The lullaby nagged at him. It had dragged him down to a place where there was nothing left of him, where even his demon had no mind, and he tried like hell not to remember it. It ached in the back of his head. Early one morning. It’s broad day. No one’s singing.

    The girls gave him dark and suspicious looks as Buffy led him back through the house. He could tell they all thought he should still be chained up – if not dusted. Buffy stopped to check on Dawn. “You okay?” Buffy asked, sitting down beside her on the sofa.

    “I don’t know. You tell me,” Dawn said. She sounded very annoyed.

    “Hey, niblet,” Spike said, leaning in the doorframe. “Sorry ‘bout the noggin.”

    “I know,” Dawn said, cold.

    Dawn. Just as the sun was rising. There was a time Dawn had been his best friend. They’d played together and laughed together and wept together. Now she barely looked at him, and never spoke to him kindly. It raked at him. Spike patted the edge of the doorframe a couple times in frustration, and looked around for a way to escape. There was no way out. Blocked by sunlight on all sides, scowled at by potential slayers in every room, Dawn’s bruised and blooded forehead punctuating her icy glare. Giles and the wretched principal were lurking in his basement, and would demand answers he didn’t have if he came back down. He felt at a loss. Finally he pounded off to the kitchen, which was only populated by Andrew. Idiot he may have been, but at least it wasn’t more of these bloody women and their bloody expectations that Spike suddenly become something he wasn’t. He’d already done that, and look where it had gotten him; in pain, insane, in thrall, and still unloved.

    He looked in the cupboard for the onion chips he’d stashed behind the lentils. They didn’t seem to be there. He looked more carefully, shunting cereal boxes and tin cans aside. He knew without asking that one of the girls had found them and eaten them – the only food in the house that was sacrosanct was his pig’s blood, and that was only because no one else was a vampire. He couldn’t accept it, though. His annoyance was raging right at the edge of his teeth, and he cursed as he knocked food out of the cupboard and onto the counter.

    Andrew had slunk to the far side of the kitchen, far away from the annoyed vampire, his hands clenched in his apron. “Is nothing sacred in this place?” Spike raged. “Have you seen my funyons?”

    “N-no,” Andrew stammered.

    Spike growled and knocked some of Andrew’s baking pans off the counter. The sound of crashing metal clattered through the house.

    “Spike!”

    Spike sighed, annoyed, and turned to face Buffy. She’d followed the sounds of irate destruction. “What?”

    “Calm down.”

    “I’m just peckish, I’m looking for my crisps!” he snapped. He couldn’t stop the anger. “One of your junior slayer cadets nicked ‘em.”

    “That’s no call to destroy the rest of the kitchen!” Buffy snapped. “Come on.”

    Growling under his breath, Spike followed Buffy up the stairs, unable to miss the scowl Dawn threw at him as Buffy went off with him, instead of tending more to her. They made it to the upstairs hall, and Buffy stopped and looked at him. “What?” Spike asked.

    Buffy hit him, hard, in the nose. He responded automatically, lashing out with a palm strike, which she blocked, and followed up with an elbow to his ribs. He hit her on the chin, she sideswiped him back, and he knuckled her in the solar plexus. She staggered back, he pursued, and she kneed him in the stomach. He bent double, grabbed her, and twisted her backward, trying to hold her arms tight enough that she couldn’t elbow him down. “What was that for?” he growled.

    “Feel better?” she asked.

    He looked down at her, his arm around her torso, her body close against his, his blood up with violent fury. It was a lot better than how he’d felt two minutes ago. He sighed. “Yeah,” he admitted.

    He let her go in defeat, and she shook her head. “Come on,” she said. She showed him into her bedroom and he sank into a chair. He bent over and grabbed the back of his head, scratching at his neck. His head ached after having that thing in it. Oh, don’t deceive me. He made himself think of something else.

    Buffy was not going to let him forget. She sat on her bed and gazed at him. “So, you wanna tell me what really happened down there?”

    “Nothing,” he said, annoyed, “it was just stuff. Memories. Nothing important.”

    “Nothing important doesn’t usually make your hands shake,” Buffy said softly.

    He looked away.

    “Look, it’s okay. Giles wants everything to happen his way, on his schedule. It’ll take time. You just need to let it happen.”

    “Then you do it,” Spike snapped. “Better yet, let him do it. I let him stick that thing in my head, I think I was being more than reasonable. Open up my brain like a bleeding monkey in front of everyone. I mean, I’m not your sodding lap dog! Go here, stand there, take this. It’s not like I ever get anything out of it.”

    “You’ll be free,” Buffy said quietly.

    The words sounded so sweet to him, and he knew they were nonsense. “I’ll never be free,” he growled. Buffy gazed at him, her eyes so deep, the way she looked at him could always strip him bare, and it always hurt so much. He rubbed his arms, his thoughts distant and shaken, scattered again, as they were when he first got back. “I’m cold.”

    “I thought vampires couldn’t really feel cold,” Buffy said.

    “That’s why I’m cold,” he said. “I’m always gonna be cold.” He stood up and paced a few steps back and forth on her carpet. “I’ve lived for sodding ever, Buffy, most of these memories are just....” He stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t wanna do this.”

    “That’s why you have to,” she said quietly. “That’s why the First was able to catch you.”

    He turned away, his head cocked, trying to squeeze all the memories back where he didn’t have to feel them.

    Buffy stood up and went to him. “What don’t you want to remember?” she asked. “Being human?”

    He would not look at her face. He turned his head the other way.

    “Everything you’ve let slip about it,” Buffy said. “It sounded lonely.”

    “It wasn’t,” he said. “I was just shy, there were... people. I wasn’t alone, I just...” he cut himself off with a sigh. “I don’t wanna do this.”

    As softly as the rising dawn, Buffy stepped forward and took hold of his arms, one step away from a full embrace. Oh, please, don’t do this, he thought. Her heat was the warm parlor fire at his old home, her scent was the gentle smell of furniture polish and tansy, the sound of her heart was the sound of his mother’s knitting needles, and he didn’t want to go back there again. Oh, never leave me. He did not embrace her back. He stood and trembled against the memory, grunting as if in pain.

    She looked up at him. “Spike,” she said. She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “William–”

   “Don’t!” he begged, knocking her hand back. He pulled away across the room, pacing again, clutching at his head, as agitated and uncontrolled as he’d felt in the school basement. “Don’t do this, don’t do this, please, don’t do this.”

    “Then what do you want to do instead?” Buffy asked.

    That brought him out of it. “What?”

    “You don’t want to think about it, what do you want?”

    What did he want? He stared at her in shock, as he asked himself the question, as the question asked him. Then to his horror, he suddenly sobbed. There was no warning to it; as far as he could see, there was no reason for it, but something broke in him, and he couldn’t stop it. Choking back the noise of it, he sank onto the edge of Buffy’s bed, but he wasn’t able to stop the flow of tears. He held his hands to his eyes as if he could dam the tide, and hated himself for letting it happen in front of Buffy, no less. She sat down beside him and placed her hand on his knee. After a long minute of letting him cry, Buffy asked softly, “What is it?”

    He almost said he didn’t know, but the moment she asked, he did. It didn’t make sense, it was blood long under the bridge, but he knew why. He laughed with the absurdity of it. After a hundred and twenty-some years, it really shouldn’t matter. “Oh, god, Buffy, I’m dead.” He wiped at his eyes. “I’m dead. She murdered me, I’m long dead.” He chuckled. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now. It never mattered before.”

    Buffy squeezed his knee lightly. “Did the demon ever grieve?”

    “God, no,” he said. “He was thrilled. I was thrilled, I was so pleased. So powerful. For the first time ever.” He shook his head. “Drusilla.” He could almost feel the memory of her weighing him down, draining him. “She was so beautiful,” he said, his eyes a hundred years distant. “Seductive. Unearthly. She was like an angel. I’d never been wanted like that before. It was like... I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

    “Like something had twisted the world?” Buffy asked. “Like suddenly you were everything in someone’s eyes and you’d already been half devoured even before she touched you? Like you were falling... and you wanted to fall, and trying to keep standing and climb up was the hardest thing ever. Like you wanted to be taken.” Her voice had gone quiet by the end, and he gazed at her.

    “How do you know...?” he whispered.

    She smiled, looking a little embarrassed. “Spike,” she said, not looking at him. “I know.” She glanced up at him, her eyes almost flirtatious, before she looked back down.

    “Oh,” he said, as he realized she did know what a vampire could do to someone. He felt both flattered and ashamed. He hadn’t realized it was quite the same thing. Not with her, at least.

    “She seduced you?” Buffy asked.

    “Nothing so simple,” he said. “I wasn’t one to be seduced by some trull in a livery stable, there was more to it. Bewitched, maybe. There was no spell, no specific magic, it was just... like a dream. Like the world was changing, like I was changing, just looking at her. And it happened so fast. I was frightened, and then I was... lost. She got me to say I wanted it. She made it my decision... my fault.”

    “Did you know what she meant?”

    “Not really,” he said. “But I remember I wanted it. But then she made it hurt so badly. She didn’t have to. There are ways to make it gentle, but she made me scream. She liked to hurt me... until I liked to hurt.” He put his hand over his eyes again. “I don’t want to think about this.”

    But Buffy was relentless. “What did she take from you?”

    He stared into nothingness. “My blood,” he said. “My life. My peace.” He closed his eyes. “She took my poetry,” he said softly. “She took my soul.” He fought the grief back, squaring his shoulders. “She gave me so much, strength, freedom, eternit–”

    “You know all that,” Buffy said. “You’ve been that. What did you lose?”

    He paused. “Everything,” he finally said. His head sank.

    “William,” Buffy said softly. She turned his head and made him look at her. “Could it be... that you need to let yourself mourn?”

    He felt at a loss. “I don’t know how.”

    “Well,” she said. “You can feel it now, can’t you? As the loss it was?” He closed his eyes, a sustained cringe of agony. “I can see by your face that you can. Just let yourself feel it,” she said, unaware that he’d used the same words on her – for a very different purposes. “For once, just for a while... let yourself be sorry for him. For the victim you were.” He looked away, not knowing what to do. “I see him, sometimes, you know,” Buffy admitted. “When you’re asleep. Or when you’re sad. I saw him the night I came back to life. Wonder... or lightness. Those can bring him up.” She looked away, a slight blush in her cheeks. “I used to see him sometimes when you touched me. Those... brief moments when you couldn’t believe I was letting you.” She shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. “I’ve mourned him. When you were at your worst... and while you were gone.” She swallowed. “He was an innocent man.”

    “He’s been dead a very long time,” Spike said. “If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. I can’t regret...”

    “You don’t have to regret,” Buffy said. “Did you regret knowing me when I died? I mean you are who and what you are, there’s no wishing that away. But... I don’t regret my mother. There was nothing anyone could have done differently. I still mourn her.”

    Spike cringed when she mentioned her mother – there was still something that ached that he didn’t want to remember.

    “You say you’re haunted by all the... things you’ve done,” Buffy went on. “Can’t you let yourself mourn this, too?”

    “Just another innocent victim?” he asked. “It’s a lie. I wasn’t so innocent. I said yes.” He shook his head. “God, yes.”

    “Did she really tell you anything sensible?” Buffy asked with scorn.

    They both knew Drusilla. They both knew better. He looked down. “It hurts,” he said. “I’ve spent a century thinking it my choice.”

    “No one wants to be a victim,” Buffy said. “It’s easier to pretend it was all your fault. Believe me, I know. But you’ve faced torture. Many times. Is this really worse?”

    “It’s closer,” he said. “That was only flesh. I don’t know if I can....”    

    “I think you already are,” Buffy said. “You wouldn’t have told me if you weren’t.” She gazed at him. “Am I right?”

    His head sank. “You’re not wrong,” he said finally.

    For a long moment they sat, side by side, both of them silently mourning the death of an English poet more than a hundred years in the past. Eventually he frowned. “There’s more,” he confessed.

    “More what?”

    “I don’t know, there’s still a block.” He closed his eyes. “Don’t make me go any deeper, I can’t,” he begged. “Not right now. Please.”

    “It’s all right,” Buffy said.

    Spike sighed, almost a sob, but he was all cried out. “God, I’m so tired,” he said. He wished his basement was empty so he could go to sleep.

    “You should have rested over a hundred and twenty years ago,” Buffy said.

    Spike chuckled.

    “Lie down.”

    Spike looked around her room. “Here?”

    “It’s all right.” She pushed him gently down onto her bed, and his head sank into her pillows. The bed smelled of her. The whole room smelled of her. Buffy pulled an afghan over his cold flesh and gently touched his cheek. “Don’t want you getting cold.” She smiled at him softly. “I know you can do this, Spike. It’ll just take time. You’ve come a long way even just now. When you can find it, get past the block, I know – I know – you’ll be free of it.” He almost believed her. “Rest well.”

    She turned off the light and left him. Tucked into bed like a child, surrounded by the scent of the woman he loved, Spike rolled over and jammed the pillow more securely under his head. Emotionally drained, physically exhausted, frightened of his own memories, the corpse of William Pratt made himself sleep –  How could you use a poor maid so? –  trying as hard as he could not to remember a lullaby.