Angel had never hated Spike.  In the days when Angel had been unencumbered by a soul, Spike had been a stupidly rebellious minion tolerated only because he kept Drusilla occupied when Angel had no need of her.  Barely worth noticing, much less hating.  When the two of them had met again three years ago, during Spike’s brief and eventful tenure as Master of Sunnydale’s vampire population, it had quickly become obvious that for all the outward trappings of power he’d assumed, Spike was still the same volatile mix of insecurity, viciousness, and bravado he’d always been.  Soul well-lost once more, all the new improved Angelus had had to do was aim a few jibes at the soft underbelly of Spike’s pride and it was like old times again, Drusilla dancing attendance on Daddy and Spike reduced to jealous, impotent fury.  Easy.

Until Spike had broken all the rules, and allied with Buffy to bring Angelus crashing down.  Buffy’s hands had held the blade, but Spike’s shadow presence had been right beside her, crowing in triumph as she thrust it home and sent the once-more-souled Angel to hell.  All that came later hinged on that moment when Spike had made the decision--for proper, selfish vampiric reasons--to fight for a day on the side of light.  Now Angel brooded in the sparkling, modern kitchen of Hank Summers's L.A. apartment, and tried to decide if it were finally time for him to start hating Spike.

He definitely hated the whispers, the looks, the smiles, the touches--oh, he really hated the touches, teasing and tender--the way Spike’s shoulder kept brushing Buffy’s, the way Buffy’s hand kept meeting Spike’s on the way to the salt.  Spike was still indulging his bizarre addiction to human food, and was devouring a revolting mixture of scrambled eggs, pig's blood, and tabasco sauce with every indication of enjoyment.  Angel had always scorned that particular affectation; who was Spike trying to fool?  Now he was almost glad of it; concentrating on the repulsiveness of Spike's breakfast kept him from dwelling on the far greater repulsiveness of Spike and Buffy exchanging besotted looks, or the rancorous exchange going on in the next room.

"...knew, and you didn't tell me?"  Linda's voice was clearly audible through the closed bedroom door.

"Tell you what?  'By the way, dear, my daughter's dating a guy with no pulse?'  Why should I think you'd believe it?"  Hank’s voice wasn't quite as emphatic, but just as irritated.  "I still don't believe it!"

Spike cocked his head in the direction of the master bedroom, thoroughly amused at the discord.  "Think we're going to be sleeping in the car tonight, pet?"  He dunked his toast into his mug of warm pig's blood until it was sodden with gore, and tore into it with gusto.

Don't you get it, Buffy?  This is what a demon is.  Strife is his raison d'etre.
       Buffy did not get it; she just wrinkled her nose and poured herself more orange juice. "I don't know, but I hope you have a blanket in your trunk just in case.  Watch it, you're dripping blood on the hash browns."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it, love."

"I'll stick with ketchup, thanks."  Buffy aimed a little half-frown at Angel, the worried hostess fretting over a finicky guest.  "Are you sure you don't want anything?"

Angel shook his head.  "I'm fine."  Any moment now his brain was going to explode with the impossibility of the situation.  I can't move on, he'd told Buffy once.   You can.  I can't.  But he'd begun to, this last summer after her funeral--not to someone else; that was impossible for someone in his circumstances, but to a place where he didn't feel her loss with every breath he didn't take.  Living in a world without Buffy had proved infinitely easier than living in a world where Buffy existed and he couldn't have her.  When they'd dragged her back, damn them--Willow and Dawn, anyway; Spike was already taken care of--he'd braced himself for the renewal of that old pain, but it hadn't come.  The wound had finally closed, and he’d walked away from their post-post-mortem rendezvous with regret and a tremendous feeling of freedom.

Until today.  It wasn't that she'd moved on--it was to whom she'd moved.  "No, I take it back.  I do want something.  An explanation would be good."

Spike's knuckles whitened on his mug of blood and the muscles in his jaw worked.  "I love Buffy, Buffy loves me, we've been shagging like minks
for a week, and with luck will continue to do so for many years to come.  Anything else you need to know?"

Angel watched the younger vampire with loathing, imagining that smug face beaten and bloody, eyes swollen shut, that oily smirk smashed into broken-toothed ruin... Buffy's hand closed on top of Spike's, her fingertips barely extending to the first joints of his fingers, and gave it a reassuring squeeze.  Angel pressed his fingers to his temples.  He could feel his skull starting its slow-motion, Technicolor expansion now.

Linda's muffled tirade continued.  "I can't believe you'd put us in danger like this!  He could have--"

"Talked us to death?" Hank rejoined.

Spike jerked upright.  "I heard that, y'wanker!"

Buffy finished her orange juice, got up, tiptoed over to the bedroom door and rapped on it.  "Uh... Dad?  We have to leave now."

The argument within silenced itself abruptly.  "Fine, honey.  I'll see you later."

Buffy aimed a stern look at Spike, who mouthed 'Do I have to?' Buffy gestured emphatically at the bedroom door.  Spike sulked for a moment, then heaved a sigh and recited, "Linda, I'm sorry I scared you, I promise never to eat anyone even remotely connected to you ever, and could you please not have your grandmum uninvite me while we're gone?"

More silence, then a grudging, "I'll think about it," from Linda.

Ordeal survived, Spike got to his feet, locked his hands over his head in a contented cat-stretch, and chuckled.  "Your Dad can pick 'em.  Bet she's a dab hand with a battleaxe."  He scooped up a random assortment of breakfast dishes and dumped them into the sink to dessicate--only semi-domesticated, then.  "We're taking the DeSoto, Peaches.  I'm not entrusting my flammable hide to a sodding ragtop."

Angel watched stolidly as he walked over to Buffy and hooked his arm around her waist.  He felt his fists starting to curl in on themselves again, and forcibly relaxed, muscle by muscle.  He wasn’t going to give Spike the satisfaction of reacting further.  Buffy rolled her eyes as Spike pulled her close, a little smile playing about her lips--very much aware of what he was up to, but not complaining about it.  The kiss was deep, leisurely, and intense; far from prolonging it to tweak his nose, Angel got the distinct impression that the two of them had forgotten his existence entirely.   They finally pulled away from one another, a reluctant, molasses-slow separation.  Spike tossed his car keys into the air and caught them, shot Angel a cocky, infuriating grin, and sauntered out whistling.  Buffy's eyes followed him out the door, the little smile lingering.

Angel entertained a vivid, satisfying image of running Spike over with his own car, grinding his body into red jelly on the pavement, and felt momentarily better.

Ten minutes later he stood with Buffy in the lobby of the Allman Luxury Apartments, waiting for Spike to bring the car around from the underground garage.  Not by the southern exposure of the front doors, where morning sunlight streamed in through the plate-glass windows and set the brass door fixtures ablaze.  They'd dodged the gleaming spears of light and crossed to the west-facing side entrance, still in deep shadow.  Buffy hadn't hesitated, or checked the position of the sun.  "So.  You must have planned this all out pretty well ahead of time," he said with a nod at the front entrance.  "Figured out all the places you can't go, all the things you can't do with a vampire in tow."

If Buffy noticed the sarcastic edge to his voice, she ignored it.  "I’m all about meeting the challenge."  She sounded almost cheerful about it.  "They don't design buildings for daytime vampire access.  This being of the good under most circumstances.  Spike's scarily inventive when it comes to getting around in the daytime."

"It is scary, isn't it?"  Definite oozing of sarcasm there.

Definite ignoring of oozing sarcasm on Buffy's part.  He should have known there was something wrong at their awkward meeting last month, but he'd been too stunned by the fact of her return to do much but wonder at her presence.  Buffy, in turn, had been tired and withdrawn.  They might as well have been on different planets for all the connection they'd made.  He wished he could lay it all to the anomaly of her death and resurrection, but no, this was simpler: two people apart, lives diverging day by day, month by month, year by year.

If he'd walked into this lobby today and seen her for the first time, would she arrest his eyes and heart as she had six years ago?  Then it had been her innocence which drew him as much as her beauty, the terrible unfairness of this girl being made a sacrifice, sent all unawares to fight horrors beyond imagining.  The slender young woman in the camel pullover was still beautiful, but no longer a child, no longer fresh and innocent and unspoiled.  Death was her companion now; her eyes had seen too much of it, her hands had dealt too much of it, and now--why, God, why had he never killed Spike?  It would have been so easy!--she’d taken Death into her heart. The blazing joie de vivre she'd displayed at fifteen was no more; would he notice her at all?  Or would he pass by, his encounter with Buffy Summers nothing more than a moment of curiosity, quickly forgotten?

If he caught her eyes, perhaps he would pause a moment, still.  The fire had dimmed, but the coals still glowed, waiting only the right breath of wind to blaze up again, the more fiercely, perhaps, for having been banked.

Buffy gave him a look as he stood brooding by the potted ficus, a quick lift of the head--pleading, almost shy, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet as if at any moment she might run to him--or away.  She sought his eyes, apology in her own. "I didn't want you to find out like this," she said, quiet, sincere.  "I was going to tell you.  I was going to find the perfect words to explain it all, and tell you at the perfect time."  She essayed a small, hopeful smile.  "I haven't found the perfect words yet, but I'm pretty sure the perfect time is coming up in March, 2012."

Did she want him to accept this with no more cavil than he'd accepted Riley Finn?  As if it were right and healthy, just one more instance of how she'd gone on with her life?  "No time like the present.  Tell me how you could do this.  With Spike, of all--my God, Buffy!"  Anguish tightened round his heart like barbed wire; not dead enough to ward off this pain, not yet.  "Spike!  You know what he is!"  He strode towards her, towering over her (uncomfortable to do so; he’d grown used to looking Cordelia in the eye).  His hand went to her neck, fingers tracing the fading line of bruises.  "And you let him do this to you?"

Buffy stiffened at his touch.  She pulled down her collar on the other side, exposing the overlapping white scars--the marks of vampire’s fangs, two from enemies who’d wished her dead or defiled, the third...  "And I let you do this to me," she said.  Her voice was trembling, very slightly.  "What I let Spike do is my choice."

Self-recrimination sprang up in his breast like a weed no amount of reason could kill: he'd been dying, she'd provoked him, no vampire in creation could have shown any more control than he had under such circumstances... but all the rationalizations in the world couldn't change the fact that none of the bite marks on that fair neck belonged to Spike.  It was queerly jolting.  "He hasn't..."

Buffy smiled, a mischievous little feminine smile.  "Are you kidding?  He got offended when I brought it up, in a cute sort of punk-Victorian way.  I thought he'd want to... but biting me?  Not even on the radar for him.  Except for those play-bites that make you go all tingly and... OK, TMI.  Sorry."

Angel regarded the top of her head with bleak disapproval.  "You do realize that if you ever use the word 'cute' to describe any aspect of Spike again, I will have to kill both of you?"

She took a step closer and laid a hand on his arm, earnest entreaty in her gaze.  "I'm sorry.  I don't want to make this hard for you.  I really don't.  But I can't--I can't pretend he's not important to me.  I can't pretend he doesn't make me feel... whole."

"Whole?  Buffy..." Angel hesitated, closed his eyes.  She was still looking up at him when he opened them again, big solemn grey-green eyes searching his face, soft ripe lips parted ever so slightly... obscene, to think of their living human warmth pressed to Spike's chill dead flesh, as once they'd pressed to his.  "You're right, this is your choice.  But if this is the choice you're making, there's something wrong.  I was in a bad place last year.  The despair, the--I did some stupid things, things I regret.  I thought they'd make me feel better--I thought they'd make me feel, period.  But it only made things worse."  Her eyes were attentive, but blank; nothing he was saying was striking any chords.  He swallowed hard and forged on.  "This isn't you.  The Buffy Summers I know is a good person, a caring person.  You can't tell me that Buffy Summers is capable of falling in love with a thing that's killed tens of thousands of people and doesn't care--that a monster like Spike is what it takes to make you whole."

He'd struck a nerve; she flinched as if every word had barbs attached.  Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back.  “You don’t understand, you can’t--when I first came back... the whole world was grey, and flat, and so was I.  I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel bad, I didn’t feel anything.  At all.  Everything was just... nothing.  Except Spike.”  A shaky little laugh.  “The last month’s been my own personal vampire edition of  Pleasantville, minus the extra who looks freakily like an ex-boyfriend.”  She wrapped her arms around herself, and her voice fell to a whisper.  "Maybe I'm not the Buffy Summers you know.  Maybe Willow screwed up.  And if I'm not, what are you going to do about it?  Take me back and trade me in for next year's model?  I never asked to come back, but I'm here and you're stuck with me--this me.  And this me needs Spike.  Loves Spike."

Her voice steadied, and she repeated, "I love Spike," almost to herself--was this the first time she'd said these words aloud to anyone else?  "I know what Spike is.  He's killed more people than I can get my mind around.  Just like you."  Angel started to protest, but she cut him off.  "I know who he is, too.  He’s the one who sat with me when I found out Mom was sick.  He helped me fight Glory and risked his life for my sister and stuck around after I died and helped my friends.  He feeds me disgusting gooey nachos and cheats at poker and quotes Shakespeare and Johnny Rotten and watches my back and sort of repents of teaching my sister to shoplift."  Her head came up, and she looked him right in the eye; the light was back in hers.  "And he loves me.  Spike loves me, and knows it's impossible, and is willing to fight to make it work anyway.  He may be a monster, but he does a pretty good imitation of a man."

"And that's all it is.  An imitation.  He's not William."

She was angry, now, her gaze gone stormy. "No, he’s not.  I didn't fall in love with William.  I fell in love with the thing that killed him.  Do you think I forget that, ever?”

"Yeah, I do.  I was at your funeral.  I got the whole 'Spike's a good guy now, he loved Buffy, the chip's just as good as a soul' lecture from Dawn."  It had shocked him, Dawn's fierce defense of Spike, almost as much as the gaunt, limping, hollow-eyed specter Spike had been at the funeral.  "It's bullshit.  We both know it.  He's--"

"Here," Buffy said, as the DeSoto pulled up to the curb and Spike laid into the horn.  "Are you coming or not?"

"Buffy... I gave up everything we had so that you could have--" Something clean, something sunkissed and normal and good in your life.  If you had to throw your life away on a vampire, why couldn't it have been me?  But it was far too late to ask that question; he'd been the one to leave, after all--not just once, but at every turn when fate seemed determined to thrust them back together.  He had a destiny, after all, more important than his happiness, or hers.

Her eyes softened, storm turned to sea-mist, and for the first time in any of the fights they'd had over that decision, he saw pity in them rather than wounded betrayal.  His was not the only old wound which had begun to heal.  "Yes.  That's right.  You gave up everything we had.  And now we don't have it anymore.  Please, Angel--don't break what we've still got."  She turned and straight-armed the door, and after a moment Angel bowed his head and followed her out to the curb, to the place where sunlight and shadow met.

It wasn't a backup plan, Willow told herself, because she was going to come up with a miracle.  She was just exploring her options.  So far this option didn't look very promising.  She'd been down to the Department of Social Services building with her parents half a dozen times over the summer, to deal with assorted Dawn problems, so she hadn't exactly expected marble halls and augustly bearded Viennese doctors selflessly toiling away on behalf of the indigent in libraries that made Giles's look like the Scholastic Reader Book Bus, but she hadn't expected quite so many roaches, either.

The balding, shirt-sleeved man across the desk from her smacked a dog-eared Ellery Queen paperback down on their visitor, inspected the corpse for a moment and flicked it into the trash can.  "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Rosenberg.  Aaron Gustavsen.”  He offered her a large flabby hand and Willow shook it gingerly.  Gustavsen sat back in his chair and rubbed his brow. “Sorry.  It’s like the Apocalypse in here.”

“It can’t--oh.” A squeaky nervous laugh died on her lips.  “Figure of speech, right?  Because the whole plagues-of-Egypt motif?”

“Might as well be the end of the world--they've been tearing up the sewer lines over on Alpert, and the damned things have been coming up through the drains in the bathroom.  We're supposed to be getting an exterminator in Wednesday."  He pursed his lips.  "You said you were concerned about a group of homeless people squatting on city land?”

Willow nodded.  “Concerned.  Very.  But not in a call the police way--I want to know what can be done to un-homeless them.  And I think a lot of them aren’t all there.”

“How many did you say there were?"

"I'm not totally certain.  Maybe eight?  Or... fifteen?"  Willow made an apologetic gesture.  "I'm sure there's not more than twenty.  But they're all living in the dump, which can't be sanitary, and, you know, winter's coming and I know we’re not on the Russian Front or anything, but it gets nippy.  I'm worried about them.  So I wanted to see if I could do anything helpful, because that's me, always helpful."

Gustavsen gave a noncommital grunt and began shuffling through the mass of papers on his desk--case histories, forms, menus from The Pizza Guys.  "Let's see.  First of all, you'd have to--are you related to any of them?  No?  We’d need to send a caseworker to make contact with them, convince them to come into the Center on their own, and sign up for one of the transitional programs.  That would be difficult.  Once that's squared away, you can get them into the Grapevine Clinic for diagnosis and prescription meds, with followup to make sure they're taking them, get them into a halfway house and employment assistance program..."

Willow brightened.  That didn't sound too hard. "Well--that's great!  How long will that take?  Can we do it tomorrow?  I can take you right there, and we can round them all up!"

He stared at her for a minute, then laughed--not unkindly, but as if her enthusiasm pained him.  "First of all, we'd have to assign a caseworker, and we're so understaffed right now it's not funny.  Two weeks, if we’re lucky. Then we'd need to make sure there's room for more people in any of the programs.  What with the energy crisis last summer and the state's budget hemorrhaging to death, our DMH and PATH grants have been cut to the bone."  He looked up from his papers and handed her a California Department of Mental Health pamphlet.  "Three to six months, assuming no more budget cuts.  They're good programs, when we can afford them."

Willow stared at the pamphlet. Helping the Homeless Help Themselves! it said, with a happy little picture of a kindly volunteer leaning over the shoulder of a sweet old woman who looked way more together than any of the bag ladies of Willow's acquaintance.  "Six months?  That's..."

"What we have to deal with."  A note of sympathy entered his voice. "The other option is to get yourself appointed the legal guardian of the person you’re concerned about, with power of attorney.  Assuming the court granted your petition, then you could have them committed to the state mental hospital.  Though they’re so full I don’t think you could keep them there very long; they’d have to go out-patient, and someone would still need to see that they kept taking their meds... And you'd have to go through this process individually for each one of them.  Believe me, I wish we could just wave a magic wand and help everyone immediately, but it can't be done."  He smiled wryly.  "About all we could do in the timeframe you're suggesting is call the police and have them kick them out of the dump and maybe arrest them for squatting."

"I--I see.  That's not really what I had in mind."  Willow got up and turned to leave, dejection in every limb of her body.  Halfway to the door she turned and rushed back.  "Isn't there any way to speed things up?"

He smiled--wistful, almost--and wasn't that weird and disturbing in a pudgy middle-aged bureaucrat?  "There's corners you can cut here and there, but three months is the best you could hope for.  If you want me to put your name on the waiting list for the Sunnydale Community Outreach, that's the most comprehensive--"

"Thanks, but I've got to--this is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.  Talk.  I've got to talk.  To people--uh, relatives.  And--thanks for the pamphlet."

She waved the little slip of paper at him, feeling like an idiot, and beat a hasty retreat out the door of the cramped little office before she could make a more elaborate and detailed idiot of herself--something involving tinfoil hats, maybe. 

“Ms. Rosenberg!” Gustavsen called after her.  Willow turned to see him standing in the doorway of his office, his scalp pink with exertion.  “Some advice--don’t try to deal with this on your own.  I know it’s heartbreaking--believe me, I know--but you can do more harm than good, especially if some of these men are mentally ill.  If you want to help, volunteer at the Salvation Army or the Battered Women’s Shelter, or someplace where you can learn the ropes.  Please.”

Willow nodded, her eyes falling to the toes of her Birkenstocks.  “I understand.”  She turned once more and scuffed down the corridor with her book bag bumping along behind her, discouraged.  She'd missed lunch to come downtown, she hadn't accomplished a thing, and--she glanced at the clock over the deserted receptionist's desk in the lobby--she was going to be late getting back to campus for her biology class if she didn't hurry.  "Wave a magic wand," she muttered.  "Yeah.  Right."  She shouldered her bag and blinked as she walked out into the bright December sunlight.  The book bag thumped against her back as she trudged down the sidewalk, one sharp corner digging into her shoulder blades with every step.  Poke, poke, poke.  A reminder of what the bag contained, down under Social Construction of Reality   and Jansen’s History of Art . 

In the end it all comes down to what price you’re willing to pay to get what you want, doesn’t it?  You were wiling to give up your soul to get your friend back.  Or so you claimed at the time.  How much are you willing to give up to redeem a dozen lives?

She left the DMH building and walked across the dry lawns, past the cooing flocks of slate-colored pigeons with iridescent necks that congregated around the little hotdog carts which catered to Sunnydale’s population of civil servants.  There was the Municipal Court building, and Parks and Recreation, poured-concrete monstrosities dating from the ‘50s.  Willow stopped at the fountain in the center of the square; the fountain itself was turned off, but the pool still held water, along with a selection of dead leaves and a scattering of verdigris-encrusted pennies.   There was City Hall, with the Mayor’s office front and center, where Buffy’d had to rescue her from the late Mayor Wilkins.  She tried to remember who the Mayor of Sunnydale was these days, and failed.  The Right Honorable Not-A-Wilkins.  She gazed down at her wavery reflection in the water.  She didn’t have any change to make wishes on.

Her reflection smirked up at her.  Is there anyplace in Sunnydale where you haven’t been kidnaped and held captive at one point or another?

“Shut up.  Shut up!  Do you think I’m stupid?” Willow shouted, causing several pigeons to flutter away in alarm.  She dropped the book bag on the rim of the fountain with a thump and slapped the water with her open palm, sending droplets flying and breaking the face beneath her into a thousand crazy shards.  “I know what you’re doing!  I know what you’re trying to get me to do!”

A silent laugh echoed through her head.  Do you, clever Wicca?  No more games.  No more illusions.  Just the voice.  Cold and smooth and dark, like deep water, like liquid obsidian.  Then the only question before us is, are you going to do it?

    Over the last six years Buffy Summers had developed a very firm set of rules concerning vampires, and kept them constantly in mind when dealing with Spike.

1.  All vampires are to be staked, immediately.
2.  There will be absolutely no flirting, taunting, or barbed sexual innuendo exchanged between Slayers and chipped, helpless vampires who are not staked out of misplaced pity and consideration of previous world-saving assistance.
3.  Flirting, taunting, and barbed sexual innuendo between Slayers and helpless chipped vampires will never, ever lead to furtive contemplation of what big hands he's got, Grandma, or to sweaty, naughty thoughts about the implications thereof.
4.  Sweaty, naughty thoughts about helpless chipped vampires will not lead to embarrassing over-reaction when one discovers said vampire harbors similar thoughts about Slayer, at least until vampire makes tactical error of chaining one to wall and threatening to sic ravenous ex-girlfriend on one, thus justifying over-reaction.
5.  Slayers will never, ever forgive vampires for stupid chaining-to-wall stunt, regardless of degree of heroic suffering endured by said vampire for  self and sister at hands of excessively bitchy hell-goddess.
6.  Having forgiven vampire, Slayers will never be so silly as to re-invite said vampire into her home.  Having re-invited vampire into home, will not give slightest hint of encouragement to said vampire's heart-melting declaration of devotion.
7.  Slayers will never use dying and returning to life as excuse for hanging out with morally deficient vampire half responsible for resurrection, no matter how impressed she may be at younger sister's tales of what vampire did on his summer vacation.
8.  Hanging out with morally deficient vampire will be on purely platonic, business level only.  There will be no flirting, taunting, or barbed sexual innuendo (see Rule #2); neither will there be any undue appreciation of vampire's wit, fighting ability, supermodel-grade cheekbones, muscular yet compact build, et. al.  Arguments and the occasional fistfight are not to be considered expressions of sublimated passion.
9.  Having succumbed to sublimated passion, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to fall in love with morally deficient vampire.  Having fallen in love with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to tell him so.  Having confessed love to morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to attempt actual relationship.
10.  In hammering out relationship with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never engineer a weekend involving said vampire, previous vampire boyfriend, father, and father's vampire-phobic girlfriend.  It cannot end well.

She was still working on Number Eleven, which would involve Slayers never driving long distances in the same car with current and former vampire boyfriends.  It wanted polishing.

They were tooling down Highway 91 towards Corona as fast as the law allowed or a little faster, the mid-morning sunlight striking a galaxy of miniature rainbows off the DeSoto’s grease-clouded windshield.  Spike was wearing a pair of welder’s goggles to protect his eyes from the sun--in conjunction with the black leather duster, they made him resemble a demented World War I ace. “‘....rock all night, sleep all day, it don’t matter what they say...’” Spike jounced up and down in the driver’s seat in time to the music, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.  He took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke, trailing the butt out the window. “Fuck, I love this song!”

“Is that what it is?” 

“Oh, you love it too, baby!  Better than that Chieftains bollocks, innit?  Lights a fire under you!”

“It’s gonna light a fire all over you if you don’t roll up the damn window.” Angel slouched further down in the back seat.  “On second thought, go right ahead and leave it down.  And what’s wrong with the Chieftains?”

“Nothing, if your idea of good music begins and ends with ‘Danny Boy.’”  Spike pulled his arm back in just before his hand began to smoulder, his manic grin never wavering.  “Have to roll the window down if I’m going to have a smoke around you health nuts, don’t I?” 

“Let’s not make that literal, hm?”  Buffy opened the glove compartment and pulled the Triple A map from the mess of repair receipts, broken tire gauges, and general crud, unfolded it and re-traced their route for the dozenth time.  “It’s the second exit, right?”

“Love, it’s twenty miles yet.”

“Right.  Twenty miles.  Ceasing to panic.”  Buffy started to re-fold the map.  “Not that I’m panicking.  Large with Zen-like calm, here.”  She regarded the abstract origami sculpture in her lap with dismay, gave up and stuffed the map back into the glove compartment in ignominious defeat.  Spike looked at her, cigarette cocked at a jaunty angle in one corner of his mouth, and it was like fighting the magnetic pull of the earth not to scoot across the expanse of sun-warmed black leather between them and take refuge against his side, ridiculous goggles and all.  That would upset Angel.  On the other hand, wasn’t it unfair to Spike to act based on what would upset Angel?  On the third hand, Angel was doing them a favor and it would be tacky to rub his nose in her new relationship.  On the fourth hand...

...on the fourth hand she was headed to see Faith and her stomach was tying itself in knots--not weenie little granny knots, either, good solid double-hitches--and after days of planning she still had no idea what she was going to say.  Spike’s leather-clad arm slid round her shoulders, and he snugged her up against his lithely-muscled torso (when had she crossed the seat?) as if they’d been machined for one another, interlocking Buffy n’ Spike action figures, stakes sold separately.  The discordant twinging of her Slayer senses mellowed into Mmmmmmm, Spike , the tense knot between her shoulder blades eased up, and she felt a faint hope that she could engage Faith in civil conversation for five minutes before resorting to communication via blunt instrument.  Next on Oprah: Vampire Valium--Moral Support or Co-Dependant Wackiness?  You Decide!

But whichever it was, it worked, and if the fact that Spike slacked off on baiting Angel for the remainder of the trip meant anything, at least she wasn’t the only one jonesing for a PDA fix. 

There was covered parking, or close enough for government work; no one caught fire on the way to the door.  There was an hour-long delay while they signed in, were searched, and cooled their collective heels waiting for a private booth to open up.  There were a dozen other people in the waiting room with them, including a few fretful children, so discussing what they’d come for was problematic.  Every now and then a man with a clipboard popped out of a door, called out a name, and disappeared, apparently terrified of seeing his own shadow and causing six more weeks of incarceration.  The lucky winner would get up, collect their children or CARE packages of cigarettes and toiletries, and file out through the same door. 

Buffy perched on the edge of the bench, one hand fiddling with the cool silver weight of the ring on the chain around her neck.  Spike was sliding progressively lower on his tailbone beside her, eyes closed, one hand thrust into his belt and his booted feet obstructing as much of the aisle in front of him as he could manage.  Angel occupied the chair opposite, watching the two of them with folded arms and a melancholy frown. 

A pair of guards marched by in the hall outside, escorting a sullen woman with short-cropped hair and an expression of dull resignation.  Buffy watched them disappear down the corridor, feeling twitchy.  The atmosphere was oppressive--the guards, the stark institutional rooms, the impersonal humiliation of the routine.   Hello, prison!  Duh!  She’d wanted Faith here.  Scratch that, she’d wanted Faith beaten to a bloody pulp, suffering every second of misery she’d put Buffy through tenfold, but prison was the right thing to do, so she’d settled.  Or so she’d thought.  Stalag 17 this wasn’t, but...   Buffy tilted her head in Spike’s direction and whispered, “So if you did something awful, which punishment would you pick--get beaten up, or do ten years?”

“What d’y’mean, if?”  Spike opened one eye.  “Getting off scott free’s not an option, then?  Beating.  Lock me up and I’d go starkers inside a week.”

“Total agreement.  I mean, it hurts, but then it’s over.  Does that say something about us?”

“We’re not just masochists, we’re impatient masochists?”

“I am strangely not comforted.”

Mr. Clipboard did the human cuckoo-clock routine again.  “Summers?”

Buffy got to her feet, all the knots in her stomach untying at once, releasing a flock of mutant killer butterflies.  Angel looked up.  “You want me to go in with you?”  Buffy nodded, and he rose silently to his feet.  Spike didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to; that he’d watch her back was a given.  Her hand found his and hung on tightly as the three of them followed their guide out the door and into the large hall where the line of glass-divided booths stretched from one end to the other. 

Buffy watched as they brought Faith into the cubicle, two big guards with crew-cuts and hands the size of Easter hams.  Buffy wondered idly how long it would take Faith to turn them into cold cuts if the mood took her, and if Faith would enjoy doing it.  Faith of the long dark tresses and heavy-lidded eyes, the face of a street-worn Madonna and the mouth of a Long Island dockworker, stood there while the guards uncuffed her hands, trying for nonchalant and mostly succeeding.  Buffy pulled out the chair on her side of the barrier--it was the same kind of chair they’d had in her elementary school, bright blue plastic seat and all--and sat down.  On her side of the glass Faith did the same.  Slayers, dark and light.  Worlds apart.  Or maybe, these days, not so much.

As the guards left them, Faith ran the palms of her hands down the tails of her blue denim prison shirt, licked her lips.  Nervous.  Faith.  Dark eyes flicked past Buffy’s shoulder to the two vampires in the background, doing their own little yin-yang thing--Angel loomed, Spike lounged.  She looked to Angel first, seeking reassurance, then to Spike, full of questions.  “So.  B.  You building a harem, or what?”  She pressed her hand to the bridge of her nose, grimacing.  “That was so not the first thing I planned on saying.”

“You had a first thing planned?  One up on me.”  Oh, this was going well.  Maybe she should just launch herself at the glass screaming now and avoid the rush.  Spike’s hand drifted over to rest on her shoulder, cool and solid, an anchor to a world where she wasn’t Psycho-Bitca Buffy. Pause, rewind.

Angel stirred.  “Faith, this is Spike.  He’s...”  He stopped, struggled with it for awhile, and shrugged.  “Present, for reasons beyond me.”

Spike smirked and gave Faith a little wave.  “We’ve met.”

Faith peered out at him from between her fingers.  “Figured that out, huh?”

“Yeh.”  His smirk intensified.  “Lost your chance for that confrontation  I promised you, though.  I’m taken.”

“Let’s just embrace the weirdness and move on, shall we?”  Buffy interrupted.  Temper-holding exercise #1: Count the nose-smudges on the barrier between her and Faith. My, what high-quality plexiglass.  “I think the Council of Watchers is going to contact you soon, if they haven’t already.  I think they’re going to ask for your help and offer to get you out of here.  And I--” The words caught in her throat, “I’m asking you to turn them down.”

Faith braced one foot against the counter and rocked back in her chair, a frown twisting her brows.  “Turn ‘em down?”

“With a rousing chorus of ‘Look For the Union Label.’  We’re on strike.  I’m trying to get us paid.  I know you hate me and I’m not too fond of you, but--”

“Fuck, B., I don’t hate you.  I--”

“No!”  Buffy cut her off with a sharp, one-handed chop.  “Don’t.  Don’t tell me you’re sorry.  There’s not enough sorry in the world.  Just... do this thing for me, and...” Think about bills.  Think about Dawn.  Think about Dawn’s tuition. “...we’re even.”

Faith studied her, pinching her lower lip between thumb and forefinger. When she spoke her voice was quiet, serious.  “I’m copacetic, B.  I owe you.  But... not exactly the Council’s poster girl for good behavior, here.  What makes you think they’ll hit me up?”

Buffy shrugged.  “Because with me out of the picture--not patrolling, not making with the world saveage--you’re the only game in town.  And the Slayer line’s through you, now.  If the Council wants a Slayer, they need you.  Or they need you dead.”

“Think they’d croak me?”  Faith’s tone held mild curiosity, no more.  “Well, hell, even if I wanted out of this pit ahead of schedule I wouldn’t kiss their mildewed British asses to do it.  I didn’t get tried as an adult for nothin’.  And if they want me dead...” She licked her lips again, and this time it wasn’t a nervous gesture at all.  “I could use a workout.  What?”

“Nothing.  You just... remind me of someone all of a sudden.  There’s one more thing.” 

Buffy glanced over her shoulder, catching Spike’s eye.  His scarred brow lifted fractionally; she nodded just as fractionally, and Spike heaved himself off the cubicle wall he’d been supporting and shoved his hands in his duster pockets.  “Come on, Peaches, we’re wanted elsewhere.”

Angel looked to Buffy for confirmation--what, hadn’t he seen her explain it to Spike?  Obviously not onboard the non-verbal Slayer/vampire bandwagon.  “I’d like to talk to Faith privately.”  Angel gave Faith a small encouraging smile and reluctantly followed Spike out of the booth.  Buffy took a deep breath and turned back to her erstwhile nemesis.  Faith looked a little older, a little more tired-- don’t we all?--but solider, somehow, as if the whirlwind of rage and loss within her had spun itself roots.  “So, you’re looking very... rehabilitated.”

“Yeah, I’m rehabilitated as all hell.  If I’m a real good girl they’ll let me off the Group W bench next year.”  Faith kicked back in her chair and began winding one of her long dark locks around her index finger.  The shadow of her old sly grin flitted across her face.  “You look like you’re getting laid well and often.  I almost didn’t recognize you without the pole up your ass.  You and Soldier Boy still going at it?”

The mention didn’t hurt nearly as much as she thought it would.  Of course, Faith wouldn’t be up on the latest episodes of The Many Loves of Buffy Summers.  “Riley and I broke up last year.  His unit got... reassigned.”

“So who’s the lucky--fuckin’ A!”  Faith dropped her chair back on all fours with a crash and slapped a palm on the counter before her, the shadow-grin metamorphosing into the old lunatic glee.  “B.!  You vamp-lovin’ she-dog, you!  It’s short, blond, and lickable, isn’t it?”

Buffy buried her face in her hands with an embarrassed little wail and looked up, fixing Faith with huge stricken eyes.  “Is it that obvious?  Am I walking around with ‘Spike’s Lust-Puppy’ stamped on my forehead? ”

Faith snickered.  “Something like.  I never figured you for the kind to take that particular walk on the wild side, but the vibe you two got going is something else.  You better watch out, B., or you might start enjoying life.”

Despite herself, Buffy smiled.  “You laugh, but the possibility’s a constant threat to my peace of mind these days.”  You are not having a conversation with Faith.  Stop it, right this minute.  “There is something else I need to tell you about.  When Giles talked to the head of the Council about the money sitch, part of the song and dance Travers gave him was a lot of hints about Slayers of a certain age going wonky somehow.  For what it’s worth.”

Faith snorted.  “Oh, yeah, I fear that.  Been there, done that, got the commemorative margarita glass.”

Buffy began playing with the ring again.  “So true--I don’t know how they’d tell with you.  But--to channel Cordelia for a minute--it may be to your advantage that you’re kind of a whack-job.  I don’t trust the Council any farther than I could punt City Hall, but I’ve got... outside evidence that they may be right.”  She laced her fingers together on the countertop to still the tremor in them.   “When we... when you first came to Sunnydale, you got me to touch it.  The power.  Whatever’s inside of us.  But then--well, it made you crazy, giving in to it.  Can’t be of the good.”

“I was fucked up long before I got Called, B.”  Faith shrugged.  “Can’t blame everything on the Slayer mojo.”

“Yeah, well, after that I thought I could put slaying in a neat little box.  Just what I do, not what I am.  Riley thought that was the way to go, too.  Then two years ago we had to perform a spell to tap the power of the First Slayer to defeat the baddie of the month.  Whatever it was we touched, it was old, and it was strong, and it had a really nasty temper and a permanent bad hair day.  I channeled it.  Ever since then, I’ve been...”  She clasped her hands together, hard enough to leave white marks on the skin.  “I don’t want to say different.  This stuff was always there.  That’s what’s scary about it.  It just keeps coming closer and closer to the surface.”   Leaving Riley asleep in their bed, oblivious, while she roamed unsatisfied through the night, hunting, searching, for--  “When I slay--”  Deep, trembling breath of confession; what she could not admit to Spike, even though he already knew the truth of it, what she feared to admit to Giles, what she had barely begun to admit to herself--she could admit to Faith, who was also a Slayer, who had swum these same dark currents, navigated the same riptides of the soul.  “I enjoy it.”

For once Faith’s face was unreadable.  “I told you a long time ago, if you don’t you’re in the wrong line of business.”

Spike’s voice, sandpaper and honey, over the rush and whine of traffic: Christ, love, I hope you enjoy it!  But Spike was a vampire, her opposite, her prey , just as she was his, and she couldn’t quite trust--not yet--that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander.  “Since I got back...”  She stopped, her throat aching.  “Since I got back, we go out patrolling, Spike and I--no.  We hunt.  We find vampires and demons and things that go bump in the night, and when we fight--it’s like we’re this, this force, this--the rush is incredible.  I love it.  And since we--I feel him, all the time.  I can’t keep my hands off him.  We come back to his crypt or my house and pig out on everything in sight or make love for hours.  Or both.  I’m sleeping better than I have in years.  I think I’ve gained three pounds.  I.  Feel.  Fantastic.

“And it’s wrong,” she finished quietly.  “I know it’s wrong.  I know there’s a chance that it the chip ever breaks down Spike’s not going to be able to control himself.  He’s trying, and I’ll help him any way I can.  But he’s a vampire, a demon, and he... if Spike falls off the wagon, people die.  I shouldn’t be taking the risk.”

Faith frowned.  “So you’re, what, all guilty over this thing with Spike?  And you think that’s the wonkiness Travers was jawing about?”

Buffy shook her head.  “No.  The wonkiness is that I am taking the risk.  I want  to take the risk.  Angel told me I shouldn’t need a monster like Spike to make me feel whole, but... I think I do.  I think maybe...these things I’m feeling... I’m kind of a monster too.  There’s something wrong with me, or I wouldn’t--I wouldn’t be this happy.  And I like it.  If I’m wrong I want to stay that way.”  She met Faith’s eyes, her own level and sad.  “I love him.  And someday, I may have to kill him.  I’m afraid that if I--if I get more wrong, I won’t be able to do it--not fast enough.  I might even... someone might have to go through me to do it.  You’re probably the only one who could do it.  That’s why I’m telling you this.”

For a long minute Faith sat there, staring at Buffy with bemused sloe-dark eyes.  Then she began to laugh, and in another breath she was doubled over, clutching her stomach with both hands and howling with mirth.  Buffy stared at her, eyes narrowed and lips pressed even narrower, unable to decide if Faith’s Cheez Whiz had slipped completely off her cracker or if she were just really, really annoying.  “I’m so glad my slow descent into moral quicksand is amusing.”

“Oh, B.,” Faith gasped, sitting up and wiping her eyes.  “I’m sorry, but you’re so damned funny, sitting there with your trembly lip and your Brave Little Toaster face on!  You think you’re goin’ over to the dark side, and your first move as a rogue Slayer is setting yourself up to get spanked if you get too naughty!  Buffy Summers, the world’s most goody-two-shoes villain!”

“It sounded a lot more dramatic the way I put it,” Buffy muttered.  She sucked in her lower lip.  It is so not trembly.

“B., if it makes you feel better, if the day comes you can’t keep sweet William in line, I'll do it.”  Faith chuckled.  “I owe him a confrontation.  But don’t sell yourself short.  You’re still the top bitch around here, you know?  And hey, I’m glad you’ve got something good goin’.”  She leaned forward, forearms crossed on the counter.  “He is good, I hope?”

The corner of Buffy’s mouth twitched.  “No.  He’s not good.  Yet.  But he’s getting better.”  She got up and started to leave, then halted and came back with a little hip-twitch in her walk.  She leaned forward over the counter, resting her weight on her fists and lowering her voice to a throaty, eat-your-heart-out purr.  “And the way you’re talking about?”  She straightened with a smug little grin, and gave Faith the same little finger-wave Spike had earlier.  “Don’t you wish you knew?  See ya, F.”

Part 17

Part 19