A/N: Gleefully ignoring the comics, yo. Big thank you smooches to slaymesoftly, snickfic, and angearia for the beta work. You guys are awesome.

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Chapter 1

He had pictured the moment a thousand times, a thousand different ways, but never in any of his imaginings had he smelled like a Chaos demon when it happened.

Spike really, really hated Chaos demons. It didn’t help that Dru had left him for one, way back in the day, but even without that they were repulsive buggers. Hard to fight, too, with the slime all over and the antlers swinging around haphazardly. Dangerous things, they were. Oh, sure, they looked all genteel in their three-piece suits and loafers, but just try pissing one of them off sometime, see what happens.

He and Angel had taken out three of them at an apartment in Culver City, where they had some sort of racket going that Angel insisted needed to be stopped. Spike wasn’t one to argue; give him a good scuffle and the reasons didn’t matter. Of course, enthusiasm was all well and good, but now they were pretty much covered in foul-smelling goop as they trudged back into the Wolfram & Hart offices, battle axes in hand.

“Bloody hell, mate, you oughta pay me extra for this.”

Angel rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t even dignify Spike with a glance in his direction, but Spike could tell he’d rolled his eyes. He just had that stance, the slightly tipped-back head, the exasperated shoulders. Spike knew that stance well. Once upon a time, it had usually preceded a good thrashing, but these days it was nothing more than an idle warning.

“I don’t pay you at all, Spike.” Angel jabbed at the elevator’s call button, then ran his hand through his hair, spiking it back into place. Even copious amounts of hair gel were no match for Chaos demon gunk.

Now it was Spike’s turn to roll his eyes. As if he hadn’t noticed that he was – for reasons beyond his comprehension – helping Angel out of the goodness of his heart. He wasn’t exactly keen on being put on the Wolfram & Hart payroll, but he didn’t much fancy doing them favors for free, either. And yet, somewhere along the line, he’d stopped being a deliberate pest and started making himself useful.

“Might wanna look into it.” He brushed a hand over the front of his duster and a globule of slime slid down, hitting the floor with a plop. “You know how hard it is to get Chaos demon out of leather?”

Angel eyed his own slime-covered leather coat with dismay. “Yeah.”

The elevator doors opened and the two of them tried to get in at the same time, getting themselves stuck shoulder to shoulder in the opening. They glowered at each other. Some things never changed.

After a brief struggle, Angel shoved Spike into the elevator and stepped in after him. “Pillock,” Spike muttered, choking up on his axe and taking a practice swing at his grandsire.

“Watch it, we just had this elevator re-paneled after that incident with the Grak’lok demons,” Angel warned him, leaning his own axe against the elevator’s side panel. He pressed the button for his floor and folded his arms across his chest. They ascended in silence, exchanging deadly glares until Angel couldn’t hold it in anymore and let an “idiot” slip from his lips. Spike fixed him with a victorious smirk and raised the axe over his head threateningly, just as the elevator doors opened with a cheerful ding.

Harmony was waiting for them with a broad smile and an overly peppy, “Hi, Boss!” Spike lowered the axe with a grumble – he hadn’t been planning to use it anyway – and followed Angel out of the elevator.

Harmony wrinkled her nose at him. “Eww, why do you smell like you slept in your own vomit?”

“It’s Chaos demon, Harm,” Spike replied. He tried to drape his arm around her, breaking into a gleeful grin when she shrieked.

“Get off me, you disgusting freak!” She ducked out of his gooey embrace and swatted him with a file folder. “This is a brand new sweater!” Spike just chuckled. She was kind of cute when she was angry.

“Harmony, I’ll be in my office,” Angel said, striding past her down the hallway. “And bring me a change of clothes, will you?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, uh, I wouldn’t go in there, Boss,” she said, scampering after him.

“Why not?”

She managed to get past him and blocked his path. “Uh, just… you know. Beautiful day outside, who wants to be cramped up in an office, right?” She gave him a sheepish smile and a little breathy giggle, which Spike knew from experience meant I’m lying to you and I’m really bad at it and I hope you won’t notice.

Angel stared at her. “Harmony,” he said, speaking very slowly so she’d understand. “I’m a vampire. The only way I’m going to enjoy the beautiful day is through the necro-tempered windows in my office!”

He brushed past her, leaving her sputtering as she desperately tried to come up with some other way to keep him out of his office. Spike, on Angel’s heels, just shook his head at Harmony’s inanity before she could appeal to him, too.

“Angel!” she tried one last time. “This is important!”

“Not now, Harm.”

“Okey-dokey,” she said with a shrug, twirling a strand of hair around her finger as she returned to her desk. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Spike was still chuckling over Harmony when he realized that Angel was giving him a hard time again.

“…and really, you call that a punch?” Angel jibed him, pushing open his office door.

“Hey! The digits are still a bit sensitive, you know?” He wiggled them in the air as a demonstration. “But you!” He circled around and jabbed one finger into Angel’s chest. “Excellent work, with the falling down and the getting pummeled.”

“Ha ha,” Angel replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe if you’d been covering my back like I asked you to –”

“It’s good to see you two getting along so well.”

Both vampires spun around at the sound of the voice to find Buffy standing behind Angel’s desk, arms crossed over her chest, a deadly expression on her face.

Spike was the first to recover his voice. “Bloody hell,” he breathed, standing stock-still and staring at her. God, he hadn’t seen her since - well, since they closed the Hellmouth. It hadn’t been that long, really, six or seven months, but the time had done wonders for her. She’d lost that gaunt, stretched-to-the-breaking-point look – the dark circles under her eyes had vanished, she looked like she was back up to a healthy weight, and her skin glowed bronze from what was presumably months of Mediterranean sun worship.

Those eyes, on the other hand… those eyes were exactly the same. Full of spitfire and determination. And right now, they were aimed at him.

He knew he should do something, say something, but he was utterly unprepared for this. He’d practiced it when he was a ghost, hundreds of times, rehearsed the words he would say to her once he became solid and could finally leave this godforsaken law firm to go find her. But once the big day arrived, it had all seemed rather foolish. He knew what her response would be. Why torture them both by making her say it out loud?

It was better this way. He knew the truth, deep down, but at least he’d never have to hear it from her lips.

Of course, that theory sort of hung on the contingent that she not suddenly appear in Angel’s office and throw him for a loop. The whole point was that Buffy existed somewhere out there, someplace he’d never go, like the beach on a sunny day or a Barbra Streisand concert. She was a fond, distant memory – emphasis on the distant. The whole being-in-the-same-room thing never factored into his plan.

“Buffy?” said Angel, but her focus wasn’t on him. She strode purposefully around the desk and hit Spike with a fierce right hook, her fist smashing into his face before he even saw it coming.

“Ow!” he yelped, too stunned to fight back. He rubbed his jaw and gave her a wounded expression.

Angel tried not to laugh, but a snort slipped out in spite of himself. He quickly sobered up when Buffy whirled around and punched him, too.

“Hey!” he said, gaping at her indignantly. She threw a glare in his direction before turning back to Spike.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?”

Yeah. How to explain that one? “Well, I was gonna call, but I was a ghost, see, so I couldn’t pick up the phone.” Her hands balled into fists at his flippancy, but she held back the urge to hit him again.

“Then, I was corporeal,” Spike continued, “but I got my hands cut off, so again, couldn’t pick up the phone.” His eyes met hers and he faltered. “And all the times in between, well, I just… didn’t know what to say,” he finished, dropping his gaze to his slime-covered combat boots.

“Why don’t I just leave you two alone?” said Angel, inching his way to the door. It was a surprise that the poof was willing to leave his beloved unsupervised in Spike’s presence, but with the state Buffy was in now, Angel was probably counting on her killing him and taking the nuisance off his hands.

Buffy spun back to face Angel, fuming. “Oh, don’t think you’re getting out of this one so easily.”

“What did I do?” he squeaked, in a very un-Angel-like high pitch that only pure Buffy-terror could bring out.

“You knew he was alive, and you didn’t tell me.”

Angel spared a glance at Spike. “It wasn’t really my place to.”

She stepped closer to him and said, in a low, intense voice, “You knew what he meant to me.”

Angel wilted, his large, hulking frame shrinking with guilt. “I’m sorry…”

She shook her head, turning away from him and rubbing her eyes in frustration. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said, sounding somewhat defeated.

He nodded. “I’ll just see if Harmony’s got that change of clothes. I’ll be around, if you need me.” He paused at the door. “It’s – it’s good to see you, Buffy.”

She just gave him a reproachful look in response as he carefully shut the door, leaving them alone in his office.

It was a long time before she spoke, and she wouldn’t meet Spike’s eyes when she did. “I didn’t know you worked for Evil Incorporated, too.”

“I don’t. Bastard won’t pay me.”

She snapped her head up, staring at him like she was trying to figure out if he was serious or kidding, so he added, “I do my own thing, out there championing and such. Just lend a hand around here so’s Captain Hair Gel doesn’t get himself killed.”

“I don’t remember you caring that much about his welfare before.”

“Well, a lot’s changed.”

“Apparently.” She fell silent again, studying him. He didn’t know what she was staring at so intently. Of all the things that had changed, his appearance wasn’t one of them.

Her brows furrowed in confusion and disgust. “What is that smell?”

“Chaos demon,” he replied. He shrugged out of his duster, which had taken the brunt of the slime. His jeans were a little gooey, but his t-shirt had remained fairly unscathed. He paused for a moment in consideration, and then dropped the coat on Angel’s desk. “Just took out a group of ’em. If we’da known you were here, would’ve invited you along. Assuming you’re still into the whole slaying thing. Imagine the job descrip’s changed a bit, what with all the new slayers around now. Saw a bunch of ’em not too long ago, you know. Well, I didn’t; I was unconscious, but Angel –”

“Stop it! Please.” She pressed her fingers to her temples.

Spike cleared a space on Angel’s desk and perched on it, his legs dangling and his hands in his lap. When he spoke again, his tone was softer, and less with the rambling. “Guess the little pipsqueak ratted me out after all.”

“Yeah,” Buffy admitted. “He had to report what happened to you, so they’d know what to do about Dana.” She approached him slowly, taking his hands in hers, a hesitant, tender gesture. “Did it hurt?”

“Like hell,” he said, pulling away from her touch. He flexed his fingers and rolled his wrists. “Been playing video games, sorta physical therapy, you know? Keeps ’em active. Getting pretty good at Donkey Kong, saving the damsel in distress and all.”

He was babbling again. His hands dropped back into his lap, but Buffy didn’t try to touch him again. She backed away, sinking down on the arm of the sofa.

“This – isn’t how I planned for this conversation to go,” she said. Wasn’t quite what he’d envisioned, either. She shook her head. “God, why is this so hard?”

“Dunno, pet.”

She flinched at the endearment, and that was all he needed to understand exactly how she felt about him now. He swallowed down the burning sensation in his throat. Just being in the same room with her suddenly seemed unbearable.

“We used to talk, didn’t we?” she asked. “We used to have conversations like normal people. Why can’t we –”

“Never really talked that much,” he said, letting out a long, slow breath. “That was one of the rules, wasn’t it? No talking, no romance, nothing that could be mistaken for a relationsh–”

“Stop it!” She flew off the sofa, hurling herself at him, knocking him back onto Angel’s desk. He sprawled across it, sending papers and knickknacks tumbling to the floor. That was his girl, never bothered with words when a punch would do. She skittered backwards, looking at him with a wide-eyed, wounded expression. “You’re just going to hurt me now, is that it? Is that what I came here for?”

Spike leapt off the desk. “I don’t know what you bloody well came here for! Didn’t ask you to come.”

“No. You didn’t.”

At her accusing tone, something in him snapped. “Well, it’s not all about you, now is it? What’s the matter, Slayer? Annoyed I won’t be your lapdog anymore?”

Buffy blanched. “No – that’s not – I didn’t –”

“No? Done nothing but order me around since I walked in here.” Spike snatched his coat from Angel’s desk. “Not the same pathetic sod you knew, pet. I got my balls back.” With that, he marched toward the door and flung it open, ignoring Buffy’s stunned expression as he slammed the door behind him.

He got about halfway down the hall before he put his fist through the wall.