Spike was hyper-aware of Buffy’s presence behind him as he unlocked the door to their apartment. He was always aware of her presence, but the fact that she didn’t remember her life seemed to give significance to the smallest actions.

There was also the fact that he, Joyce, and the Watcher had agreed that it would be best not to bring up the more unusual aspects of Buffy’s life to her yet. There was every chance that she would recover quickly since she was the Slayer. No need to shock her right off the bat.

Spike paused and looked at Buffy. “Let me just nip in and make sure everything’s presentable, yeah?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, frowning.

Spike’s hand twisted on the knob. “I’ll just give it a quick once over.”

“What, are you a neat freak or something?”

“No.”

“Am I a neat freak or something?”

“Not really. But, y’know, first impressions.”

“The joys of amnesia.” Buffy waved a hand. “Whatever. Go pick up the dirty laundry—I don’t care.”

“Won’t be a minute,” Spike said.

Once inside, he made a quick inspection for any weapons that might be lying around. (Last night, he’d barely remembered to take the stake out of her purse and throw it under the seat.) But everything seemed to be in its place under the bed. Buffy liked to joke that she could literally roll out of bed and be ready for a fight.

In the kitchen, he hastily opened the fridge and pulled all of his blood bags out of the drawer they went in. Spike dumped them into an opaque Tupperware container and shoved it to the bottom and back of the fridge. It would do for now; he’d figure out something else later.

Satisfied, he went back to the living room and opened the front door. He gestured for Buffy to come in. “So, uh, this is it,” he said.

Buffy took a few steps into the room, looking around. She walked over to glance out the window. He resisted the urge to trail after her. He should probably give her a few minutes.

“I’ll just let you explore,” Spike said, edging toward the door.

“What, are you leaving?”

“Just steppin’ out for a smoke.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

He closed the door behind him.

-----

She was dating someone who smoked?

Ew.

But the apartment didn’t smell like smoke, and she didn’t see any ashtrays, so maybe he did smoke outside all time. Which was...fine, she supposed.

Buffy assumed that she must not be a person who hated smoking. Though as of right now, she didn’t think she particularly liked it. Maybe she just liked him well enough to ignore it. Because who would actually set out to find a smoker?

A thought occurred to her and she flung the door open. “Do I smoke?” she blurted.

Spike sputtered at her. “What? No.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Good.”

An eyebrow went up.

“I mean, you know, it’s fine that you do,” she rambled. “But I don’t want to.”

He looked amused. “Well, I don’t want you to, either.”

“But you smoke.”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

Buffy just nodded, and then awkwardly shut the door. The whole ‘you know how bad those are for you’ conversation was probably not good for getting off on the right foot. She wondered if they ever fought about that. She wondered if she wanted him to quit, or if she really didn’t care. She wondered what they did fight about.

Okay. Her—their apartment. Right.

Well, it was nice, she could say that much about it. It was on the second floor, and in a building that was fairly new. All the fixtures were shiny, the walls weren’t marked up, and the carpet was still plush. The ceilings were high, and there was tile instead of linoleum in the kitchen and bathroom.

She had done a quick walk through of the apartment when Spike came back in. Despite his saying that there was ‘no dealing,’ he clearly didn’t know exactly what to do with her. He might not see her as a problem, but there was no getting around the awkwardness. They couldn’t do whatever normal routine they had, and she doubted that he was just going to watch TV or something and ignore her. Not that she wanted to be completely ignored. But she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

Buffy walked around the living room, running her hands over the table by the door and then the TV stand. She had noticed that this was all really nice stuff. Solid dark wood, new looking—no hand-me-downs or cheap particleboard.

“This is really nice,” she said.

“You picked most of it out when we moved in.”

“Oh. I have good taste.” She sat down on the couch, bouncing once before she got back up. “Does that sound snooty? I didn’t mean for that to sound snooty.”

He smiled. “It’s fine.”

“How long have we lived here?”

“A year.” He stood still for a moment, and then took off his coat, draping it over the back of the leather recliner.

“I like the colors,” Buffy said. The furniture was neutral, but the accent colors were dark blues and greens. “They’re relaxing.” She touched the curtains as she walked by. Buffy paused by a shelf, looking over the contents. A vase, some candles, various knickknacks—but none of it looked incredibly meaningful.

Spike followed her as she walked down the hallway and into the small spare bedroom that she had looked into before. There was a daybed, a corner chair and another TV, and a desk and several bookshelves. Not really a lot in there, so she didn’t stay.

They ended up in the master bedroom. It had windows on one wall, and a sliding glass door that led to the balcony on the other. There was a king size bed and matching dressers in dark wood with a smooth finish. The bed had a comforter that was a rich plum color, and there were lots of soft looking pillows piled on it.

And things suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

“You’ll sleep in here, of course,” Spike said, like he was reading her mind. “I’ll take the other or the couch.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding like she hadn't been thinking about that. “What happens if I don’t get my memory back?” she blurted.

“I think it’s a little soon to be worrying about that, love.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll figure it out.”

“Like how?”

“We’ll do whatever you want.”

He said it so simply, so seriously.

“Oh,” she said.

Buffy wandered over to the glass door. She put her hand on the heavy curtains as she looked out at the balcony. There were two chairs, a small metal table with a potted plant and an ashtray on it, and several hanging baskets. It didn’t have a spectacular view, but it was pretty enough.

The bathroom was, well, a bathroom. But it connected to a walk in closet that Buffy had only stuck her head in before.

Now she lingered, looking at the clothes and shoes and purses. Spike was in the bathroom behind her, leaning on the counter.

“Well, it’s obvious I live here,” she joked. “All my stuff’s here.” Buffy paused. “Not that I know it’s my stuff. But it looks like stuff I think I would have,” she said decidedly.

Buffy turned around. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do what we normally do? Have long meaningful talks about our history, or how I was prom queen or something?”

“We’ll do whatever you want.”

“But what about what you want?”

“I want you to be comfortable.”

“Look, I don’t know.” Buffy sighed. “I just—need some time to process everything.” It occurred to her that she hadn’t actually had any alone time since she’d been taken to the hospital. “I think… I think right now I just want to sit here and dig through stuff. We can have the big talk later.”

“All right,” he said easily.

And then he was gone.

Buffy spent several long minutes looking through the clothes. You didn’t get much more personal than a closet. Everything in here was something she had picked out, something she wanted. And going through her things was sort of fun and relaxing, even if it was a little superficial. One thing she noticed, however, was how small everything seemed to be.

She had gathered that she was petite from the time that she had spent in the hospital room’s bathroom staring at her new face—her face—in the mirror. But now, looking at herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door, she realized that she was really thin. She hoped she didn’t have some sort of problem.

But after looking for a moment, Buffy saw that she was also, well, kind of muscled. Not like body builder muscled, but lithe, yoga master muscled. Her arms were slender but seriously toned. Pulling up her shirt, she could see that her stomach was flat and had a faint line of muscle down it.

Huh. Maybe she was a fitness freak.

There was also something else on her stomach that she only noticed at second glance. On her right side, on the curve where her stomach became her side, there was a scar. It was just over two inches long, and was so thin that she could hardly see it. It looked like someone had taken a sharp white colored pencil and drawn a line on her. But there weren’t marks for stitches or anything.

Slightly weird. But for some reason, it wasn’t something she was sure she wanted to ask about.

In the bathroom drawers, she found the expected makeup and bottles and jars, so she moved on to the bedroom. There wasn’t much that was really personal in there, either. Just drawers full of socks and sweatpants and bras.

What did you expect? she asked herself. A book titled ‘This Is Your Life, Buffy Summers?’

Though it might be a good idea to look closer on the shelves in the other bedroom. Maybe she had a box of stuff, or photos or something in there.

Pulling open another drawer, Buffy discovered several items of nicer lingerie.

She also found a vibrator, a pair of handcuffs, and several long black scarves. She quickly shut the drawer. It was pretty tame as far as toys went, but it was just too much. She couldn’t deal with evidence of her sex life with a man that she didn’t even know.

No, a man she couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember was different than didn’t know. Wasn’t it?

How was she supposed to deal with any of this?

Buffy flopped on the bed.

But despite the crazy angst of not knowing who she was, things weren’t that awful, she supposed. She could try to be positive. Everything wasn’t bad. For starters, she had a great body. Which, okay, was sort of shallow, but it was an unexpected perk. She had a nice place to live and lots of pretty things. Again, sort of shallow. But the physical was all she had, since she had lost her mental.

She was in college. So she was smart and probably had goals.

She had a nice mom. Another positive.

And she had someone who was clearly in love with her. So she had obviously done something right. He seemed to really care about her. Buffy tried to imagine remembering. She thought she’d like to remember him.

She rolled onto her stomach and folded her hands under her chin.

Eventually, her eyes came to rest on the nightstand. There was a small lamp with a beaded shade. There was also a jewelry holder shaped like a swan. Two or three chains were lying in the dish part of it, but on the swan’s neck was a ring.

A diamond ring.

A really nice diamond ring. Buffy moved to reach for it. Unsurprisingly, it fit perfectly on the ring finger of her left hand. There was no way this was anything other than an engagement ring.

Which raised a whole new set of questions.