When Hank Summers peered through the peephole in the apartment door, Buffy was standing in the hall, just about to ring the bell a second time and caught in the act of shooting Spike a big-eyed, pleading look of the sort common to people b/begging their significant others not to embarrass them.  She spun at the sound of the opening door and fixed the close-relative version of the big-eyed look on Hank.  Standing there trying to keep her garment bag from slipping down her arm to drag on the floor, she looked far more like a girl primed to run interference between the Unsuitable Young Man and her father than the ultra-confident Slayer of Large Spiny Things he'd been introduced to at their last meeting.  A tentative smile ventured across her face.  "Dad?"

Buffy's back.  An unlooked-for and almost painful happiness leapt up in him, and he reached forward to pull her her into a hug.  Awkward; he didn’t know quite what to do with his hands and hers were full of luggage, but definite father-daughter contact.  "Come on in, honey.  You look--you look like you’ve been sleeping better."

He stepped back to let her maneuver through the doorway with her bags--not the little childhood suitcase set she used to bring for the summer; he recognized them as part of an old set he’d given Joyce the Christmas before the divorce, and it gave him a peculiar twinge to see that his daughter had adopted this small token of maturity.  He was about to shut the door when Spike cleared his throat sharply.  He was still standing on the threshold, carrying a much smaller bag and a styrofoam cooler. "I can doss down in the hall, mate," Spike said, "but I think the tenants' association would disapprove."

For a second Hank had no idea what he was talking about.  "You have to invite him in, Dad," Buffy said, matter-of-fact.  "I can't do it, I don't live here."

Ah, yes.  The vampire thing.  Hank allowed himself to savor the thought of Spike camping out in the hallway for the duration of Buffy's visit.  Buffy did him something of an injustice when she claimed that Hank had yet to accept that there was a vampire thing; Hank was aware that strange things went on in Sunnydale and that Buffy was up to her ears in them.  When in Sunnydale he was willing to go along.  But Los Angeles was the real world, his world, and he resented the intrusion of Sunnydale's dangerous weirdness.

Linda came bustling up full of happy-homemaker cheer, welcoming smile in place.  "Hello, Buffy.  I’m Linda--Linda Gutierrez.” Buffy took Linda’s hand with tepid politeness.  “And you must be Spike.  Please come in.  I've heard so much about you."

Spike's half-lidded eyes raked her up and down appraisingly, and he gave her a slow smile.  "Mutual."  He tossed his duster in the general direction of the coat rack, ambled into the living room and set the cooler down in the middle of the floor, standing hipshot beside it, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans.  His sardonic blue gaze roved over the decor: tasteful cream-colored living room set, plexiglass-and-aluminum tables, bare pale walls adorned with scattered Miro prints in Art Deco frames, all resplendent in the discrete glow of track lighting--looking for something worth stealing, Hank had no doubt.  "Nice place you've got here, Summers.  Monotone.  Suits you."

Buffy stood in the sea of white plush carpet, clutching the strap of her overnight bag like a safety line, her wide sea-colored eyes alight with nervous curiosity.  Too close to Spike for Hank's comfort.  In the muted pastel room the two of them were a slash of dark, vibrant color, irresistible draws to the eye.  "It is nice," she said, her voice faltering a little.  She hadn't seen the place since he'd redecorated, Hank realized--had it been two years?  No, almost three.  Perhaps she'd been expecting the comfortable (but old) furniture and bachelor clutter of her first few summer visits.

Hank closed the door.  “I thought it was time for a change.”

Buffy nodded and set her bags down gingerly.  “It’s just so different.”  Spike slid an arm around her waist, his hand resting on the curve of her hip, an utterly natural and absent-minded gesture far more disturbing than any deliberate attempt to get Hank's goat could have been, and she leaned into his side.  The air of general and second-in-command was still in evidence, but complicated by another, more visceral connection.  The air between them crackled with it.

Linda laced her fingers together, seeming as nervous as Buffy.  "I was so sorry to hear about your mother," she said.  "I thought about going to the funeral, since Hank wasn't able to make it, but then I thought... not such a good idea."  If she wanted to bring up the subject of Buffy’s purported death and mysterious re-appearance, she concealed it well--one of the things Hank admired about Linda.  She knew when to avoid asking awkward questions.  "I made up the couch as well as the guest bedroom.  I wasn't sure if you'd, um, need both of them."

Buffy arched a brow at the couch, fitted up with sheets and several folded blankets at one end.  "I told Dad that Spike and I are seeing each other."

"I decided to take that as 'we make eye contact occasionally.'" Hank sat down in the nearest armchair and picked up his half-finished glass of Scotch.  He’d decided that he deserved a drink tonight. "Leave an old man his illusions."

"You're not old, Dad."  Buffy moved the pile of folded blankets aside and perched uneasily on the edge of the couch, as if afraid of her slight weight leaving an impression on the pristine cushions.  "Besides, I--I sleep better when I'm not alone."

"The guest bed is a double, so there's no problem if you'd both like to stay there," Linda assured her.  Hank clenched his teeth and held his tongue; Linda was desperate to establish friendly relations with his children.  The prospect of being a potential stepmother to someone only four or five years her junior was daunting, and arguing with her in front of Buffy wouldn't endear him to either of them.  Buffy gave Linda a startled, grateful look and a tiny, microsecond smile, so perhaps it was worth it for long-term peace in the family.  "Would either of you like anything?"  Linda asked.  She eyed the cooler uncertainly. 

“We ate on the way,” Buffy said.

"Special diet."  Nonchalant, Spike bent over, pried the top off the cooler and pulled a gallon milk jug full of something red and viscous out of the slightly melted mass of ice cubes within.  He straightened and smiled at Linda, charisma turned up to eleven.  "Though I wouldn’t say no to some of that Scotch.  Fridge?"

"Through here," she said.  Spike followed her out to the kitchen, and Linda threw a surreptitious glance at him over her shoulder.  Surely she wasn’t falling for Spike’s line of bull?  Linda had more sense than to be swayed by a pretty face and a probably-phoney English accent.

Buffy glanced at the archway leading to the kitchen.  "So that's Linda.  She seems... nothing like Mom.  Exactly how old is she again?"

Hank took a fortifying sip of Scotch.  "I never ask a woman what she weighs or how old she is.  What does Spike do for a living again?"

Buffy grimaced.  "Point taken.  I'll leave yours alone if you leave mine alone."

They sat there for a minute, neither quite sure what to say next.  Linda and Spike emerged from the kitchen, Spike having been supplied with a far-too-generous glass of Hank’s Glenlivet, neat.  "...high in protein, iron and B vitamins," Spike was saying, straight-faced.  "Swear by it.  I practically live on the stuff."

Linda nodded, equally serious.  "Oh, I totally understand.  It's alfalfa-carrot protein shakes for me.  The body is a temple.  I can tell you really work on yours, but--" she shook an accusing finger at the half-empty pack of Marlboros poking out of his shirt pocket, "you do need to give up the cigarettes."

Spike dropped onto the couch beside Buffy and slid down into a boneless sprawl, one arm draped over her shoulders.  "You'll get my ciggies when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.  Every man needs at least one vice to his name."

Buffy snorted, but snuggled up to him nonetheless.   Hank tried not to feel ill.  "Uh huh.  Give up smoking and all you’ve got left is drinking, gambling--”

“My point exactly.  Hardly enough to keep me busy all day.”

Linda shared a conspiratorial look with Buffy and glanced fondly Hank.  "I guess men are all the same.  I'm always trying to get your father to eat healthier and exercise, but he won't listen."

Spike slapped his stomach and regarded Hank, eyes a-glitter with cheerful malice.  There was no way in hell he didn't deliberately pick his t-shirts a size too small; the damned thing looked as if it had been spray-painted on.  "Two hundred sit-ups a day, mate.  Or three hundred.  Do you a world of good." 

Hank resisted the urge to suck in his gut.  He was in pretty good shape for a guy on the wrong side of forty, and he wasn’t going to be baited by someone on the wrong side of a hundred and forty.  “It’s hard to make time for that sort of thing when you’re busy earning a living.  I suppose if I had nothing to do besides watch ‘Passions’ all day...”

Two days, he reminded himself.  It was only for two days.  Fortunately for his temper, Buffy begged off any lengthy conversation, saying they had to get up early for tomorrow’s meeting--‘early’ for either of them apparently encompassing any time before eleven in the morning.  Hank finished his Scotch while Linda showed his daughter and Spike down the short hall to the guest bedroom.  Spike quietly snagged all of the luggage before Buffy could, which irritated Hank more than anything else he’d done all evening.

“Your daughter’s a very confident girl,” Linda said as they undressed for bed shortly thereafter.  She sat at her vanity mirror, brushing her short glossy black hair and gazing thoughtfully at her reflection.

Hank smiled wryly.  “As the biological parent, I get to use the term ‘stubborn.’” 

Linda set her hairbrush down and began applying face cream, looking pensive.   At last she completed her mysterious evening rituals, got up from the vanity and climbed into her side of the bed.  “Her boyfriend’s... unusual.”

“As the biological parent, I get to use the term ‘weird.’  Not to mention rude, lazy, violence-prone and penniless.” Hank buttoned his pajama top and climbed in after her.  He had good reason to distrust Spike.  He had a gift for sizing people up.  It had stood him in good stead in many a cutthroat board meeting and tricky client negotiation.  It had even gotten him out of a few tight places outside the world of business, times when he'd been alone in a strange city with minimal command of the local language.  From their first meeting that intuition had told him Spike was dangerous, not good enough for his girl--though at the time, he'd been mistaken about which girl of his Spike wasn't good enough for--and a poser.  So far he'd seen no reason to change the assessment.  Unfortunately that same intuition told him that the rude, lazy, violence-prone, penniless poser was also ferociously devoted to both his daughters, and better equipped to aid Buffy in dealing with Sunnydale’s dangerous weirdness than he was--and that, if he were honest with himself, was the main thing fueling his dislike of the vampire.

“Buffy asked you to invite him in.  I didn’t think about it earlier, but that’s a little strange, isn’t it?”

Hank sighed.  “Hon, Spike wrote the book on strange.  He’s got...”  How was he going to put this?  “...a lot of quirks.  I haven’t got the first idea why Buffy puts up with him, but she does, and I just don’t want to alienate her any further by arguing about it--I know I haven’t done as well by her and Dawn as I should have, and she’s making it difficult enough for me to make up for it as it is.  At least he’s not living with her.”

Linda’s brow furrowed, but she nodded and said no more.

There were times when Anya suspected that the love of her life was not entirely onboard with the whole wedding experience. 

Perhaps it was the fact that Xander could make any tuxedo collapse into wrinkles just by trying on the jacket.  Perhaps it was the fact that he’d conveniently forgotten to mail the invitations for two weeks running, and after she’d bulldogged him into a trip to the post office, she’d found the ones addressed to his family stuffed behind the laundry hamper, where they’d accidentally (he assured her) fallen out of his pocket.  Perhaps it was the way he cringed every time she mentioned the possibility of putting D’Hoffryn up for the night--an entirely reasonable suggestion, to her mind.  It was not, after all, as if Sunnydale had any decent hotels which catered to demons.  She made a mental note to check into the possibility of starting one--a nice bed and breakfast perhaps, with a view of the Hellmouth.  She’d made a tidy sum selling short during the dot-com crash, and, as a patriotic resident, was looking for something close to home to invest it in.  Property values in the neighborhood of the burnt hull of Sunnydale High were at rock bottom...

“Anya, can you hand me the volume of Theminius there behind the counter?”  Giles asked.  He was pacing by on another of his circumnavigations of the store, book in hand and glasses sliding down his nose.  As he passed the counter he set the tome he’d been paging through down and picked up the new one without missing a beat.  “Thank you.”

The Watcher’s lanky form circled round the store, through Charms and Amulets where Tara was sorting through a box of half-off gewgaws trying to find a suitable focus for her spell, past Incense and Ceremonial Candles, Herbs and Potions (Pre-Mixed) and come to a halt in front of a display of athames, frowning down at Theminius.  “There is simply no connection,” he muttered.  “None whatsoever.  We can’t even be certain that the appearance of the loa is part of the overall pattern of manifestations--if there is a pattern--since it was, after all, summoned, however unconventionally.  Blast it all.”

Anya considered her options.  Giles sounded severely vexed.  Now was probably the time for a remark indicating that she was actively engaged in the research process.  Fortunately she was relieved of the necessity when the shop bell rang and Mrs. Dalgliesh’s blue-rinsed head bobbed inside.  She was a fairly regular customer, a birdlike little woman invariably dressed in flowered chintz.  She tottered up to the counter and smiled at Anya.  “I’m here to pick up that pixie repellant, dear.” 

Anya reached down and retrieved the dark brown bottle with squirt attachment labeled “Dalgleish, twice daily, shake well before spraying” from beneath the counter and set it down with a beaming return smile.  The oily liquid within sloshed against the sides.  “Here you are, Mrs. Dalgliesh.  Remember to store it in a dark place.  You have the payment ready in full, of course?”

“Why, of course.  Don’t I always?”  Mrs. Dalgliesh opened her ancient carpetbag purse, extracted an equally ancient wallet, and began carefully counting out bills one by one, followed by exact change in pennies.  Anya approved of Mrs. Dalgliesh’s protective attitude towards her cash.  Be good to your money and your money would be good to you was her motto.  Or one of her mottoes, anyway; Anya had never been able to see how some people got by with just one.  “My Social Security check came in today, and none too soon.  The nasty little things are all over the gardenias.”  She picked up the bottle and held it up to the light, clucking her tongue.  “I hope this is enough for the big one.”

Giles looked up, peering at the two of them over the rims of his glasses. “Big one?”

Mrs. Dalgliesh nodded as Anya wrapped up the pixie repellant and slid it into a brown paper bag.  “I saw him last night.  Much bigger than the others, though I suppose the antlers made him look taller.  He blew some kind of horn at me.  It gave me quite a start.  And the dogs made such a mess of the flowerbeds, too.”

“Dogs?”

“A dozen, at least.  White with red ears, I don’t know the breed.  Looking for bones, I suspect; I doubt he keeps them fed.  Well, I must be off.  Thank you, Anya.”  She tucked her package into the capacious purse and tottered out the door to the renewed jingle of the bell.  Giles watched her departing back, stroking his chin with one hand.

“Some sort of avatar of Herne the Hunter, perhaps?”  He heaved a discouraged sigh and returned Theminius to his place on the shelves.  “Just what’s wanted, more random demonic activity...”

“But it’s not,” Anya said.

Giles adjusted his glasses.  “Perhaps not random, but if there is a pattern--”

“No, no,” Anya interrupted.  “It’s not demonic.  Not a single demon involved.”

For a moment Giles stood there, thunderstruck.  “You’re quite correct,” he said slowly.  “All the manifestations have been minor divinities of one sort or another--Spike and Xander said that the dragon they saw had five claws, correct?”  Anya nodded.  “An Imperial dragon, associated with the god-emperors of ancient China.  Haitian loas, Chumash sacred bears, the leader of the Wild Hunt--specifically, human deities, from many times and cultures--” He was pacing again, excited.  “But still, what does it mean?  If these beings are gathering here there must be a reason for it.  I’ve checked and double-checked all the usual texts, and while there’s an extremely dicey mystical convergence coming up later this winter all signs point to its occurring further south.  Whatever’s causing this, it was nothing foretold in any prophecy the Council has access to, and I find that extremely disturbing.”

Anya sniffed.  “I don’t.  Exactly what good has a prophecy ever done us?  It’s always ‘The green cloud obscures the desert’ and you never know if it refers to a plague of grasshoppers or if someone’s started irrigating.  Or how about the classic, ‘A mighty army will be destroyed?’  We know something’s happening, and we know it’s big enough to make gods sit up and take notice.  I’d rather not know how it’s going to turn out, thank you; that way I can assume that we figure out what’s happening and beat it.”

Giles’s lips quirked slightly.  “That’s a novel way of looking at it.  But we’re so short of real information I’d settle for an encouraging fortune cookie.”

Anya checked off Mrs. Dalgliesh’s purchase on her list of special orders to be picked up.  “Why don’t we just ask them why they’re here?”

“Because--” Giles stopped.  “You know, that just might work.”

Buffy woke confused, sure she was in the wrong place.  The mattress was not shaped to her body, the sheets smelled of some heathen brand of fabric softener, and the light was coming from the wrong direction, seeping through curtains of the wrong shade.  She lay still, animal wariness taking over while she absorbed the unfamiliar sensations of someone else’s bed.  Finally she relaxed.  She was in the wrong place, but she was supposed to be.  The comfortable weight of the arm around her middle was right, and the cool firm body curving around her own.  At times like this it seemed to her that the silence that was Spike’s lack of heartbeat was of a different quality from all other silences, a unique quiet that she could distinguish in an instant from any common cessation of noise.  She felt his breath against her ear and the brush of his lips against her throat as he sensed her wakening.  Her own breath escaped in a soft yearning moan.

“Mornin’, love.”  His voice was just as low, rough with restrained passion.  He touched her lips with a finger, forestalling her reply.  “No--no noise.  Not a peep.  They’ll hear, and we can’t give your old Dad an aneurysm.”  She bit her lip and nodded, mystified but willing to go along.  Spike glanced at the window, gauging the angle of the sun and the likelihood that its beams would strike the bed any time soon.  Satisfied, he bent his tousled platinum head to her neck again, nuzzling her ear, nibbling slowly down the length of her neck from ear to collarbone and back again.

His hand drifted to her shoulder, fingers stroking feather-light along her upper arm, but he touched her nowhere else.  When she started to reach blindly out for more contact his fingers tightened on her biceps, holding her still while he continued to seek out the tenderest flesh, the most sensitive skin to torment.  A languid heat began to build within her, lapping outwards from her center like a wave of warm honey, making her skin tingle all over and rendering Spike’s ministrations all the more exquisite.  It was not long before she was writhing against the sheets, digging her heels into the mattress and biting her lips to keep from crying aloud, a willing accomplice in her own sweet torture. 

Spike’s breathing grew quick and harsh, deepening to a purring rasp of a growl, quickly silenced as his teeth grazed her collarbone.  His lips played upwards along the long swan-curve of her throat to the angle of her jaw, agile tongue flicking against the old bite scars as if by accident.   Now and again his fangs emerged for a quick playful nip, the delicate pinpricks sending sharper bolts of pleasure through the voluptuous haze enveloping her senses.  She was dimly aware of his growing arousal, hard and eager against her, but the cords of her limbs were undone, all her strings cut, and all she could manage to assuage it was to grind her hips back against his.  Desperate little grunts forced their way out of her, and when a hand thrust a pillow in front of her face she grabbed it and bit down on the corner as flares of light blossomed behind her eyelids, and her body dissolved a long-drawn-out upwelling of bliss. 

She heard the sigh as Spike exhaled, ridding his lungs of every scrap of air.  He shifted position, rolling her onto her back and covering her body with his, and then he was sinking into her with a force that made the bed shudder.  They both froze for a guilty second--this was a piece of furniture they had to be careful of. 

Buffy reached up and put a finger to his lips, just as he’d done to her earlier--Be still.  He was still in game face, butting his head against hers like a cat demanding caresses; his eyes slitted in bliss as her hands moved up to stroke his brow ridges, then shot open as she put another set of Slayer muscles to good use stroking something else.  As she drew him deep and closed around him exaltation washed over his face, and human features replaced demonic ones, blue chasing the gold from his eyes.  It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, and she felt her own body gather for a second assault on the heights.  With a breathless, noiseless roar, he exploded within her, and Buffy mashed her face into his shoulder to muffle her answering shout as they clawed for the summit together.

Spike twined his fingers in her hair, pulled back and gazed into her eyes, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs.  Buffy made a happy little ‘mm’ noise and gazed back.  Bed intact.  Wonderful news for furniture budget.  Spike not nearly as heavy as previous boyfriends.  Also very good.  Could get used to waking up like this.  Lost personal pronouns again.  Who needs them? “What’s the occasion?”

“Happy anniversary, love.  One week today.” 

“Love you,” she whispered, because there were no other words. 

He broke out in that sweet, glorious smile, the one she’d never seen him give anyone else--as if she were the only one worthy of it, despite being the remarkably self-centered and occasionally dense Buffy Anne Summers who was desperately trying to armor herself for the upcoming meeting with her former vampire lover by having as much fantastic sex with her current vampire lover as possible.  Were there expressions of hers he treasured as much?  She hoped so; it would be beyond unfair otherwise.  He caught his lower lip in his teeth, full of small-boy anticipation.  “Got you something.”

Buffy sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts.  “Spike, you didn’t need to--it isn’t, um--” Slayers intent on instilling virtue in morally deficient vampires should not be bouncing up and down in anticipation of probably stolen prezzies from said vampires.   “You got something?  For me?”

Spike rolled over and reached over the side of the bed, rummaging around underneath for a moment.  He sat back up with a small flat package wrapped up in butcher’s paper and tied with string--not exactly festive, but Buffy felt her hand shaking as she undid the neat double bow.  She peeled back the layers of paper while Spike sat cross-legged on the bed and watched her.

It was a book--a slim volume bound in brown leather.  For a second she had a weird flash of deja vu, and half expected it to be Browning’s Sonnets From The Portugese. But it wasn’t; it was the book Spike had been reading that night on the sofa in the crypt, the one she hadn’t been able to make out the title of.  Now, tracing the faded gilt letters on the spine, she could just decipher The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.  It was old, old enough to be printed on rag paper that had been made to last.  There were two inscriptions on the flyleaf.  The first was in unfamiliar spidery script, the ink faded and brown with age, and read To William, from Mother, with love: May you know the joy you deserve.  May 21st, 1877.  The second one was in Spike’s handwriting, his old-fashioned copperplate script at odds with the ordinary ballpoint it was written in--To Buffy: Seize the day.  Love, William.  Dec. 7th, 2001. It looked as if he’d been undecided as to which way to sign it; ‘Spike’ and ‘William’ had both been written in and crossed out at least once.  A queer lump rose up in her throat and for a second she couldn’t breathe at all.

“Was gonna let you borrow it anyway, like I said, but then I thought you might like one of your own,” Spike said, studiously examining his toes.  “Sorry it’s not a new copy, but I thought you’d rather have one that wasn’t nicked.”

Oh, God, she was crying.  Or laughing.  Not sure which.  Tears were pouring down her cheeks as if her personal sprinkler system had broken.  “It’s--it’s--” She laid the book reverently down on the pillow and flung her arms around him.  “Thank you.  It’s perfect.”

Spike, a little startled at the intensity of her reaction, pulled her close and stroked her hair.  “Shh, Buffy, love, it’s all right.”  His thumb smudged the tear-tracks across her cheek.  “Your Dad’ll be convinced I’m beating you now.”

She sniffled.  “Right.  I can whip your pansy English ass.”

He gave her his wickedest smile.  “Promise?”

“Pig.”  She snuggled into his shoulder and looked up at him, an innocent little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.  “If you ask very nicely, I’ll think about it.”

He laughed, and Buffy glanced towards the window, doing her own check on the progress of the sun.  It must be close to eight o’clock, an ungodly hour to be awake in her line of work, but she felt surprisingly good.  In the corner of her eye she saw herself in the mirror over the dresser, leaning cozily into thin air, long blonde hair apparently moving of its own volition as Spike’s hand played with the sleep-tangled locks.  With puffy eyes and a snuffly nose, which were absolutely not what she wanted to be displaying when Angel showed up.  Which was bound to be soon--it was at least an hour’s drive from Los Angeles to Corona, where the California Institute for Women was located, and there was no telling how long the wait to get in to see Faith would be once they got there.  How exactly they were going to manage the matter of getting Angel from the car to the prison without combusting she wasn’t sure; she couldn’t imagine Angel galloping around under a ratty blanket, but he must have managed it somehow on previous visits.  The California Department of Corrections wasn’t about to change its visiting hours to accommodate vampires.  Maybe they’d have covered parking.

Spike was still lazing around on the bed with the book he’d brought with him when she got out of the shower; he’d gotten as far as pulling on his jeans but had only buttoned them up halfway.  Of course, he could afford to put off getting dressed; Spike’s idea of packing light (razor, toothbrush, Penguin edition of Typee , change of socks) limited his sartorial options.  Manfully abjuring temptation, Buffy marched over to the closet and stood with hands on hips, surveying the clothes she’d brought along with the air of a general looking for volunteers for a suicide mission.  There was the claret-red skirt and top ensemble which had been part of the Dawn-induced Dad-guilt haul last month. Worn last night to make Dad feel better, check.  The little black dress--just in case they happened to end up at a gala L.A. cocktail party, she supposed; she really wasn’t sure why she’d felt the need to bring it along.  Several pairs of sensible slacks and blouses from the Office Drag Collection, for the prison visit and the ride home.  She pulled the cowl-necked camel pullover out (the coffee stain had come out nicely) and held the hanger up to her chest.  “Does this say ‘I’ve moved on and am mature enough to see you as a beloved friend but if seeing me makes you rue the day you walked out on me, so much the better?’  Or should I go with the blue?”

Spike leaned back against the headboard and laced his hands behind his head.  “That might be a bit much for any one article of clothing to convey, pet, but I’d go for the one that doesn’t conceal the massive hickey.”

Buffy’s eyes went wide and she dropped the pullover on a chair and darted over to the mirror, hand to her neck.  Sure enough, there was a straggling line of livid rosettes winding all down the left side of her throat.  They were already beginning to fade, thanks to Slayer healing, but it was going to be very visible for at least the rest of the morning.  She groaned.  “Why does everything that feels that good leave marks?” she grumbled. 

Something brushed sensually along her shoulder, sending a wave of gooseflesh up and down her arms--Spike had slipped up behind her, invisible in the mirror, and was going in for the kill on the other side.  “Suits you, pet.  Sends the message that someone doesn’t need to puncture your jugular to get you off.”

Buffy smacked him away.  “Down!  I have to look virginal for Dad and irresistible but unavailable for Angel and unlike a potential hacksaw-smuggler for the warden.   Instead I look like Miss December in the Skank of the Month calen--oooh... STOP THAT!” 

Spike beat a strategic retreat down the hall towards the bathroom, grinning like a loon, and Buffy turned back to the mirror with a silly little smile of her own and opened her makeup case.  Foundation was her friend.  Not like she didn’t have plenty of experience concealing suspicious bruises, scrapes, and compound fractures; Slayer healing was good, but not instantaneous.  She took the blue blouse out and held both of them up critically, then hung the blue one back in the closet.  The camel one would cover up the marks without recourse to cosmetics.  She pulled it on and tugged the collar up around her neck.  On the other hand, maybe she wanted someone to see them.  Collar down.  Or not.  Collar up.  Angel-feelings currently way more confusing than Spike-feelings.  A first in the Summers’ cavalcade of romantic neuroses!  She stepped into the rust slacks and pulled her hair back.  French braid?  Chignon? 

Last night hadn’t gone too badly.  Sure, Spike and her father had sniped at each other for awhile, but no one had taken any mortal conversational wounds.  Linda wasn’t the rapacious bimbo she’d been expecting.  Buffy wasn’t certain how she felt about that yet, but as Linda had circumvented the not-in-my-house-you-don’t argument about her sharing a bed with Spike, Buffy was tentatively inclined to move her from the ‘Homewrecking Fiend From Hell’ category to the ‘Probably Human’ category.  Maybe she could even handle the one-two punch of seeing Angel and Faith in one day...

There was a hesitant knock on the door.  French braid, definitely.  “Yes?”

“It’s me.”  It was Linda, sounding worried.  “Are you all right?”

“As the proverbial rain,” Buffy replied.  “I might go so far as to say perky, which is downright unnatural at this time of day.  Is something wrong?”

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Just a minute--let me get decent.”  After a nervous glance at the bed and a few quick corrective measures--fluff one slightly toothmarked pillow, yank the blanket over the wet spot, arrange collar of pullover to cover massive hickey--Buffy opened the door.  “What’s up?  Dad have a change in plans for tonight?”  She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice; they’d planned to go out to L’Orangerie after they got back from Corona, but it wouldn’t be the first time her father had decided working late was more important than spending time with her.

“No, nothing like that.” Linda was fingering her necklace, turning the little gold cross over and over till the chain tangled.  She was already dressed for work, purse clutched in one hand and professional veneer lacquered securely into place.  “Nothing to do with your father.”  The sound of running water kicked in down the hall.  Buffy hoped her father had gotten his shower in earlier, as she’d recently discovered that Spike would happily loiter in a hot shower until he grew gills.  Linda relaxed slightly, but her voice remained low.  “Spike left the bathroom door open while he was brushing his teeth, and I happened to look in going past, and I--I saw something that worried me.” 

That was unexpected.  Unexpected was usually bad.  Buffy’s smile became a trifle fixed.  “Saw something?”  All Spike parts property Buffy Anne Summers, individually and in toto.  Flutter one wheat-grass-nourished eyelash in his direction and I’ll remove your appendix through your nose, you homewrecking fiend from hell.

Linda, luckily, didn’t appear to be telepathic.  “It was more like I didn’t see something.  Something that should have been there.”  She bent closer and whispered, “How long have you known Spike?”

“About four years.  Why?”

“Has he seemed... different to you lately?  Had any personality changes?”

Buffy looked at her, brows knit.  She didn’t like the way this was going; she could practically hear the ominous music rising in the background.  “He’s gone through a lot of... I guess you’d call it self-evaluation in the last couple of years, but he’s always been this annoying, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Linda took a deep breath, her dark liquid eyes darting back towards the hall once more.  “This is going to sound really stupid, but... have you seen him go outside in the daytime lately?”

Uh oh.  “Sure.  Yesterday.” Hiding under a blanket to get to the car counts. “Though he’s, um, kind of a night person.  Which is OK, because I’m a night owl myself, always burning that midnight oil--”

The other woman looked exceedingly unhappy.  “You’re going to think I’m insane,” she whispered, “but there’s a chance we could all be in terrible danger.”  She wrung her hands.  “I think your Spike might be... part of a gang.”

“Uh?”  Buffy sat down on the edge of the bed.  Was there any point at all in having a secret identity these days?  “A gang.  Of the PCP-taking, disappearing into thin air when the police arrive variety?”

“Would you take this?”  Linda reached into her pocket and pulled out another small cross on a chain.  “I know your father isn’t religious and I don’t know if you are, but it would make me feel better if I knew you had... protection.”

Buffy took the cross and closed her hand around it.  This was going to be awkward.  “Wow.  I had no idea you were familiar with the, uh, initiation signs.”  Not that Spike bothered to hide it much; Angel had always gone to great pains to appear human in the company of humans, but Spike, as far as she could tell, just didn’t care all that much if he were outed.  Which was pretty stupid in light of the fact that he was currently helpless against any human vampire hunters who took exception to his existence.  They were going to have to have a little discussion about that.

Linda’s café au lait complexion paled.  “Then you know--but you don’t realize what he could do!  He looks like the man you used to know, but he’s not.  You’ve got to get away.  All of us do.  He’s a different person now, and he could--”

“Spike can’t hurt you,” Buffy interrupted hurriedly.  “He can’t hurt anyone.  Not won’t, can’t.  If he tries he gets an electric shock strong enough to knock him flat.  And anyway, he’s reformed.  I swear, none of you are in any danger from him.”

Down the hall the sound of the shower running cut off abruptly, but neither of them noticed.  There was pity alongside the fear in Linda’s eyes.  “You love him,” she said, her words coming quick and urgent.  “You think you’ve found some way of keeping him under control.  You’re fooling yourself, chica.  He’ll last forever.  It won’t.  You won’t.  How many people did he kill before you found your fix? How many do you think he’ll kill after it breaks?”

Out in the living room, someone knocked on the door, and Buffy heard the faint scrape of chair legs and footsteps crossing from the kitchen as her father left his morning coffee to answer it.  Down the hall, behind Linda, Spike emerged from the bathroom with a damp towel slung over his bare shoulders, giving his hair a few last touches with one hand.  He paused to listen for a second, his dark brows angled together.  Then he ghosted down the hall towards them and popped up behind Linda, crooking his fingers into claws and making exaggerated biting motions.  Buffy aimed a steely glare at him over Linda’s shoulder.  Something was putting her nerves on edge, but with Linda talking and Spike acting more than usually like an idiot...

“Look, my grandmother is a bruja down in East L.A., and she knows all about...gangs.  She knows a guy who does... deprogramming.”  Linda produced a small, dog-eared rectangle of cardstock from her purse and held it out to Buffy.  “You should look him up, fast.  It’s not your Spike in there anymore.”

“Now there’s where you’re wrong, pet,” Spike said conversationally.  “It’s always been her Spike in here.”  He reached over her shoulder with striking-snake speed and nabbed the business card from Linda’s hand.  Linda shrieked and jumped about a foot and a half in the air.  Spike’s lazy grin was pure predator, reminiscent of a well-fed cat unable to resist a chance to step on a mouse’s tail.  He held the card out and squinted at it, lounging in the doorway in such a manner as to block Linda's escape.  “What the bloody hell is that, a lobster?  Bet he drew the sodding logo himself rather than shell out for a graphics designer.”

“Knock off the attitude, Spike,” Buffy said, in the tone of offhand authority which brought him to heel far more effectively than irritation would have.  “You’re scaring her.”          He looked down at Linda with an absurdly pleased expression. “Am I really?”

“You heard her,” a familiar voice said.  “Knock it off.  Or I will.”

Angel loomed in the doorway behind Spike, filling most of it, flexing the fingers of his right hand as if he’d like nothing better than to make a fist of it.  Spike’s every muscle went piano-wire tense.  Topaz sparking and dying in his eyes, he turned, very deliberately, to face the maker of his maker.  Buffy took the business card from his inattentive fingers.  “As a matter of fact,” she said with a weak smile as she handed the card for Angel Investigations back to Linda, “We’ve already got an appointment.”

Spike and Angel faced one another, winter-blue eyes locked upon chocolate brown, and the silence in the room was so deep and pure that Buffy was surprised that the sound of her heart pounding against her ribs didn’t shatter it like glass, into shards sharp enough to cut with.   Her Slayer senses were keening dissonant warning; she was strongly attuned to Spike’s presence these days, even moreso now than she had been a week ago, but Angel’s tug on her persisted still, tiny hooks set into all her bones.  The conflict was like tinfoil on a filling, and without thought she rose from the bed and laid a hand on Spike’s shoulder.  The physical contact soothed the jangle along her nerves almost at once, and the boiling fury in Spike’s eyes cooled to a simmer.  He relaxed imperceptibly.  “Hullo, Peaches.”

“Spike.”  Angel’s voice was neutral.  “Buffy.  Your father let me in.  Are we ready to--” 

He stopped, nostrils flaring, and unbelief washed over his face, transforming slowly into something approaching horror as the pieces came together.  His eyes flicked around the room, taking in the two sets of clothing, the rumpled sheets on both sides of the bed, Buffy’s hand resting on Spike’s shoulder--and what must have been, to his enhanced senses, the unmistakable and overwhelming musk of their recent lovemaking. There was a blur of motion too fast for human eyes to follow and Spike was torn from her side, slammed into the doorjamb with wall-rattling force, and pinned there with Angel’s hands about his throat.  A raw snarl barely recognizable as words tore out of the older vampire: “What have you done to her?”

“Put him down!” Buffy shouted.  Angel ignored her.

Spike’s eyes blazed with triumph, and his smile was as vicious a thing as Buffy’d ever seen on a human face.  “Nothing she didn’t beg me to, mate,” he gasped--Angel’s cutting off his air couldn’t hurt him, but it made it difficult for him to talk.  “Not that she had to beg long.  My pleasure.  Each and every night, all night long--agh!”  His face convulsed in agony and Buffy realized with a cold shock of terror that in another second Angel was simply going to rip Spike’s head off his shoulders.  She lunged towards them, but Spike had already brought one knee up like a pile-driver into Angel’s groin.  Angel howled and staggered backwards, his grip breaking, and Spike twisted free and dove after him with fangs bared, screaming, “How does it feel, Angelus?  How does it bloody feel when it happens to you?” The two of them disintegrated into a snarling, roaring tangle of fists and fangs in the middle of the carpet.

Linda screamed and ran for the living room.  Change of plans.  Buffy diverted her lunge towards the window, and in one swift motion her hand was on the curtain-pull.  “If you two don’t stop it RIGHT NOW you’ll be vampire flambe in two seconds and I’ll shovel your ashes into the same urn for eternity!”

Even that threat didn’t penetrate.  Buffy yanked the cord down and the curtains flew open.  Sunlight flooded into the room, striking the combatants in mid-grapple.  Both Spike and Angel froze, blinking into the sunlight with identical expressions of shock before pain galvanized them into motion.  “Fuck!” Spike screamed, and leaped for the closet as wisps of smoke started to rise from his exposed flesh.  Angel, with less flesh exposed and less familiarity with the layout of the room, scrambled to his feet and dove behind the bed after a second’s panicked reconnaissance. 

Buffy stood there for a moment, backlit dramatically by the morning sun, her lips pressed into a hard angry line.  “Can you both move beyond being the poster boys for Neanderthal Nation for five minutes, or is that too much to ask?” she hissed.

Angel poked a wary head up over the side of the bed.  “Buffy,” he said in the tone that meant he was trying very, very hard to sound reasonable, “I think you have some explaining to do.”

Spike inched out from behind the closet door, all glowery, sexy pout, and jerked his chin in Angel’s direction.  “He started it.” He looked uneasily at the window and made a little curtain-closing wave with one hand.  “Uh...pet, could you...?”

How was it possible that one man could make her so sublimely happy and so completely furious in the space of an hour?  She stalked over to the closet and gave him a look which would have stopped a glacier in its tracks, her chest heaving.  “Is that what this is?  Get back at Angel week?”

His eyes fell away and his head dropped. “Don’t you think we bloody well deserve it?  Both of us?”

She looked across the room at Angel’s dark handsome face, agonized.  “It wasn’t his fault.  Any of it.”  She believed that.  She had to.  Angel, whose eyes never quite lost the haunted knowledge of what he had done, was not Angelus, any more than Spike was William...  

“Then whose fault was it?  Tell me who stole Dru’s mind from her, and her heart from me?  Who took your heart and froze it so cold even my hands can warm it?”  The ridged brow and broadened nose of his demon-face melted back into the aquiline purity of his human one, and staring into those lucent blue eyes, Buffy realized that she no longer had any idea which of his faces was the mask.  “Tell me who I can hate, Buffy!  There’s got to be someone.”

And she couldn’t do the right thing, tell him he didn’t have to hate anyone, because she knew too well that there were times when you did.  “It’s--it’s over, all that.  Past.  This is now.”  She reached up and took his face in her hands, reading the planes of his cheek and jaw like a Braille of the heart.  “ We’re now.”

Right there in her father’s guest room closet Spike fell to his knees, supplicant at her feet for a heartbreaking moment before wrapping his arms around her hips and burying his face in her crotch.  “Buffy,” he moaned. 

Whoa.  Stella Kowalski moment .  For the second time that morning she found herself unable to breathe, unable to move, but for all the physical intimacy of their pose it was not lust that raced through her now--OK, not much lust--and for the first time she realized, like a mule-kick to the gut, that he feared losing her as deeply and terribly as she feared losing him.  Doesn’t he know?  Haven’t I told him?  Her hands moved blindly over his head, fingers twining through his still-damp curls.  “Get up,” she whispered.  “Get up.”  Spike obeyed, rising to his feet in one lithe surge, his hands and his eyes never letting go of her.   They were the only people in the room, the building, the universe.

“Buffy.”  Angel’s dark warm voice, which had once been the one to which she compared all others, full of concern now.  “Buffy, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on here.”

The tug was still there.  Once those hooks were set into bone they could never truly be removed.  But it had never once occurred to her to go to him first.

“Buffy!” Linda’s fearful voice cried.  “Are you all right?”

Buffy took a shaky breath.  “I’m fine.  Could you close the curtains, please?  We’re coming out.”  As the room darkened once more, she took Spike’s hand, and led him out of the closet.

Part 16

Part 18