The room was absolutely silent, and gloomy with the drapes drawn. After all this, Buffy couldn't imagine ever sleeping again. Spike was out. Un-breathing, of course—she'd been used to that—but absolutely silent and unmoving too. She thought again of the 'Bot, how you could shut it off, and it would wait, eyes half-shuttered, if you caught it mid-blink, in whatever stance it was in when you hit the switch.


She wandered around the room, rustling things, opening closet doors, until she realized what she was doing—hoping Spike would just wake up and be absolutely normal again. Finally she just went to him, laid a hand on his shoulder, gave him a little shake. For a predator like him, that ought to be enough to have him fully awake in a flash.


But there was nothing.


It was like he'd checked out.


Her phone rang. She let it sing in her pocket for a few cycles, hoping this would disturb him, then grabbed it out.


"Willow?"


"Don't be sore at me for just showing up, but I'm on the doorstep, can you let me in?"


"My doorstep?" Buffy took the stairs two at a time. Through one of the narrow panes that outlined the house's front door, Willow smiled and waggled her fingers.


"I needed you to go to L.A."


"Hello to you too. And I'll go. In a little while." They were still talking into the phones. Buffy hesitated, fingers on the lock. Willow's waiting outside was a polite gesture; she could've just as easily teleported herself right into the bedroom. The house had some glamours on it but of course it was Willow's team that had set them.


"Come on in. Be quiet please, Spike is asleep."


"Thanks. And hey, I don't even expect to see Spike. I just wanted to get some more info from you, and it's easier in person. I thought you'd be glad I got here sooner than I promised."


"I am glad. Thanks, Will." Buffy led the way into the study.


Willow's gaze lit immediately on the books scattered across the big desk. "You've been researching? Find anything?"


"No and no. This was—Spike trying to find out who he is. It wasn't pretty."


Willow glanced at the open pages. "Ugh. How'd he take it?"


"I know that whatever's wrong with him, he's still got his soul. He was very upset."


"Well, that's good ...." Willow turned a few pages. "Huh. I would've said I could never feature Spike in a hat, but he's more in one than out of one. And oooh look, a necktie."


Buffy sidled closer to peer over her shoulder. "Huh. I think pre-soul Spike would've forfeited a lot of kittens to keep me from seeing him dressed up like that."


He looks kinda snazzy, actually. Those lapels, though. I doubt they'll ever make 'em that wide again." Willow turned her back on the books. "So how's it going?"


She was all best-friendy, not the slightest hint of innuendo or judgment in her question, or expression. Still, Buffy hesitated over what to say, and how much.


Stick to the facts.


"There's a hot-spot in that alley. When Spike gets anywhere near it, he wigs out. He was wigged out when I first got to him—the slayers had him locked in a cage, which, okay, he was trying to kill them all, so I guess I'm glad they didn't just slay out. He calmed down for me, though."


"So on some level he knew you?"


"I don't really think so." You jumble me up, Buffy Summers. "He was still wild when I took him away from Slayer Central, and then he led me to the alley. I don't know if he remembered it, or if something there pulled him, but he had a kind of melt-down, with convulsions. After that, he got lucid. Talking again, calm, oriented, at least as much as you can be without any kind of memory. But it was like he was born in that moment—he didn't know how we'd gotten there, or that he'd been locked up. He was meeting me for the first time."


"Huh." Willow jotted notes into her iPhone. "Did he say anything at all that was pertinent?"


"Yeah. When we were there the first time, he said something about 'went in and left me'. He said that before he came to and was lucid. And then the second time we were there, he said 'can't look in there'."


Willow's eyebrow shot up. "Which fits my working theory, that there was a portal open in that alley."


"A portal? That Angel and his people went through? Do you think they're still alive?"


"Right now it's just my hypothesis."


"Spike was fighting with them, why would he get left behind?"


Willow shrugged. "Who knows? Could be anything. He wasn't close enough. Or he was unworthy. Or the others were unworthy. Or ... the portal could have nothing to do with what happened to Angel, and Angel might just be dust. Sorry, Buffy."


"I guess there's no way to really know that for certain."


"Unless we find him alive, no, there really isn't. That's how it works with vampires."


"As I well know."


They were quiet for a couple of moments. Buffy listened out for any sounds from above, but the house was silent.


"Hey," Willow said. "Got any coffee?"


Buffy made coffee, but didn't want to drink coffee, because drinking coffee with her best friend was supposed to be when you got all confidential and told things, and she didn't want to tell Willow that she was having a bizarre love affair with amnesia!Spike. Willow might pretend to be sympathetic and interested, but Willow would judge.


Willow was already asking leading questions. "Is it strange, being with Spike again?"


"What do you think?"


When Willow pouted, Buffy apologized. "Things are a little tense here."


"I can't help but notice that you have a band-aid on your neck."


She'd actually managed to forget the bite—that was what an unexpected distraction could do. It started to throb again when Willow pointed at it.


"I tripped on a barbecue fork."


"I have no doubts about your ability to handle this," Willow said. "But I hope you're not refusing help just because—"


"I don't need help. The last thing I need here is some junior slayer"—they were all junior slayers to her—"who doesn't know him and thinks this is a case."


"No no, I'm just saying," Willow said. "Your sister knows him. Xander. Even Andrew, maybe?"


"If Andrew showed up here, I'd have to kill him."


"Okay, okay."


"We're fine. Spike's very sweet, actually. He's really a very gentle soul."


"Who just happened to run at you with the barbecue fork."


"You're assuming I didn't hurt myself patrolling."


"Or hey—maybe you cut yourself shaving. What do I know?"


At that, they both laughed, and Willow poured coffee into Buffy's empty cup, and pushed it across the counter to her. "I'd better get going, I want to see the alley in daylight and then at night. But listen ... no one's gonna hassle you for being friends again with Spike. Okay?"


"Friends again? Will that be before or after our nap and cookies?"


"Just sayin'."


"Giles will never trust him."


"Giles isn't the boss of us." Willow put her mug in the sink, and stowed her iPhone. "Give me a hug. I'll let you know what I can figure out."








His thrashing woke her from a light dreamless sleep. He shot up to a sitting position with a strangled growl, and fumbled at the lamp.


"Will?"


"Ah, you're there." Blinking and yawning, he scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands.


"I've been here for a while." After Willow left, she'd lain down beside him, careful to give him plenty of space, though she was still spooked, and sure she'd never drift off while her neck throbbed and her thoughts bobbled. It was all she could do to resist a fierce temptation to go back to the study and repeat his research. How many pictures, how much information about Spike, was contained in those books?


"What's this?" He pointed at the band-aid on her throat.


"Don't you know?" Instant dismay, which she repressed.


He tugged it off, squinting to look. "Somethin' bit you." He frowned. "When did that happen?"


Shit. "A few hours ago." She took the dirty band-aid from him, folded its sticky wings in over the pad, and tossed it into the trash can beside the nightstand. "It doesn't hurt any more."


He sniffed. "Somethin' got a taste of you."


"Very little."


"You slay it?"


"Will, what were we doing earlier? Before we came up here to sleep?"


"We ... you went to do the shoppin'. "


"That's right."


"Guess you ran into some vampires."


"Not exactly. While I was out, what did you do?"


His hands balled into fists. He drummed them on his thighs, his face darkening. "Why d'you want to know?" His brows knit, eyes filling with fury. Buffy noticed that when he was angry, the scar on his brow pinkened. "I've lost time again, that's why we're playin' twenty questions?" He focused on her again, and as quickly, the anger gave way to confusion. "Christ. Attacked you. Hurt you."


"You really don't remember?"


He shrugged off her gentling hand, scooted out of her reach, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Christ. Christ." Knuckles drumming his temples. "Went off on you. Bit you. Can't remember it. This's no good. S'no good for you to be alone with me. Ought to lock me up. No good no good no good." Each repetition was more of a snarl.


"Will, don't get worked up. Sssh, sssh. It's okay." Slipping out of bed, she came around to face him. This was like the night in the old lady's house, when he'd brought her to see all the victims he'd turned. Been forced to turn, with no memory of it afterwards. He'd begged her then to finish him off, and she'd refused. "Listen to me. You didn't hurt me, and you won't hurt me." She saw him again in her mind's eye, caged in the Council's cinder-block jail in the city. If she hadn't gone ... if Faith hadn't summoned her ... he'd be dust now, staked by some impatient slayer who saw no reason to try to help some random insane vampire.


She couldn't believe she'd hesitated to make the trip. "I will always help you. No matter what, you're safe with me."


"You're not safe."


"No, I am. You took little a nip, that's all. You wanted to, and I let you, and then you decided that was enough and you let me go." That was a more or less accurate depiction of what had happened, right? "That's all, we didn't even fight." She held up her arms. "See? No bruises. Neither of us so much as threw a punch."


Spike stared at her like a stricken child, then broke into ragged sobs. When she reached out to touch his tear-wet cheek, he shied, batted at her hand as if it was a fly buzzing at him.


"What did I do? Why'd I bite you? Can't fuckin' remember—!"


Had this not been so harrowing, she could've laughed. You with no memories at all, and me so full of them, everything you say and do brings up a whole multiplex!


"Well ... while I was out, you got into the study, you looked yourself up in the books. There's a lot of stuff in those old books about Spike when he was bad. Before he—you—changed, before you got his soul. Stuff which raised questions."


"Went for your throat."


"Not exactly." She described again, choosing her words carefully for neutrality, what had happened in the study. As she talked, he stared into his lap. His sobs wrenched her. She longed to gather him into her arms, but he still wouldn't permit her touch.


"When's the help comin'? Need someone else here."


"I didn't call for help. We realized we wanted to be alone together, remember? To enjoy each other's company?"


"You can't still want that."


"Why not?"


He wouldn't look at her.


"I dont want to share you with anybody else right now. I just want to be alone with my lover."


That got his attention. "Lovers? That what we are?"


When their eyes connected, a frisson went through her, a tremble down to her toes. Again she tried to take his hand.


He moved his hand clear of hers, then gestured at her, eyes widening. "Sat on my lap, you did. Watched you eat a waffle. Such kisses. And down on the beach ...."


"Exactly."


"Seems a bit mysterious though, you goin' for a fellow doesn't remember where he was last week. Or a few hours ago."


This put a shiver through her. How like Spike, to always put his finger on her sorest place! "I know you. I've known you for years. When all your memories come back—" This resonated in her head like her mother's long-ago warnings Just wait 'til your father gets home—!

"So ... you lied to me t'other day, when you said there was never anythin' between us before. Or are you lyin' to me now? Tryin' to make me—or you—feel better 'bout getting a pash on for Mr Blank?"


"There were ... feelings, in the past. But the way things were, nothing ever came of them."


Whose feelin's? Mine? Evil fangy thing in love with you? Must've been right unpleasant. Like me better now I'm just a body without a mind, do you?"


"No!"


"Sittin' on my lap, snogging me, how's that jibe with you staving me off couple days ago on the grounds that Spike wouldn't want me to fuck you with his cock?"


This was only the kind of thing Spike might say at any moment of any day or night, so why did it cut her so?


"Nah, must've been that you were in heat for him, and he wanted nothin' to do with it. That makes more sense."


"Okay! You win! I'll leave you alone as soon as I can pass you off to someone else!"


Only when she'd slammed the bathroom door did she realize she should've left the room, not bolted in here. The white fixtures—the whole bathroom was white white white—seemed to stare at her, her agitation and shame bouncing off, blasting back at her. In the mirror, she was all eyes, and grey circles around them. She stared at herself in horror. He was right. She was pretending to help him but really all she was doing was using him to play out this fantasy of a love affair she could never really have. It was atrocious.


Behind her, the door flew open.


"Buffy--"


She screamed.