Later, they found a field where six horses woke, whinnying, as they ghosted in among them. When they were back in the car, speeding into the last hours of night with bellies full, Spike turned the radio down and glanced at her.


"We'll be back in Sunnyhell by this comin' midnight if we don't tarry." He was off-hand, like they were debating whether to stop for coffee.


"That soon?"


"Not far now from the border."


"Oh."


She'd insisted on making this return, yet at the same time she'd wanted the journey to be long. Not quite aimless, but indefinite. Enough time for her to gather the strength she didn't yet feel, and to reward Spike, if that wasn't an absurd notion, for all his loyalty. She'd seen no map, and paid no attention to the signs; Mexico was a vast undifferentiated landscape, and seen only at night, like one in a dream. She'd let herself believe it could take forever to cross back.


Spike pressed the button on the cigarette lighter on the dash. She stared at it until it popped out, then reached for it herself, and lit his smoke.


He inhaled and let a stream escape out the side of his mouth, out the open window and away. "Tah."


She held up a hand, and he passed the cigarette back to her. "Better not make a habit of that, little sis won't like you smellin' of tobacco."


"Do you really think that's what's going to bother her, out of all this—?"


Spike shrugged. "Never know."


"I'm not gonna worry about that, if it's okay with you."


"Sure." He took the cigarette back, and said, "So, you have a plan?"


"I'm forming one."


Still diffident, he said, "Seems to me we ought to take Dawn away somewhere far off. You got any relatives she could live with?"


"We have an aunt in Evanston. We haven't seen them in years and years. They weren't really close, there's a big age gap."


"Your mum's sister? Close or not, she'll take Dawn in if we bring her there, keep her until she finishes high school."


"Wait a minute, you're saying we should kidnap Dawn?" She recaptured the cigarette.


"It's not kidnapping. She'll want to come with us. I'm sayin' we should get her away from there quick an' quiet before we run into Willow an' Xander an' find ourselves in a situation we can't get out of."


"That isn't what I meant when I said I had to go back and take care of her."


"Buffy, you're not going to be able to just live on Revello an' go on like before."


"They're my friends. They're not irrational, they're not—they're not going to do anything crazy, if I talk to them. Explain what happened, and that I'm still—"


"Nothin's changed from what it was when we set out from there, except you found out you're not such a monster as you thought you'd be. But all they'll know is that you're a slayer turned vampire, an' they won't believe a word out of your mouth." He took back the cigarette, sucked in a big lungful. "Know it's not what you want to hear."


"I'm going to call ahead. Talk to Willow. Explain everything. We'll have a meet somewhere neutral, the Espresso Pump, or the mall. They'll understand that I'm still me, I'm still the slayer. Still their friend." She paused. "They need me. They know that."


Spike let the spent cigarette fly out the window, and turned the volume back up on the radio. He said nothing, and she didn't have the heart to press him. His opinion of her plan was plain enough.


But he didn't know her friends the way she did. They weren't his—he had no friends, so how could he know what she knew—that they'd meet this crisis, like all the past crises? It would come right. It would. Communication was key. Communication and honesty. They'd know when they saw her, spoke to her.


They'd know her.