When she woke, she was in the wrong bed, alone. She didn't remember getting in with him. She heard the shower running. Her pajamas were undisturbed, no wetness between her legs. Nothing else had happened.


She distract herself, she sent texts. To Giles, to Willow, to Xander, to her sister. She was going to ask for help, but what she asked for was a little time, and promised to check in again later.


When he came out of the bathroom, Spike stopped and looked at her, sitting up cross-legged in his bed, the iPhone in her hand. "I don't think that's where you belong."

God, had she reallyjust crawled into bed with him? She recalled it now, her own bad dream, his sobs, her instinctual desire to seek and offer comfort—to get him quiet so she could sleep again. He was beneath the sheet, and she'd lain on top of it, spooning him, not skin-to-skin, but as close as on those last couple of nights, when they'd lain together in their clothes, waiting with patient resignation for the crisis speeding up to meet them, waiting perhaps for their deaths. Not talking and not making love and not asleep, but still somehow as satisfied together as ... as they were ever likely to be. Ever meant to be. Disappointment, compromise, entente. Those were some of the words she'd use, to tell the story of her and Spike. Not that she ever did.


She hadn't gone to bed with anyone since Spike. Not because of Spike. Because of reasons that had to do only with herself. She was certain of that.


"I'm sorry. There were nightmares. I guess it felt like the thing to do at the time."


"I don't know you."


"I get that." She didn't get it, really, because his blunt rebuke hit some unknown tender place in her. He doesn't know me, this isn't Spike. All their old shorthand, of both cruelty and kindness, didn't work here.


""What are you going to do with me?"


The blunt question startled her. "I don't have a set plan, I thought we'd ... hang out. I'm sure you'll regain your memory soon, and then you can do whatever ... whatever you want. Look, I know you don't remember this either, but before I came for you, you were in custody, with people who didn't know you, and it was making you crazy. I got you out of there. You're not my prisoner, but I can't just leave you on your own."


"Who are you? Still don't quite suss that. Buffy. Miss Buffy Summers. The girl who carries around a stake."


She took a breath. Why did this feel so risky, just telling the truth? "You're a vampire, you know that. I'm the vampire slayer. Which is how we originally met."


She tried an encouragaing little smile, but his expression soured. "Ha bloody ha."


"You asked, I'm telling you. The slayer helps keep the world safe from Big Demon-Apocalypsy Evil, a team of which you used to be a charter member. Years back, some stuff happened, you started batting for good, you got a soul. And then you died saving the world, last year."


"Saving the world."


"Yes. You really did. I know it sounds weird."


"Not dead though, am I?"


"I didn't know you survived—or were revived—I'm not clear on that. You were here in L.A., but I can't fill you in on anything more recent, because I don't know. I've been in Italy, and Scotland."


"An' what got you started on that, slaying vampires?"


"I had the potential, I got called. There's this whole supernatural One Chosen Girl in Every Generation thing. Well, there was—now there are thousands of slayers. But until a year ago, there were only two. Really there's just supposed to be one. It's a long story. But it's not like I saw something about it in CosmoGirl and thought, 'Oh hey, I'd like to spend my teen years fighting vampires!' It happens, sort of like becoming a vampire happens. Well, even less volitionally than that."


His eyes went wide. There it was again, that look of sickened horror. "So that's why—"


"Why what?"


"You ... there's this ... shimmer ... you give off, I feel it like a vibration all through me when you come close. Rattles my sinews. It's ... disturbing."


"Does it hurt you?" Spike had never said anything like this. Even at the height of their sexcapades, he'd never mentioned shimmers or vibes or disturbances.


His lip curled. "Isn't it supposed to?"


"I don't want to hurt you. We stopped being enemies a long time ago."


"No, it doesn't hurt, exactly. It ...." He frowned, appearing to try different words, like keys, none of which fit this particular mechanism. "Disturbs."


"Okay, I don't want to disturb you," she said. He inclined his head, a formal little nod, of acknowledgement, like he was accepting but not really accepting an apology. It gave her a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Not disappointment, exactly. She stepped back, held up her hands. "I'll keep my distance."








Okay, now I really should call for back-up. Hand this one off. Since I disturb him. She could bring him back to Slayer HQ, where he could interact with the others—maybe Willow could figure out a way to return him to normal. Once he was cured, he'd probably want to work with the reformed council, in some capacity. Preferably on a different continent. There were plenty of slayers who could use a little vamp-muscle. And she could get on with what she'd been doing.


She didn't call though, because she was afraid Giles would just tell her all over again that Angel had gone evil, that Spike had never been trustworthy, that all the evidence now pointed to him having gone rogue too.


She wasn't ready to really get to terms with Angel's death yet. She needed to put that off a while.


And maybe if she brought him to Scotland, they'd stick him back in a cell, and he'd freak out all over again.


She'd just have to give this a little more time.








In the hotel restaurant, which had no windows, she ate, and the man who wasn't really Spike sat across from her with more tea and rifled through all the newspapers he'd bought at the hotel newsstand. She'd told him, as they sat down, that she didn't really keep up with current events, a remark both off-hand and ironic, and mostly just thoughtless. She expected him to ask questions about what he saw in the papers, but when he folded the last section and laid it on the unused chair beside him, he said, "Nothing in there seems to have to do with my dilemma. You, and what I can't remember."


"We operate pretty much underground."


"The lights out there are so harsh. Bright. I have this idea that they're brighter than they can possibly be. That there's more of them than there should be." He moved the spoon around in the saucer. "I think I'm very far from where I started out."


"Well, you have moved around a lot. You're very old."


He glanced up.


She felt like it was her job somehow to open an infinite matryosha doll—each one giving on to the next, none of them final or definitive or different, smaller and finer on into infinity. "You've been a vampire for a long time. Since the nineteenth century. It's the twenty-first now." She'd already noticed that he wasn't flummoxed by the technology surrounding them—he'd turned the TV on in the room, instinctively got the location of the light-switches. His lostness didn't extend so far, or at least there was a part of him that retained its orientation in the present. Yet he seemed to have in mind some earlier, gas-lit time.


"And all my associates are dead."


"There was an apocalyptic battle fought here last week. Your side won, but ... there were losses. Do you remember Angel? Big tall broody vampire guy? Apparently you were hanging around with him this past year." She had this on Andrew's authority. It still spun her around, that Andrew had known, and kept silent, because Spike had told him to.


He shook his head. "What was my side?"


"There are differing opinions. But I know you were still on the side of the good. Angel was still on the side of the good. He beat the bad ones back, which is proof enough for me. I don't care what Giles says."


Spike turned to gaze out across the other unoccupied tables, towards the check-in desk, where a few people were lined up with their luggage. He mused, gripping and releasing the spoon. "Sounds like a fairy-tale. How do I know any of this is true?"


"Believe me, I wish it wasn't."


"You're an odd girl." He turned back to her now, one brow raised, head slowly tilting in a familiar way to take her in.


How could he have all his mannerisms, and not be himself?


"You said, before, that you'd seen me naked. Were we lovers?"


"No!" She forced herself to slow down; her mental arms were frantically flapping. "Like I said, we've fought side by side, and so I've seen ... stuff." The lie tantalized her, heating her cheeks. Maybe he could tell she was lying. But she didn't want to have to describe what they'd been to each other, it wouldn't help this blankened man to know any of that ugly stuff, and when he regained his memory, he'd understand why she answered this way. He'd prefer it.


When he regained his memory, they'd be parting.


The waitress came back to ask if he wanted more tea. Her manner was flirtatious; she barely acknowledged Buffy's presence. Spike listened to her banter with a willing smile, as if the girl was exemplary of what he'd have liked from Buffy—something lighter, something easier.


"We'll take the check," Buffy said, her request cutting across the girl's chat. The waitress drew herself up stiffly, and walked off.


"Oh ho," Spike said. "Didn't like that a bit, did you? She fancied me."


"She did. And while I really have no wish to keep you from getting laid, I can't let you make any dates while you're in this state. I don't know what you'll do."


"What I'll do?" His face fell. "Oh. You think I'll rip out her throat."


"I don't think that. But it's a risk."


"Know that rippin' throats is what I want. But at the same time, know that if I do ... I'll regret it right after. Hell, during. Regret it sharp."


"Okay, but I can't let you go off alone with her or anyone. You were completely out of your mind not that long ago. If you fall into that state again, you'd be in trouble."


For a second, his pout convinced her he was back—he'd been faking all along, playing her, teasing her. She knew that look. It made her want to slap him. It made her want ....


"You'd better be right that I'll snap out of this soon. Should be allowed to get my end off when I want to, if I'm not a prisoner, like you say."


She got up. "I recommend exercise, and cold showers. Let's go."








When it got dark, she proposed they go on patrol. She didn't know if this was a good idea in this situation? It was no worse than any other, to try and show him something of what they'd been talking about. The slaying in the park the night before had happened so quickly, and he hadn't been part of it. She wanted to try to get him involved, reawaken his affinity for the physical acts of hunting. Maybe slinking around in the shadows looking for demon trouble would awaken the real Spike.


Maybe, she thought, palming her stake, he'd get carried away, and attack someone, and she'd have to slay him. End of situation.


She meant to go back to the park, but as they waited for a light, Spike's attention was drawn to a seedy bar with a knot of young people outside, loud rock music issuing from within every time the door opened.


"Could murder a pint. Stop here."


"We're looking for demons, not to get you drunk."


"Why shouldn't there be demons in there as well as anyplace else? C'mon now." He was already out of the car, and once again she had to park in a hurry and follow him.


By time she got inside, he was belly up to the bar, jaw thrust out as he bobbed his head to the beat, two glasses of beer in front of him.


"You know this song?"


"Sure." With a grin, he crooned, " I'm not present/I'm a drug that makes you dream/I'm an Aerostar/I'm a Cutlass Supreme/In the wrong lane/Trying to turn against the flow/I'm the ocean/I'm the giant undertow .... Brilliant, that is."


"When did you first hear it?"


"When it was new."


"And when was that?"


He shrugged. "Dunno, dozen years back?"


"Where were you? What was going on?"


He wasn't grinning anymore. "Don't. Bloody. Remember. Would if I could, yeah?"


"Okay, sorry. Thanks for the beer."


"Have a dance."


"What?"


"Sorry I snapped at you. Dance with me."


"Dance?"


"Girls love to dance. You're a girl, aren't you?"


"But ... yes. Yes, okay, I'm a girl." There was no point saying Since when do you dance? and no point—really really no point—in replaying in her head that time, full of beer and boasting, when he'd told her all she'd ever wanted to do was dance with him.


They'd danced. They'd had their dance.


He was tugging at her wrist now. The bar floor was crowded with couples. The music was fast, not the kind that involved touching, and that was good because she'd promised not to be too disturbing.


Never mind that maybe he was disturbing her.


It turned out Spike could dance. Not so well that the floor cleared to watch his moves, but credibly enough. And it didn't take Buffy long to notice that the gazes of some of the women near them were straying from their own partners to hers. Even bruised up, Spike in a tight black teeshirt cut a dramatic figure under the colored lights. He was smiling again now, involved in the groove to the apparent exclusion of all else. Little by little, Buffy relaxed. She hadn't danced in a long time, had forgotten the simple pleasure of it, movement that wasn't about fighting or training to fight. The tight pressing awareness of weirdness, uncertainty, anxiety, lifted. This wasn't Spike, he was just some guy, who was trying to be agreeable to her, who wanted to have a good time and for her to have a good time with him. Having a good time right now wasn't going to effect the outcome of The Situation any more than staying tense and focusing on patrolling would.


When the music stopped she was covered in sweat, feeling light and happy. She followed Spike back to the bar, where he ordered two more beers. She clicked glasses with him—"To your memory!"—and drank hers down in a few fast gulps.


He signaled the bartender for another. "You're a girl can hold her liquor, that's good."


"I wasn't always." She thought of telling him about the time he'd gotten her drunk on JD from his hip-flask, taken her along to watch him cheat at kitten-poker. Miserable as she'd been then, that evening had since taken on a sheen of humor. But she stopped herself. "Do you like this beer?"


"It's all right."


"What's your favorite kind?"


He took a long musing sip. "The pint some other bloke stands you."


She laughed. "I'm treating you to these."


"You're treatin' me to everything. Don't like that—I'll pay you back, once I'm myself again."


"Don't worry about it. This all goes down as expenses."


"Expenses? Whose expenses?"


"The Council of Watchers." She had to lean in to talk to him, now the loud music had started up again. She knew he'd be able to hear her all right, but she couldn't hear him.


"That's the organization you work for?"

"More like the disorganization, and I don't work for them. We comprise the slayers, and those who assist and guide them."


"Remind me again what a bunch of disorganized vampire slayers want with a vampire. Why are you helping me? If you are helping me. Still not real clear on that."


"Because you're an ally and a comrade. And we take care of our own." Mostly. Unless they're Angel and his people.

"Your own." She could see that he still lacked any real comprehension of what that meant.


With a shrug, he drained his glass, set it on the bar. "C'mon. This is a good song."


He wanted to escape back into the music. She didn't blame him.