it. They were the ones who had cooked dinner.

Buffy hadn’t touched her pasta salad and grilled chicken. She didn’t want food; she wanted quiet, and there was no quiet to be had while sitting around the crowded dining table. When she left, she could feel their eyes following her to the door; and now, as she sat on the back porch, she could hear them in the kitchen. They were doing the dishes, and talking about her.

She tuned out the muffled sound of their voices, ignored the square of yellow light that filtered through the glass insert of the back door. The solitude of the thing was what was important, and for the first time all day, she finally felt as if she could breathe.

Although she was staring out onto the moonlit lawn, she didn’t see his approach. She was staring straight ahead, and he came from the left. The branches of the shrubs rattled as he walked through them, but she was dazed, lost in her thoughts, and she didn’t hear them. It wasn’t until he was almost beside the steps—it wasn’t until he spoke—that she noticed him. When she did, she jumped.

“Buffy…” he said softly, and his voice—his eyes—were just as kind as she remembered them. So kind that they seemed to belie the cruelty, the evil, that she knew had once clouded them. The contrast was so startling that, at first, she couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“…Angel…?”

The corners of his mouth turned up in a tentative smile, although he made no attempt to sit down beside her.

“How’d you know—?”

“Willow called me,” he answered softly. “First, she called when you disappeared. Then, last night, when you—well, she called again.” His dark eyes narrowed with concern as he took note of her stunned expression. “If you don’t want me here—if this isn’t what you need right now—then that’s fine, Buffy. I’ll go. But Willow said—”

“No,” she interrupted. “No…it’s fine. Stay.” She motioned vaguely to the space beside her. “You can…”

He nodded and sat down next to her. He didn’t touch her, didn’t even look at her, and something in that was oddly restful. Unlike the rest of them, he wasn’t making any demands.

He asked gently, “How’re you bearing up?”

Buffy continued to stare out onto the darkened lawn. “I don’t know,” she answered. “I really don’t. Isn’t that weird?”

“Not really, when you come right down to it.” He hesitated, clearly wanting to ask the obvious and clearly uncertain as to whether he should. In the end, he chose not to. She was grateful for that. Undemanding. He was being so—

“What’d Willow tell you?” she asked after a moment.

“Not a lot, beyond the fact that you were back. She said they didn’t know where you’d been…she said you seemed pretty stunned by the whole experience. That was about it.”

“She thinks I was in some sort of hell dimension,” said Buffy.

“Yes.”

She turned her head to the side to look at him. He did the same, and for the first time, their eyes met.

“I wasn’t.”

Angel didn’t say anything in response to her revelation. There was an almost imperceptible nod, a sudden searching look in the dark eyes, but nothing more. Nothing demanding. Somehow, it made things much easier.

“Do you remember 1880?” she asked him.

“1880,” he repeated, clearly puzzled. “Of course, but why…”

Her gaze never wavered from his.

“London. You, Darla, and Dru were there together; but you didn’t always hunt in a group—”

“Buffy, I really don’t see—”

“—and one night, just before dawn, you came across a girl in the street. A blond girl. You said she was a ripe plum—you thought she was a slayer—”

A look of extreme horror darkened his eyes at that, and Buffy could see that there wasn’t really anything further to say along those lines. He understood.

“My God, Buffy.” His voice was so hushed she could barely hear him; there were tears in his eyes. “That’s where you were all this time? And you saw—we were—I—”

The horror increased tenfold as he realized exactly what he had tried to do.

“Jesus, Buffy. I almost—”

“It’s all right,” she cut in quietly. “It wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t you. It was Angelus.”

There was the briefest hesitation on his part, and then he agreed hoarsely. “No. It wasn’t me.”

After a moment’s awkwardness, Buffy dropped her eyes, fixed her gaze on her shoes. “Anyway,” she sighed. “That’s where I was.”

Gentle fingers came down onto her bowed head and stroked through her long hair. She could feel his eyes on her, but the stare wasn’t intrusive. Neither was the question that accompanied it.

“Was it terrible for you?”

She knew what he meant. He was asking if she had been abused there, if she’d had enough to eat, if she’d been all alone. But all she could think of was that blinding light, the pony that trembled underneath her and tried to run away. And, most of all, that terrible sense of loss she felt as she was yanked away from William.

She swallowed a sob and nodded her head. “It was terrible.”

Before she could fully grasp what she was doing—what he was doing—Buffy found herself in his arms. He was cradling her against his broad chest, and her head was on his shoulder. She was sobbing, and it was the first time in years he had seen her do that. She could tell by the tension in his body that it made him uneasy, and that he didn’t know what to do. The uncertainty—the way his arms trembled around her—reminded her strongly of William. When she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend he was William.

“It’s okay,” he kept saying. He meant it to be soothing, but his voice sounded almost as desperate as she felt. “It’s okay, Buffy. Everything will be all right—”

But she knew he was lying.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




Although the Slayer’s house was only a short walk from the cemetery (rather convenient, that), by the time Spike reached it, he was shivering with exhaustion. Blood was seeping through the stiff white bandages that covered his hands, trickling from the dozen or so wounds that Tom had managed to inflict before Spike staked him. And considering how injured he had already been, he hadn’t eaten enough that day so that he could afford to lose any.

But he didn’t allow that to slow him down.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t exactly feeling in top form when he pushed his way through the Summers’ back hedge. He stumbled a bit, as he crossed the low wooden border that enclosed the yard. Even as he struggled to regain his footing, he heard the low, sawing sound of a woman sobbing. He could detect the scent of her tears—salty and warm—on the open air.

As angry as he’d been with her—as angry as he still was—the realization that she was crying completely undid him. All he wanted, in that instant, was to pull her into his arms and kiss her hair, tell her it would be okay.

And damn it if someone wasn’t already doing that job for him.

Spike staggered to an abrupt halt, confusion overriding his senses so that, for a few seconds at least, he had no idea who it was. The scent was familiar—the broad body—but it was so hard to think. He couldn’t quite piece it all together.

Suddenly, the man’s dark head raised; it turned in Spike’s direction. Each of them should have been surprised to see the other, but, somehow, they were not. Brown eyes met blue, and they stared steadily at one another; Buffy didn’t notice. And although Angel’s stare was blank and completely impenetrable, Spike’s expression was one of such raw emotion that it left his grandsire in absolutely no doubt of what he was feeling.

His arms tightened around Buffy’s shoulders possessively, and as he continued to stare at the younger vampire, his lips quivered in what might have been the shadow of a smile.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~