Spike jerked his head away from the Slayer’s touch, fighting off a rising sense of panic. “I’ve *been* talking, you silly bint!” he snarled at her, finding fury a less embarrassing emotion to show than terror. “If you’d just listen for a bloody second…”

She drew her hand back in preparation for a powerful blow, her mouth twisting into an expression of cruel determination, and he stopped talking, flinching back and instinctively turning his head away from what would surely be a devastating impact, taking in a deep, sharp breath and holding it in dreadful anticipation.

She smiled at achieving her desired result, and lowered her hand, crouching down beside him and reaching a hand to turn his face back toward her. This time he did not pull away from her unsettlingly gentle touch, and he did not dare say another word, just looked up at her through wide, fearful eyes, his breath coming shallow and shaky, a sure sign that she was definitely getting to him – especially since he did not need to breathe at all.

*I’m better at this than I thought,* she realized with a sense of pride…and then dismay that she felt the pride. *Do I *want* to be good at this?* Pushing her thoughts to the back of her mind to be dealt with later, she turned her full attention back to her captive and his interrogation.

“There we go,” she said, her voice deceptively soft, almost gentle. “That’s better.” Deeply unsettled by her chillingly calm, controlled demeanor, Spike could not hold her gaze and looked down. She paused, her intense emerald gaze drawing his eyes back up to hers and holding them there as she went on. “I want you to listen to me, Spike. Okay?”

The edge to her tone and the menace in her eyes demanded a response. He nodded hurriedly, drawing a slow, deep breath. “Okay,” he whispered, sounding considerably more subdued now.

“It’s just you and me now. Alone. No one to interrupt us,” she smiled a cruel, sarcastic smile. “The only people who have any idea where you are…want you dead,” she reminded him, her expression hardening. “And I can give that to them if I want to. There is no way out of this…except to give me what I want. No more games. No more lies. You are going to start at the very beginning and tell me the absolute truth. All of it. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“If I think you’re lying,” she warned him, her tone darkening as she reached up to once again yank his head back, emphasizing his vulnerability as she sent another jolt of pain to his already abused scalp, tossing her stake casually in her free hand, well within his line of vision. “you’re gonna beg me to use this. Well…” she corrected with a little shrug, “you’re gonna beg me to use it to *kill* you.”

Her fist in his hair softened suddenly to a caress that was a mockery of affection, as she gave him a wide, false smile and asked, her tone suddenly light, “We clear?”

He nodded, swallowing hard and closing his eyes for a moment. “Yeah. We’re clear,” he replied.

“Good,” she said, standing up straight and leaning back against the arm of a recliner near the chair he was bound to, crossing her arms over her chest and regarding him coolly. “Start talking,” she ordered.

“Right,” he began nervously. “The beginning.” He thought for a moment, trying to go back in his memory to the best point to begin, well aware that he had only this one shot to make the Slayer see the truth…and spare his life.

“Me and Dru…went to South America, when we left Sunnydale. Hadn’t a bleedin’ clue what had become of you lot…til Dru had one of her visions,” he began, meeting her eyes with his gaze unusually sober and intent, willing her to see that he was telling the truth. “She saw that you’d left…and that some new sort of Big Bad was on its way to Sunnyhell.”

He allowed himself a soft little laugh at the memory, looking away from Buffy for a moment. “So, of course, she just *had* to be there. My Dru never could resist a party,” he said in a tone that combined sarcasm and affection at the thought of his beautiful, mysterious, and absolutely insane former lover.

Buffy looked disgusted for a moment, letting out a pointed, slightly exaggerated yawn, tapping the stake impatiently in her hand. “Getting bored here. I’d suggest you try to hold my interest.”

He glared at her for a moment, yanked rudely from his memories, and continued without comment. “Well, we got here, and who was making herself at home, rallying the vamps around her and all that, but our little Junior Slayer. Already had herself a pretty impressive gang of vampires *and* humans,” he informed her pointedly, smirking slightly at the genuine surprise that crossed her face at that.

“That’s right, pet,” he sneered. “We supernatural types haven’t quite got the market cornered on evil.”

“Just tell me what happened,” Buffy snapped, and he took a certain satisfaction in the slight defensive note that was mingled with the threat.

He let out a slightly exaggerated sigh to express his annoyance before continuing, “So when she heard that a couple of master vampires of the order of Aurelius had swung into town, Faith decided to send us a little welcoming party.”

Buffy noticed that his smirk had completely faded by now, and his eyes hardened with a cold, quiet anger as he continued in a carefully emotionless voice. “Could have taken any of them one on one…bloody hell, could have taken several of them at once…but the Slayer sent about a dozen of her best fighters to bring me and Dru to her.”

He stopped suddenly, and Buffy frowned, impatient. “Go on,” she pressed him. It was only when she looked at him closer that she noticed with surprise the firm set of his jaw, the way his eyes were carefully focused on a spot directly in front of him, and realized that he was struggling to keep his emotions under control as he remembered the story.

He did not speak for a few moments, in spite of her command, but Buffy did not push him any farther, sensing that the memory was a painful one – a fact which surprised her…almost as much as the realization that she cared if it was painful or not.

Finally, he went on, and his voice was quiet and level, barely controlled. “Dru had one of her spells…she was having a vision, and the soddin’ wankers wouldn’t leave her alone. Kept trying to hold her down and such…” He shook his head, looking away for a moment before meeting her gaze with furious eyes. “You ever know someone mentally ill, Slayer?”

Buffy was a little taken aback by the question, and a little embarrassed by the answer. “Well…I’ve been around someone…I mean…I guess…”

“Did you ever *really* know someone, Slayer? Someone close to you?” Spike pressed, leaning forward as much as the chains would allow and searching her eyes in a challenging way.

She shook her head slowly. “No,” she admitted.

He looked down again, shaking his head in a dismissive response. “Then you couldn’t possibly know what it was like. Not really. But the more they tried to control her, the more…frightened, and…and confused she got…and Faith gave the order…she said…she told them to stake her.”

He didn’t say anything again for a moment, and Buffy had not failed to notice the way his voice became quieter and more halting as the story went along. Still, she felt no sympathy for the evil creature before her. All she cared about at that moment was her mother, and seeing that her death was avenged.

“Well,” Spike went on, his eyes wide and haunted with memory, beginning to lose himself in the story as he relived it in his mind. “I – I bloody lost it. I fought off the ones who were holding me and fought my way through the others. I took the stake from the one who was trying to kill her and I dusted him with it myself. Before it was over…they were all gone. Just me and Dru left…and her.”

“She had a crossbow, and before I could move she’d fired. My first thought was that she’d missed.” He laughed then, a chillingly soft, bitter sound of misery. “She didn’t.”

By this point, Buffy was engrossed in the story, in spite of herself, mesmerized by his hushed tone and the aching emotion in his voice, though she kept her expression neutral, not betraying any response to his words.

“I woke up, and me and Dru were chained up in the basement of the mansion.” He smiled, but Buffy was amazed to see tears in his eyes. “Dru was laughing,” he said slowly in a tone of disbelief. “All a big game to her, it was.” He paused, his smile fading, his tone becoming dark. “And there was Faith. I made an impression, I guess. Dusting a dozen of her vamps single-handed.” There was no pride in his voice, and Buffy immediately recognized why, as it was a feeling she had felt herself.

No matter how impressive the victory, there could be no sense of pride, when you had failed to save the one you loved.

“She…she made me an offer. She asked me if I wanted to work for her.” The bitter smile returned to his face as he said, “Naturally, arrogant, cocky bastard that I am…I refused. Wasn’t gonna lower myself to be a lackey to anyone, least of all that little tart.”

Buffy didn’t mention what they both were thinking of – the fact that he had indeed ended up lowering himself to exactly that level, and lower. As much as she despised him, even she knew that that would have been a low blow at this moment.

“I told her to sod off. Said I’d rather die again than have anything to do with the likes of her,” Spike went on, a slight tremor working its way back into his voice as he went on.

“So she says, ‘Fine. Have it your way. You’ve made your choice.’ My *choice*, she said!” Bitter tears streaked his face as he rolled his eyes in a harsh laugh. “My bloody choice. I didn’t know she was gonna…I didn’t…” His voice broke off, and he lowered his head, struggling not to break down completely.

“She killed her,” Buffy finished for him, a small mercy, her wide eyes focused on him in a solemn gaze. “She killed her to punish you for blowing her off.”

Spike lowered his head, ashamed, with a small, defeated nod. “I didn’t know what she was going to do. But she made sure I understood clearly,” he went on, and his hatred for the girl was clear in his voice. “She made sure I knew that if I’d agreed to work for her…she’d have let Dru live.”

Into the heavy silence that followed, Buffy spoke softly, her words resounding clearly in the stillness. “She wouldn’t have. You know that,” she said, wondering even as she did why she was bothering to try, even so weakly, to comfort the vampire.

But she knew, really, deep down. It was because now, *now* she *could* sympathize with what he was feeling. She might have a soul and conscience that he lacked; she might never have experienced what it was like to live with and love an insane person.

But she knew what it felt like to watch someone you loved more than anything in the world die before your eyes.

Spike seemed as surprised as she was by her feeble attempt at consolation, looking up at sharply, searchingly for a moment before responding with a heavy sigh. “I know. Doesn’t make it any easier.” He paused, and continued in a voice of steel. “Doesn’t make her any less dead. Or Faith any less about-to-be-dead.”

Buffy said nothing at all; there was nothing to say. She knew now that he was telling the truth. She had been where he said he had been, and knew what it was like – and she knew that no one was that good a liar, least of all Spike. If he was lying about this, she was sure that she would know it.

“You know what the worst of it was,” he continued softly, and he was no longer speaking just to satisfy her interrogation. He could not have stopped at that point if he had wanted to. “Was the look on her face.”

Buffy frowned, confused. “Faith?”

He looked up at her, and the stark pain in his tearful sapphire eyes took her breath. “Dru,” he corrected, his voice barely more than a whisper.

With that one single word, Buffy felt a pain of memory so deep and agonizing that it was almost physical, as her mind flashed back to a single moment that had scarred her so devastatingly, almost a year ago. As she had done what she knew she had to do, knowing that the only alternative was to allow the world to be destroyed, and plunged the sword through Angel’s chest…

And he had looked at her….

In a single, instantaneous look, so much depth of emotion…love and disbelief and betrayal and pain…that moment in which he realized what was going to happen, and that she was responsible for it, and desperately, achingly, asked her *why*?

She forced the agonizing image from her mind, gasping for breath against the sobs that threatened to take her over, struggling for control. She looked back at Spike, blinking back her tears to see him clearly.

He was staring up at her, a light of understanding beginning in his eyes. “You understand,” he said softly, a simple statement of fact. “That look…as if she was asking me…why I let it happen…why I couldn’t save her…and…and I didn’t…I *didn’t* save her. I loved her, and I would have died for her, but…but I didn’t save her.”

Again, wondering why she was saying it, Buffy argued softly, insistently, “You *couldn’t* save her. You had no choice.”

“But I did,” he countered, shaking his head. “If I’d have let go of my bloody pride, and done what the bint asked me to…Dru would be alive…”

“No she wouldn’t…”

“She *might*!” he argued, an almost desperate note in his voice. “If I’d have been willing to lower myself a little…but I didn’t…”

“So you do now,” Buffy broke in quietly, with growing understanding, and no cruelty or intent to hurt in her words. “You do what you wouldn’t then. Hoping that one day you’ll be able to avenge her death.”

He looked at her for a moment, nodding slowly, without a word.

Buffy looked away from him for a moment; it was all just so terribly much to take in, and so painfully familiar to her that it hurt even to think about what Spike had just told her.

After a long pause in which both fought to compose their wildly careening emotions, Spike looked back up at her, a faintly speculative look on his face. “So you believe me now, Slayer.”

She nodded. “I believe you.” She turned slightly away from him before adding in a voice that another human would not have heard, but Spike did easily.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”