Chapter One

Buffy hesitated as she approached the shelter’s parking lot, stopping to apply more lip gloss and run a hand over her hair.

Ok, no reason to be nervous. I know he has amnesia. He probably won’t remember me right away. But that’s okay. I can cope. I’ll fill him in on the way back to England. I just have to keep my cool. Don’t frighten him. Calm, controlled Buffy. That’s the way to go.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked toward the front door, waiting as a homeless man shuffled out before going from the bright sunshine into the gloomy interior. She looked around for another woman, remembering that she was told the director was someone named Anne. Spotting a head of long blond hair, she made her way through the various people sitting and standing around the large room until she was close enough to see the other woman.

“Lily?” Buffy asked with uncertainty. “Is that you?”

Anne whirled around at the sound of her old name and frowned briefly before she broke into a smile and ran up to hug Buffy.

“Buffy! It’s so good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to… what are you doing here? And, you’re ‘Anne’ now?”

Anne blushed and nodded. “Yes, I took that name tag you gave me and went to work at your old job. Eventually I was spending so much time helping out at the shelter that they hired me. Been here ever since. I try to help people who are lost – the way I was.”

“Oh.” Buffy wasn’t sure how to reply to that. It was obviously a step up from the streets and probably another step up from the greasy spoon where Buffy had sent her to work in her place. She knew her memories of that summer in LA were tainted by the misery she’d been in after sending Angel to Hell, but even so….

“So,” Anne asked again. “Why are you here?”

“I’m… I’m looking for a… man… a vamp, actually. But I doubt he’s here.” She looked around at the humans sitting in various states of misery or indifference. “I’m pretty sure after he’d tried to kill you years ago, you wouldn’t want him anywhere near you.”

At Anne’s incredulous smile, Buffy hastened to add, “Not that he would hurt you now! He’s got his soul, and he saved the world, and he… I’m sorry. I guess we got bad information.”

Buffy’s shoulders slumped and she fought back the tears as she turned to leave. “It was great to see you again,” she said as she walked toward the door.

“Buffy. Buffy!” Anne’s voice rose as she watched the slayer who had saved her life at least twice walking away. “If it’s Spike you’re looking for, he’s here. He’s downstairs. I’ll get him for you. Follow me over here.”

Anne was already turning to walk toward the back of the room and missed the flash of sheer joy that flew across Buffy’s face at her words. Before she had taken two steps, the slayer was at her side asking softly, “Is he all right? I mean except for the amnesia thing.”

“Oh, yeah. He was pretty beat up and it’s taken a long time for him to heal, but I think he’s all right. It’s frustrating for him not being able to remember anything, though. He’ll be so happy to see somebody who can tell him more about his life. I mean, I covered the basics – you know, stay out of the sun, avoid girls with pointy wooden things, stuff like that. But I really don’t know much about what happened before he showed up at Angel’s and started helping them. I know he was in Sunnydale and that he supposedly saved the world somehow. Gunn had told me that, but that’s all I know.”

Anne interrupted her chattering as they reached the top of the stairs and she shouted down, “Spike? Honey? There’s somebody here to see you. Somebody who knows you.”

Honey?

Buffy’s breath caught in her throat as a familiar blond head came into sight and she felt tears pricking her eyes when a pair of curious blue eyes met hers briefly before turning to smile at Anne. He came the rest of the way up and stepped to her side, resting his arm on her shoulder as he looked back at Buffy and tilted his head.

“So, you know me, do you?”

Buffy couldn’t answer. All she could do was drink in the sight of the vampire she’d loved too late. The vampire she’d mourned for twice before finding out he was still alive after the near-apocalypse that had taken Angel’s un-life. At the last second, just before she threw herself on him in a frenzy of grateful kissing, she noticed the easy familiarity with which he and Anne touched each other and the way he was looking at the slender blond woman. With an effort of will she didn’t know she was capable of summoning, she stopped herself from touching him and settled for a strangled, “I guess you could say that.”

The vampire cocked his head at her curiously. He could hear her accelerated heart rate, as well as smell the barely suppressed tears. He frowned in confusion. Anne had implied that this woman was someone who knew him well and yet she was reacting to him as though she’d seen a ghost.

“Is something wrong?” he asked kindly.

“No… no,” she struggled to control her voice. “I’m just… I didn’t think… I mean we didn’t know you were alive until just a week ago and I… we thought you’d be glad to see me… somebody you knew.”

“Oh, I am glad to see you. I hope I didn’t give the impression I wasn’t. I can’t wait to sit down and talk about my life – or what you know of it. Did – do you know me well? Were we friends?”

“I’d like to think so,” Buffy replied softly, regaining control of herself and smiling brightly at the slender couple staring at her. There was no question that she was facing Spike, but the upper class accent, so unlike his own, and his obvious affection for Anne were throwing her off.

“Buffy is a slayer, honey. I’ve told you about her. She used to be the only slayer – back when you were evil.”

“Oh! THAT Buffy. Why didn’t you say so?” He beamed at Buffy and took her hand lightly as he searched her face. “So, you’re the famous last of the Chosen Ones. I’m honored. I mean to think you would come all the way over here to see me. Of course this is your home, isn’t it? So perhaps you’re not really here to see me? ”

Buffy continued to drink in the sight in front of her, trying not to notice the way he and Anne were holding hands. She put her hands behind her back to prevent herself from shoving the other woman out of the way so she could run her hands over him and assure herself he was really there.

“Buffy?” Anne was puzzled by the sudden silence on the slayer’s part. “Did you not mean to come here? You could have sent one of the LA slayers to see if he was here.”

“No, I couldn’t do that,” she said as steadily as she could, never taking her eyes off Spike. “You are - were too important to… to us. You deserve the real thing. Anyway, Dawn would never have forgiven me if I didn’t come myself.”

Buffy saw Anne stiffen beside him and watched how he used his hands to soothe her while he asked, “Dawn?”

“My sister,” she explained. “She and you – you were very fond of each other at one time and she was devastated when she thought you had died without her having healed the rift between you.”

“So,” Anne asked carefully, “Your sister and Spike were… involved?”

“What? Oh no. Oh, God, no! He protected her for me and then he was her babysitter while I was – and then he was like a big brother to her. And then she got angry at him for... and then he died and…. She loves you,” she finished, looking him in the eye.

Spike smiled at her in relief, and said, “Then I am sure I will love her too.” He turned to Anne to ask, “What do you think, love? Shall we ask Buffy to join us for dinner tonight? Give me a chance to pick her brain?”

Buffy felt her smile turning into a grimace as the other woman reached up to stoke his cheek.

“Of course it is, honey. Why don’t you two go on upstairs and start talking while I close up here?”

Buffy was having trouble breathing as her body reacted to the obvious affection and familiarity between Anne and Spike. The slayer in her wanted to rip the other woman away from him while the woman who had been so full of joy just a few minutes before wanted to fall to the floor and scream. She trembled as she struggled to come up with an excuse to leave before her poor impulse control ruined everything.

“Um… I have… um… things. Yes, that’s it. I have things to do. Can I take a rain check on that dinner?”

In an uncanny example of the way Spike could always see right through her, he frowned and asked suspiciously, ”What kind of things? I thought you came to see me?”

“I need to… to patrol! I need to patrol. There are things out there that need to be killed and I… I really need to kill something right now. I’ll come back later. After dinner maybe?”

He was wearing his “who do you think you’re kidding, Slayer?” look and Buffy felt her heart cracking. That he could seem so familiar with her and yet be so unaware of who she was. Even as he looked at her in clear disbelief, he wrapped his arms around Anne from behind and spoke to Buffy over her shoulder.

“I could patrol with you. Could use a bit of violence to work out the kinks”

“No!” Anne’s voice was fearful as she lifted her head to look back at him. “You’re not well enough yet.”

“I’m fine, pet. You know that,” he murmured into her ear, nuzzling it as he did so. “You ought to know. Being as how you donated the medicine,” he leered as he licked her neck.

Neither one saw the stricken look on Buffy’s face as she fought to remain impassive. The sight of twin fang marks on Anne’s neck was all it took to destroy her shaky grip on her emotions and she whirled before they could see the tears on her cheeks.

“I have to go now,” she managed to choke out. “I’ll try to come back later.”

Before either one could say or do anything, she had crossed the large room and bolted out the door into the waning sunlight, heedless of who she knocked out of her way.

************************

Buffy ran until the light was gone and she couldn’t run anymore. Over and over she replayed the impersonal way Spike had looked at and talked to her. The tender way he looked at Anne and the gentleness with which he touched her. She thought she’d known what to expect. She’d been told that he remembered nothing and no one, but in her heart she’d been sure that the sight of her would be all it took to snap him out of it. Never, in all the reunion dreams she’d indulged in the past week had it occurred to her that he might have fallen in love with someone else.

Shaking off the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, she began walking back toward her hotel, biting her lips to prevent the sobs that wanted to break out. She made it back to her room with no interruptions except for one very brave or foolish vampire who challenged her even after she’d identified herself as a slayer.

“I think I’d like to eat a slayer,” he growled. “I’d become the Slayer of Slayers!”

“No, you really wouldn’t,” Buffy replied grimly, delighted to have found something on which to take out her anger. “I know the Slayer of Slayers. I’ve fought with the Slayer of Slayers, and trust me,” she growled as she plunged her never-absent stake into his chest, “you are no Slayer of Slayers.” She watched wistfully as his dust drifted down to the ground.

“You’re not him,” she whispered as she put her stake away and continued toward her hotel.

She got back to her room and called Dawn to report what she’d found, soft-pedaling the fact that Spike was living with someone, but telling her that he didn’t seem to remember either one of them. She hung up after promising to call again when she had spoken to him more. She pulled off her dusty clothes as she walked toward the bathroom.

Standing in the shower, she finally allowed the disappointment and pain to wash over her and she stood in the pounding water, clutching her stomach and allowing the gut-wrenching sobs to wrack her body. The water had turned cold by the time she stopped crying and moved, zombie-like to put some more patrol-appropriate clothes on.

She listlessly dried her hair, leaving it down and long the way she knew he liked it and carefully reapplied her make-up. She stared at herself in the mirror and tried to find the slayer he’d fallen in love with so many years ago.

All right, I can do this. I’m not the slayer for nothing. He’s not dead. He’s not even rejecting me. He doesn’t remember us, that’s all. I will be understanding, informative and… and… understanding.

Summoning up all her determination, Buffy left the room and marched down the street toward the shelter where the vampire she loved was living happily with another woman.

***************************

Spike stared after the slayer curiously as she pushed her way out of the building. There was something very off about her behavior and he growled in familiar frustration at his lack of understanding. Somehow he knew he was missing something very important about the whole situation, but nothing penetrated the thick wall surrounding his memories.

“Not a very polite girl, is she, pet?” he said as he rested his chin on Anne’s shoulder and looked at the humans Buffy had bowled over on her way out the door.

“That’s really not like her,” Anne frowned. “I wonder what’s wrong? She didn’t seem very glad to see you after coming all this way.”

“Maybe we don’t really like each other very much, and she just came because she promised her sister.” He shrugged and gave his girlfriend a squeeze. “I hope she comes back later, though. I have a feeling she could fill in a lot of gaps for me.”

“Maybe her memories aren’t good ones,” Anne agreed. “I think I remember that she and Angel were involved when we were in high school. Maybe she’s resentful that you survived and he didn’t.”

Smothering the unexpected growl that her words evoked, he agreed quickly, “I hadn’t thought about that. Seeing me probably reminds her of him. Poor chit. No wonder she was in tears.”

Anne shot him a look. “She was in tears?”

“Yeah. Could smell ‘em. She tried to hide it though. Got to give her credit. She’s a strong one.”

Anne flinched a little internally at the admiration in his voice. “She’s very pretty too,” she offered, suddenly remembering how “put together” Buffy had looked and glancing down at her own serviceable jeans and tee shirt.

“That she is, love,” he mused, not noticing the way her face darkened. “Maybe she has a date tonight and that’s why she didn’t want to eat with us.”

“Sure, that’s probably it.” Anne’s agreement didn’t reach her eyes as she searched her memory for any snippets of information anyone from Angel Investigations might have let slip about Sunnydale. Nothing came to mind, and she shook her head silently at herself for worrying. All she could remember was that Angel and Buffy were in love and couldn’t be together for some reason.


Chapter Two

Spike helped Anne close up the kitchen for the night and make sure everyone who was staying over had a cot before heading up to the apartment over the shelter. He prowled around the small apartment, at a loss to understand his restlessness and decided to blame it on Buffy’s arrival stirring up his anxieties about his past.

Most of the time he was quite happy living over the shelter with Anne. Something about being loved completely for himself fed a need that he didn’t understand and hated to admit to but that he couldn’t deny. She had found him wandering, hurt and confused, after some sort of battle in which, apparently, everyone else from Angel’s group of fighters on the side of good had died. She had taken him in, welcoming him into her home and, eventually, into her bed. Anne told him as much as she knew about his life, but it was very limited as she had been in LA since shortly after his aborted attempt to eat her group of vampire worshiping friends and she knew nothing about his life in Sunnydale after she left.

He went back over what he knew about Buffy the vampire slayer, and his relationship with her. Anne told him how Buffy had held a stake to his lover’s heart and how he had immediately called off the carnage at the threat of danger to the strange but beautiful Drusilla. He wondered briefly where that vampire was and if she was still in the world or had become dust at some other time. And what had changed that he and the slayer had gone from bitter enemies to friends? Good enough friends that her sister loved him.

He pondered what sort of relationship the slayer had with his grandsire, and what could have kept them apart all these years if they loved each other.

Damned if I would have let anything keep me from her if I loved her he growled to himself, startled by the vehemence of the thought.

The unease brought on by his visceral reaction to thinking about Angel and Buffy went away as soon as Anne came up the stairs and he promptly put it out of his mind as he went to help her prepare the evening meal. While she poured his blood into a mug for the microwave, he pulled a plate of left over Chinese food from the fridge and waited to put her dinner in the oven.

They ate their respective meals in companionable silence, broken only by the occasional comment about one of the people below. Suddenly Spike froze and lifted his head to scan the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“Slayer’s here,” he responded, getting up from the table.

Anne looked at him in surprise before asking as casually as she could, “What makes you think so?”

“Can feel her.” His reply was short and did nothing to alleviate her sudden apprehension.

“Since when can you feel slayers?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.

“Can feel this one. Best go let her in, I suspect. She seems like the kind who would just kick down the door if it didn’t open fast enough.”

As he spoke, he could feel Buffy standing just on the other side of the door and he heard her heart rate going up as she raised her hand to knock. Anne was already opening the door when Buffy’s fist came down on it and she flinched away as it barely missed her face.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” Buffy’s babbled apology broke the tension that had held them in it’s grip since Spike had sensed the slayer’s approach and Anne quickly assured her she was fine while Spike pulled out a chair and offered the slayer a glass of wine.

“Wine?” Buffy gaped at him. “You drink wine?”

“Well, Anne does. Point is, we have it if you’d like some.”

He missed Buffy’s flinch at the “we”, but Anne did not. She closed the door and moved to his side, putting her arm around his waist possessively. Once again she noticed that Buffy was wearing make-up and had changed her clothes into tight fitting pants and a leather jacket.

Buffy perched uncomfortably on the seat of the chair, looking as though she wanted to bolt any second. She smiled tightly as she turned down Spike’s repeated offer of something to drink, and twisted her hands together nervously. As she did so, Anne caught a glimpse of the scarring on Buffy’s left hand and she grabbed it and turned it over.

“You’ve burned your hand,” she said almost accusingly. She felt Spike stiffen beside her as he clenched his right fist tight.

“Yes,” was the terse answer as Buffy pulled her hand back.

Anne did not give up. “Spike has a burn like that on his right hand,” she said. “Show her, honey.”

Reluctantly, the vampire opened his fist to show the ropy scar tissue that covered the palm of his hand. Buffy bit back a gasp as they compared scars.

“So,” Anne said brightly, “Looks like you two touched the same thing back there in Sunnydale. Was that when Spike saved the world?”

The vampire was staring at the almost identical scars on their hands and almost missed Buffy’s whispered, “Yes. We both touched the same thing.” She didn’t look at Spike, keeping her eyes focused on their hands until he closed his fist again and turned away.

“Must have been bloody hot,” he muttered as he moved across the room.

Anne watched Buffy’s face carefully as the vampire walked away, and this time she caught the longing and grief in the slayer’s eyes as Spike turned away from her. Her jaw tightened and her stomach clenched in fear as the tension in the room went up again. She watched Buffy shut her eyes tightly for a second, take a deep breath, and then visibly relax her shoulders and sit back in the chair.

“Okay,” Buffy said quietly. “What do you want to know?”

Spike turned and looked at her. “I want to know how I got from what I was when Anne first met me," He sent an apologetic look toward the blond woman and was rewarded with a forgiving smile and a blown kiss. “And what I am now. A souled vampire who fights evil and saves the world.”

Buffy met his eyes steadily and said, “Are you sure you want to know all this?”

“Bloody hell, Buffy!” he exploded, sounded more like the Spike she knew. “I don’t know anything about my life before six months ago when Anne found me wanderin’ around in an alley and brought me home. Of course I want to know it. I want to know everything. Wouldn’t you?” he challenged her.


“I suppose I would,” she agreed. “Even if I was happy where I was,” she shot a look at a surprised Anne, “I guess I’d want to know how I got there.”

“Right then,” he said pulling his chair around and straddling it. He rested his arms on the back of the chair and fixed his gaze on her face. “So let’s have it. Start with how long have we known each other?”

“Uh, since you came to Sunnydale to… um, okay, that’ll lead to more questions. About seven years. We met right after you got there. You were planning to kill me,” she added, meeting his gaze head on. “I was to be your third slayer.”

If a vampire could have blanched, he would have. “My what?”

“You are William the Bloody. Slayer of slayers. You’d killed two of them and planned to make me your third.”

“Not one of my better plans, it would seem,” he said wryly. “You look remarkably healthy for a dead slayer.”

Buffy gave him her first genuine smile. “Well, it went about as well as most of your plans,” she teased.

“Watch it, woman,” he glared back. “Could still make you my third conquest – er – kill.”

His stumble over his words took the edge off the mock threat and Buffy couldn’t control her giggle at his discomfort, bringing on another glare.

“I tend not to stay dead, anyway,” she said cheerfully. “So it probably wouldn’t do you much good to try.”

Suddenly they were more comfortable with each other, and Buffy quickly went on to fill him in on the highlights of his first time in Sunnydale. When she came to the truce they’d made and their unsuccessful attempt to prevent Angelus from opening Acathla, his eyes were riveted on her face as she described his escape with Drusilla while she sent her lover to hell to save the world.

“So, I ran away? I ran away and left you to face Angelus by yourself?” He looked so devastated that both women moved toward him sympathetically, Buffy drawing back at the last second as he automatically leaned toward Anne.

“That was the deal we made,” she said tersely, sitting back in her chair. “You would distract him and get Drusilla out of the way and I would let you take her and leave Sunnydale forever.”

“You had to kill him? Then who was I fighting beside all last year?”

“I had to let him get sucked into the hell dimension in order to close the portal. It didn’t kill him, he just was trapped there for a long time before it spit him back out several months later.”

“I ran away,” he mumbled, clearly still disturbed to hear that he would do such a thing.

“So did I,” Buffy said quietly.

Anne gave a little gasp as she realized where Buffy had run to. They exchanged looks and Anne unconsciously reached toward Buffy’s hand sympathetically. “That’s why you—“

Buffy nodded tightly, drawing her hand back out of reach.

Spike noticed the exchange but decided to wait and ask Anne about it later. He turned his gaze back to Buffy and said with sincere sympathy, “So, you and Angel – you were a couple then?” Again, his internal growl caused him to wonder about his relationships with them.

She looked at him and bit her lip. “For a while we were. But, we couldn’t… I mean, he didn’t want to… he left. He left and came here.”

Spike could smell the tears she was blinking away and remembered what Anne had said about Buffy’s love for the other souled vampire. He leaned forward and took her hands in his, wondering at her sudden gasp, but determined to say what he wanted to say.

“I’m so very sorry, Buffy. I realize this must be hard for you. To be reminded of him like this and to see me here… alive. I’m sorry, pet, I’m being very selfish to ask you to—“

“No!” the vehemence of her response startled them all. “I mean, no,” she continued more softly, gently removing her hands from his. “I’m fine with it. Not that I’m not sorry Angel is gone. I am. He will always hold a place in my heart. But he had long since stopped being the love of my life. I moved on a long time ago.”

He cocked his head at her and examined her rapidly coloring face for a second.

Alright, so much for that theory of why she’s so emotional around me. If it’s not because I remind her of him, then what the bloody hell is it?

“Right then,” he cleared his throat, “so I scampered off with my lady friend never to return. Then what?”

“You came back because she broke up with you. You wanted Willow to do a love spell to get her back. My mom made you hot chocolate and you cried on her shoulder. Then you left again, but you were back less than a year later, looking for the Gem of Amara.”

“With or without the lady friend?”

“Um, without. She broke up with you again.”

“Can’t keep a woman, huh?” he joked, smiling softly at Anne who immediately moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She whispered something in his ear that made him smile again and Buffy shut her eyes against the pain of watching them together.

Not like I ever went out of my way to make him happy, after all. All he asked for were crumbs and I gave him nothing. Even when I was giving him something, it wasn’t what he wanted. All he wanted was for me to look at him like she does. To touch him like that.

One look at Buffy’s frozen face and Anne was reminded of her earlier concerns about why the slayer was there for Spike. She unconsciously clutched him tighter and he turned his head to give her a puzzled look. She shrugged sheepishly and let go him, moving back to her chair so that he and Buffy could continue their conversation.

The vampire wasn’t oblivious to the emotions rolling off the slayer and he asked her bluntly, “Buffy, if I ask you something, will you give me an honest answer?”

Her face took on a deer-in-the-headlights look as she stammered, ”uh… um… well, sure. Yes. Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I?”

Ignoring her rhetorical question, he asked softly, “How do we – you and I – get along?”

To his chagrin, her expressive green eyes once again began to fill with tears and he watched in dismay as her chin began to quiver. He waited while she visibly took a grip on her emotions and pushed them down so that she could answer him.

“It’s… it’s complicated,” she said slowly. “We fight a lot – we fight with each other and we fight together when we need to. We’re pretty awesome when we’re fighting something together,” she said with a watery smile. She stopped and when she didn’t seem inclined to continue, he pushed a little.

“So, that’s it? We fight a lot?”

His disbelief was palpable and she could feel him looking right through her as she shook her head from side to side.

“Buffy, I’d really like to know. You promised me an honest answer,” he prodded when she just continued to shake her head.

She raised her damp eyes to his and said firmly, “Sometimes, the most honest answer to a question is that I’d rather not answer it. Not right now, anyway.”

While Anne looked back and forth between the two, waiting for one of them to break eye contact, the two former lovers stared at each other for long minutes until finally Spike dropped his eyes and shrugged.

“All right, Slayer. I’ll wait. Let me try another one, then. Do you know why Drusilla broke up with me? Must have been something important to leave me after a hundred years being together.”

“Okaaay, see here’s the thing. I’m getting real uncomfortable here. That promise to give you honest answers? Turns out it was a really bad idea. Honest answers and Buffy? Not so mixy.” She stood up abruptly. “I’m just gonna go patrol now.”

“So that’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me about my life? Because YOU’RE not comfortable?” She could hear the underlying anger in his voice and raised pleading eyes to his.

“I will tell you. I promise. Just… not right now, ok? Right now I have to go find something to slay. Maybe a lot of somethings.”

Without even looking at Anne again, Buffy got up and headed for the door, telling herself she just needed some more time to get used to the situation before she was honest with him. She hadn’t missed the hard looks Anne sent her way and knew that the other woman was far ahead of Spike in figuring out what was wrong.

Not that she’d be able to figure out how messed up our lives have been over the years, but she obviously knows there is-was something there.

Buffy didn’t bother to say good night to the angry vampire or his worried girlfriend, she just flew down the stairs and back out into the night running down the street just as she had earlier in the day. This time, she only had to go a few blocks before sensing a vampire nearby and she slowed her steps to allow the unsuspecting demon to catch up. She slipped a stake into her sleeve and began walking slowly, looking around nervously as though lost and confused.

When she felt the movement of air behind her that indicated the vamp’s approach, she whirled and smiled into his started eyes. Without so much as a quip, she let the stake drop into her hand, raising and lowering it to his chest in one smooth movement. She stared in disappointment as the dust floated away.

“Well, that didn’t make me feel better at all,” she grumbled, stepping through the dust and pushing the stake back up her sleeve. “That better not be the best this city can come up with.”

She vaguely remembered passing a cemetery on her earlier sprint away from the man she’d come to find, and headed in that general direction hoping all the fledglings weren’t already up and out on the town. She stopped once, sure she felt another vampire, but shook it off as being too far away and too faint. She didn’t notice the blond shadow moving along the rooftops and carefully keeping a safe distance behind her.


Chapter Three

Spike grabbed his coat and started for the door, which had slammed behind the Slayer’s back, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going after her, pet. She’s clearly upset and she might get herself killed.”

“She’s been the slayer for a long time, Spike. I’m sure she’ll be fine without your help. She made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to talk to you any more tonight.” Anne tried to sound reasonable, even as every womanly instinct she had was screaming not to let him anywhere near the small blond with the yearning eyes.

“I’m not going to let her know I’m there. Just going to watch her back. It seems like the right thing to do.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead, saying gently, “I’ll be back before you know it.”

She watched him leave the apartment, saying softly to herself, “I hope you’re right, Spike.”

He jumped down the stairs, actually grateful for an excuse to get out in the night air and get some exercise. He was very fond of Anne, and grateful to her for both her help when he was injured and for the undemanding love she gave him, but there were times when he craved a little more excitement in his life. Times when he could feel something missing, both from the relationship and from his life and he suspected the deadly blond he was following could help him find what those things were.

He easily followed her scent in the cool night air, slowing down when he began to feel her presence before he even saw her. He saw her hesitate and look around when he finally began to catch up, and quickly retreated until he could no longer feel her.

So, she can feel me too. Is that just because I’m a vampire?

Spike watched Buffy go into the local cemetery and risked getting closer so as not to lose sight of her among the trees and tombs. Suddenly, the ground erupted in front of her and a newly made vamp began clawing his way out of the ground. Before the slayer could decide whether she wanted to stake him right then or to wait and see if he could make a fight of it, several more showed up. They had obviously been waiting for their buddy to rise and began running toward the grave whooping with delight at the sight of a human standing there.

“Man,” said the one in the lead. “Mo gets all the luck. I had to go hunt down my first meal, and here’s his just standing there waiting for him!”

Buffy looked at the onrushing vamps and her eyes lit up with the joy of battle. Giving the still struggling fledgling a kick to his jaw to keep him out of the way, she let her stakes drop into her hands and waited for the still oblivious vampires.

“Hey, boys. You’re just what I’ve been waiting for,” she grinned at them, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. “I’m going to feel so much better when you are broomable.”

The slayer whirled into action, staking the first vamp before her words had even registered, and spinning around to kick the next one in the face before rolling to come up behind the two lagging behind. Spike had rushed forward when he saw the small gang running toward her, but slowed as he saw the light in her eyes when she faced them. He stayed behind a tree and watched in wonder and admiration as she played with the remaining vamps, quipping and taunting as she worked her way through their ranks.

When the dust from the last one had settled at her feet, she turned and looked right at the tree, saying with resignation, “Come on out, Spike. I know you’re there.”

He came around the tree, clapping his hands slowly as he did so. He didn’t miss her flinch at his actions or the way she squeezed her eyes shut briefly, and he stopped immediately to tilt his head at her.

“I’ve upset you again, haven’t I?” he asked, frowning. “You know, that would be much less likely to happen if you would just bloody tell me the things I need to know.” The exasperation in his voice was so familiar that she laughed shakily as she moved closer to him.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” he grumbled. “You’re a damned irritating bint, you know?”

“I know,” she smiled at him. “It’s why you lo- It’s part of who we are. We make each other really mad sometimes.”

“You said we fight with each other – who usually wins?”

She just looked at him, smiling slightly as she ran her eyes over his face and body. No longer inhibited by Anne’s presence or Spike’s visible affection for her former classmate, Buffy felt free to indulge herself in the sheer joy of seeing him again. Without conscious thought her hand went to his face and she gently ghosted it over his cheek causing him to shiver involuntarily and lean in to it.

“No fair, Slayer,” he said hoarsely, “You know what’s going on here and I don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, dropping her hand to her side and turning away. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Why not?”

She raised her head and looked at him with eyes that told him much more than he was ready to know.

“Did you want to do it?”

“Oh yes,” she said with a catch in her voice. “I wanted to. It just didn’t seem… right. To do it before.”

“In front of Anne.” His voice was flat and she couldn’t guess what he was thinking.

She nodded. “I mean, obviously you and she… and I don’t have any… not that you couldn’t… but, I wouldn’t want to… and if I started touching you I might not… Are you in love with her?” The words burst out before she could stop them and she slapped her hand over her mouth in dismay.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Your life here is what it is, and I should just—“

“Buffy.” His voice stopped her embarrassed babbling and she froze, staring at his too-familiar face and the unusually gentle expression on it. She continued to stand, unable to speak or move until he took her hands and led her to a tombstone, indicating she should sit on it.

“Tell me about us,” he said gently, kneeling in front of her. “Tell me why I keep making you cry. Tell me why you can touch me now, but couldn’t or wouldn’t in front of my girlfriend.”

When she didn’t speak, but just continued to stare at him he added quietly, “Please?”

“It isn’t pretty,” she said finally.

“Is it real?”

“Oh, it’s real all right,” she snorted. “About as real as it gets. Real and messy and—“

“Just tell me, Slayer. I have a right to know.”

“I suppose you do,” she said softly. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out with an explosive sigh. “Ok, here’s the sitch….”

Without looking at him, focusing her gaze on her hands where they twisted in her lap, she ran through their entire relationship with each other, beginning with his clapping appearance in the alley behind the Bronze after she dusted his minion and ending with his apparent death in the Hellmouth. She smiled slightly when his eyes widened at her description of the first time she met him and he realized why she’d reacted so strongly to his emergence from behind the tree.

He didn’t interrupt to ask any questions, just flinched when she came to something unpleasant like the description of what the chip did to him. He smiled briefly when she described Willow’s spell that had them planning a wedding even as they continued to argue and fight with each other. He frowned when she told him about Adam and his attempts to make a deal with the monster and gasped when she told him about chaining her up so that he could declare his love for her in front of his former undead lover.

Buffy talked about his growing love for her in an unemotional voice, telling him quite honestly about how sure she’d been that vampires couldn’t love and that it was just a twisted obsession that grew out of his inability to kill her. She told him about her faith in his ability to protect her mother and Dawn from Glory, about her mother’s illness and his attempts to comfort her, about Riley’s betrayal with the vamp whores and Spike’s insistence on showing it to her. Her voice softened when she told him about how he had resisted Glory’s torture to protect Dawn, for her, and about her growing trust in him and the friendship they seemed to be forging.

When she told him about her sacrifice to save the world from the apocalypse Glory had begun and about how peaceful and happy she’d been in Heaven, he unconsciously reached for her hand to squeeze it sympathetically. He continued to hold it lightly as she talked about being ripped out of heaven by her friends; about coming back to find that he had kept his promise to her and stayed in Sunnydale taking care of Dawn and helping her friends defend the Hellmouth.

She spoke about her new-found willingness to spend time with him, her complete lack of interest in life and her inability to feel anything except the desire to be at rest again. In a soft voice she told of how she’d confided in him and how she’d begun to spend more and more time in the crypt with him. How much at ease she was where she didn’t have to pretend. He grimaced when she talked about the song he sang during Sweet’s visit to Sunnydale and squeezed her fingers again when she told him how he’d stopped her dancing and saved her life.

And, then, in a shaky voice, she talked about his discovery that the chip didn’t work on her, about their fighting and the subsequent love making that brought down a building. She spared nothing as she told him about the months long affair in which she allowed him to use his body to bring her back to life, even as she denied feeling anything for him but disgust. Her voice shook as she talked about beating him up for trying to protect her from herself. She didn’t spare herself as she talked about how she’d returned his love and devotion with brutal sex and insistence that there was nothing else between them but physical release. Her voice broke as she spoke about ending the relationship. How destroyed he’d looked and how sure she’d been that it was the best thing for both of them. Of how devastated she’d been when she saw him with Anya’s legs wrapped around his hips; how angry and betrayed she’d felt even though she knew he had every right to move on as she’d ordered him to do.

She prefaced her report of the incident in the bathroom by telling him she knew she was the queen of mixed signals, that she knew he wasn’t trying to hurt her, and that he was very drunk at the time. The more excuses she made for what she was about to tell him, the darker his face became and when she finally told him what he’d tried to do, he dropped her fingers and buried his face in his own hands.

“That… that’s when you went to get the soul,” she whispered, touching his bowed head gently before going on. “You got it for me. Because you hurt me.”

She told him how she’d forgiven him almost immediately, but hadn’t been able to tell him because he was gone and they didn’t know where he was. He twitched when she told him how much she had missed him those months while he was in Africa, and how happy she’d been to find him back in the school basement, even if he was insane.

He shuddered all over when she described how the First had controlled him, forcing him to kill and making him dangerous to be around. She talked about the potentials, the Turok-han and the torture he’d been through while she struggled to defeat the ancient vampire and find him. Once again, she could tell him about the growing trust she had in him and the way she relied on him for both emotional and physical support in her battle against the First.

Her description of the fear that had seized her heart when she realized that he was in danger from Robin Wood; her relief that he was still alive and her estrangement from her former watcher and the rest of her friends made him raise his head again to watch as she calmly talked about the betrayal and rejection. He watched her smile lightly as she described how he’d found her and given her back her courage and determination in one short night.

She licked her lips nervously as she talked about their short conversation in the kitchen in which she’d admitted to being as affected as he was by their chaste night together. She ended with the destruction of the Hellmouth; with his refusal to leave as the amulet channeled his soul into cleansing fire. Her lip trembled as she repeated what she’d said to him and the way he rejected her tardy declaration of love.

“You didn’t believe me,” she finished quietly. “You didn’t think I meant it. After everything we’d been though. After THIS.” She held up his hand and matched the scars on it up with hers, watching his look of wonder as he linked their fingers and felt the ropy ridges of flesh blend together like pieces of a puzzle.

“And, I guess that’s why you didn’t come to me when you came back,” she finished briskly. “You didn’t think I loved you, so you stayed with Angel and didn’t tell me you were alive. I didn’t find out about it until just before the big fight with the demon army, and then we thought you’d all been killed, so…”

She unlaced her fingers from his and dropped her hands down in her lap again, twisting them around and rubbing her scar.

The vampire was silent for a long while, staring at his own scarred hand and trying to process the things he’d learned about the past six years of his life and the large part the woman in front of him had played in it. Finally he stood up from where he’d remained kneeling in front of her the whole time and stretched stiff muscles.

“When you said ‘complicated’ you weren’t kidding, were you, pet?” he asked dryly.

Buffy gave him a weak smile of agreement, heartened by his use of the endearment even if it was a generic term for him. She sat quietly and watched him pace around the tombstones, his face a study in confusion, amazement and anger. He stopped periodically to stare at her as though he could read the answers to his unanswered questions in her face and body. Then he would give himself a shake and go back to his nervous pacing, trying to process what he’d just learned.

Finally, he stopped in front of her and blew out an unnecessary breath before he said, “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Buffy. Not just us – but Angel, Drusilla, all these people I should know and can’t remember.” He looked at her incredulously, asking, “Did you say I’ve been a vampire for over a hundred and twenty-five years?”

When she nodded silently, he shook his head and muttered more to himself than her, “The things I must have done, the places I must have been, the people I should remember… gone, all of it. Just gone.”

“May-maybe not gone forever. Your memory might come back. I… um, I read up on amnesia while I was on the plane and it said that sometimes the memories start coming back a little bit at a time. Sometimes it’s in dreams, or like – deja-vuey kinda things during the day. And, it said once it starts, then they just keep coming until…”

Her voice trailed off as he raised a skeptical eyebrow at her and she frowned and stamped her foot in irritation.

“Well, they could! That’s what the book said. And even if they don’t, Willow’s this amazingly awesome witch and she could—“

“This is the same witch that had us getting married when we hated each other?” he asked with some humor. “If it’s all the same to you, pet, I think I’ll give that a miss.”

“You don’t want to remember… things?” Her plump lower lip came out in a small pout and he found his eyes drawn to it as he struggled to remember what they were talking about. He unconsciously moved closer to her, never taking his eyes off her lip. When her tongue came out to lick it nervously, he almost groaned out loud.

Alright, wanker. You need to put those thoughts away right now. This woman is a complete stranger to you and you have a very sweet girlfriend waiting for you to come back to her. Jus’ keep your mind on learning about your past and never mind how suckable that lip looks to be.

Buffy’s heart rate went up and her breathing increased as Spike moved closer to her, his eyes clearly focused on her mouth. The common sense that said she shouldn’t force anything on him for which he wasn’t ready and willing was at outright war with her need to touch him, to feel those lips again and to have that body pressed against hers.

She tried to satisfy the battling desires by putting her hands behind her back, but tipping her face up for the kiss she was sure was coming. Instead, to her distress, he stopped before he actually reached her lips, visibly controlling himself and backing away quickly.

“I… I’m sorry, Buffy. I just can’t. I’m not that kind of man. It doesn’t matter what you say we had… or maybe didn’t have, if I understood half of that correctly.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair and tried not to see the pain in her eyes as he continued, “I don’t know you now, and I have a lovely woman who trusts me waiting for me to come home. I’m sorry, love. I truly am.”

He whirled, his duster flaring out around him, and headed for the cemetery’s gate at a brisk walk. He’d only gone a few steps when there was a furious slayer in front of him.

“When did you turn into such a coward?” she demanded.

“I beg your pardon?” His anger immediately rose to match her own. “I am NOT a coward. I am an honorable man-er-vampire.”

“You’re afraid,” she said flatly. “You’re afraid if you kiss me you’ll find out you want me and it would spoil the happy little life you’ve got.”

“If I understood your little saga correctly, Slayer, I’ve helped save the world several times, even givin’ up my unlife to do it. I think I’m entitled to a ‘happy little life’ if I want one. Whether it meets with your approval or not.”

Buffy’s anger vanished as quickly as it had arisen. “Yes,” she whispered. “You are entitled to a happy life.” She raised tear-filled eyes to his. “I just expected you to want to have it with me.”

“I don’t know you, love,” he responded gently, his own anger gone in face of her unhappiness. “I know you think you know me, but I can’t give you what you came here for. If the man you’re seeking is here, he’s buried too deeply for me to find him. I’m sorry, pet.”

Buffy cocked her head in an unconscious imitation of his own gesture and studied him for a second. Then, before he could react, she grabbed his head and captured his cool lips with her own soft, warm ones, using her slayer strength to hold his mouth to hers until she felt him kissing her back. Immediately, her tongue came out to lightly trace around his lips, asking, but not demanding that he let her in. With a sigh of surrender, he parted his lips and allowed her tongue to gently probe his mouth, running sweetly around the indentations that held his fangs and stroking his own willing tongue.

Without conscious effort on his part, his arms went around her waist and he pulled her soft but strong body against his own, giving in to the wonderful sensation of holding this heated bundle of feminine curves. While his mind struggled to pull some trace of a memory of the woman he was holding from his blank brain, his body responded to her with a rapidity that left no doubt that she’d told him the truth about their relationship.

Buffy allowed herself joyful minutes to bask in the feeling of having his hands on her once again and to give in to the bone melting kisses she’d never stopped thinking about since the unfortunate spell that Willow was never going to live down. She drank in the scent of leather and tobacco that was so familiar; the taste and feel of his lips on hers, the way his tongue curled around her own and teased it and the way his hard lean body molded itself perfectly to her own, fitting together as though made for each other.

When she’d absorbed what she thought was enough of him to get her through the night and the next day, she reluctantly pulled back and whispered softly, “Your body knows me, Spike.” With a final stroke of his shell-shocked face, she stepped completely away from him and walked away toward her hotel leaving a very confused and aroused vampire.


Chapter Four

Spike stood rooted to the spot, his desire for the woman he’d been kissing warring with the soul’s unwillingness to hurt the woman who loved him.

The OTHER woman who loves me he realized with amazement. While he was subconsciously surprised to find himself the object of the affections of two attractive women, without his memories, the true irony of his situation was lost on him. There was no way for the Spike who took Anne’s gentle love for him for granted to understand how starved for that kind of acceptance his pre-amnesia self had been.

He started walking back toward the shelter, briefly contemplating trailing Buffy to be sure she got back all right, then laughing at himself for worrying when he remembered how she handled the vampire pack. He shook his head in silent admiration of her grace and skill.

I’ve got no trouble seeing why I would have fallen in love with her. Never seen such a combination of strength and beauty wrapped up into one little package. One very passionate little package, apparently.

Struggling to put thoughts of the slayer and her warm body out of his mind, Spike went back up the steps and used his key to open the apartment door. He was surprised to find Anne sitting up, still dressed and obviously waiting for him. She pushed the book she’d been reading down the side of the couch cushion and stood up.

“A little late, isn’t it, love?” he asked, shrugging out of his coat. “Don’t you have to open the kitchen tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” she answered without explanation. She walked toward the bedroom, asking over her shoulder, “Are you coming to bed now?”

“In a bit, pet,” he said casually as he opened the refrigerator and took out some blood. “I could use some food.”

“You could drink from me,” she offered quietly.

Spike carefully put his mug in the microwave and turned it on before turning to face her.

“You’re not food,” he said coldly.

“You took it before. When you were—“

“That was a one time thing. Told you that then. If I hadn’t needed it to heal so I could throw out those soddin’ gang bangers that were causing you so much trouble…”

She stared at him, silently for a minute and then asked calmly, “So, you don’t want to drink from me unless it’s an emergency.”

“Isn’t that what I just said? Bloody hell, woman, what’s wrong with you tonight?”

“Nothing,” she said finally. “I’m going to bed now.”

She went into the bedroom and he could hear the normal sounds of her bedtime routine. When the water ran longer than he would have expected, he listened a little harder and picked up the sound of soft sobbing. With a sigh, he put down his half-empty mug and walked to the bathroom door, opening it to find Anne sitting on the closed toilet crying softly into her hands.

Spike came and sat on the edge of the bathtub, pulling her into his lap and running a soothing hand over her back.

“What’s this all about, then?” he asked, afraid he already knew the answer, but knowing he had to ask.

“Why were you gone so long?” She responded by seeming to change the subject, but they both knew she really hadn’t.

“Watched the slayer take out a gang of vamps and stayed to chat a little. Got caught up on a few things from the past six or seven years. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” he asked, tipping her head up to look at him.

“I want you to bite me,” she said, staring into his mystified eyes.

“I’m having a little trouble following these jumps in the conversation, pet. What has that ridiculous request got to do with how long I was gone or the waterworks in here?”

“Why don’t you want to bite me?” she persisted stubbornly.

“Told you, you’re not food,” he growled. He stood up and deposited her on the floor. “Now if you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong, I’m going back to my pig’s blood.”

He waited for a few seconds, but when she didn’t say anything else, he went back into the other room and finished the mug of blood. He stared into the empty container, idly watching the dregs begin to clot on the bottom and wondering what had gotten in to Anne. He wasn’t so oblivious as to not understand that she was worried about Buffy’s sudden arrival in his life. Especially now that he knew what they’d been to each other. Obviously Anne had picked up on something that he’d missed in Buffy’s behavior and was worried about losing him to the Slayer. Which didn’t explain her sudden interest in his biting her. Jealousy, he could understand. Wanting to donate blood all of a sudden he didn’t.

With a flash of insight, he remembered the book she’d been reading when he came in and he walked over to the couch. Pulling the book out from between the cushions, he glanced at the title and then threw it across the room with a guttural snarl. He stared at the open door leading to the darkened bedroom and ran his hand over his head in distraction.

“Bloody stupid bint,” he muttered, growling to himself. He walked to the wall and picked up the copy of “Mating Rituals of Vampires” that Anne had been reading when he came in. Suddenly her request that he drink from her made a frightening kind of sense. She’d read just enough to know about claiming, and not enough to understand it.

He sighed heavily and debated just staying in the living room until she was asleep, but knew that would just mean neither one of them would get any sleep that night. He put the mug in the sink, turned off the lights, and walked into the dark bedroom, shedding his clothes as he went.

Anne’s uneven breathing told him she was still awake and fighting more tears. Bloody hell, I’ve seen more female tears today that I have in the past six months total. He sighed and reached an arm around her, pulling her close to his chest and letting the semi-hard-on he’d been sporting since Buffy’s kiss press into her back.

“I’m not going to bite you, and I’m not going to leave you,” he said quietly, dropping a kiss on her shoulder.

He felt her shudder, then she turned in his embrace and looked into his face, knowing he could see her much better than she could see him. She wrapped one of her long, slender legs over his hip and pulled herself closer while she murmured, “I’m sorry. I was just so scared when I figured out why she was here. And then you didn’t come back…”

“Told you I would,” he replied quietly. “I wouldn’t lie to you, pet.”

She sighed softly. “I know you wouldn’t. I just… she’s so beautiful, and so strong… and she loves you. I could see it. She really loves you and I—“ She hitched another half-sob, half breath and burrowed into his neck.

“She does,” he admitted. “But the man she loves – the man who loved her – He doesn’t live here anymore. I don’t know who he is.” He rubbed her back reassuringly, even as he decided to be completely honest with her. “I’m not saying I can’t see how I could have loved her. I suspect the old me would have found it very easy to do. And I’m not saying I’m not going to see her again.”

He felt her stiffen in his arms and kissed the top of her head and murmured soothingly until she relaxed again.

“She knows a lot about my past, Anne. Much more than just what we talked about tonight. She can tell me about when I was turned, maybe even something about me before I was a vampire. And she can tell me about Drusilla, and Angel or Angelus. If she can’t bring my memory back, she can at least help me fill in some holes. Give me back a bit of who I am.”

“And if she can give you your memory back?”

“Don’t do this to yourself, love,” he pleaded. “Getting my memory back wouldn’t mean I’d forget you and what we have now. And she’s not here to give me my memory back – even the Slayer can’t do that. Can we not worry about that unless it happens?”

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, raising her face to look at him again. “I know I’m behaving like a jealous girl friend, but—“

“You’re behaving like a woman who loves me. And I can’t tell you how much that means to me, pet. How that makes me feel.”

He rolled over and pressed her gently into the mattress, stopping any more questions with soft kisses that gradually deepened until she wrapped her long, slim arms and legs around him and pulled him into her body. Neither one was willing to consider the implications of his not having told her he loved her, and Spike gave her no opportunity to point it out, beginning a gentle rhythm that had become very familiar to them both.

He made love to her with skill and affection, taking care, as he always did not to use his vampiric strength in a way that could hurt her. He was mildly curious as to why his demon remained so docile in what should have been a very tempting situation for it, but attributed it to the lack of passion generated by Anne’s sweet, gentle love making.

As he felt her body shudder around him with her orgasm and allowed himself to find a release in her depths, he tried to push thoughts of a smaller, warmer and stronger body out of his head. But no matter how hard he tried, memories of what Buffy had felt like in his arms earlier made his own orgasm more powerful than usual and he mentally groaned at his body’s betrayal of the woman moving under him.


Chapter Five

Buffy slept late the next day, knowing Spike wouldn’t be waking up before early afternoon and not sure if she would be welcome at the shelter anyway. She spoke to Dawn and promised her she would try to get him to talk to her on the phone. She repeatedly reminded her sister that he didn’t remember them or anything about them but eventually gave into Dawn’s pleas. Now that her sister was growing up, she rarely used her whining voice to get her way and Buffy couldn’t fight it the way she used to.

“Fine, Dawn!” she finally huffed in irritation. “I will torture myself by walking back into the home he is sharing with someone else and suffer the embarrassment of knowing they know how I feel, just so you can find out for yourself that he doesn’t know you either.”

Ignoring everything except the part that said Buffy was going to get Spike to call her, Dawn cheerfully replied, “Okay, great. I’ll be waiting for the call.”

In spite of her promise to Dawn, Buffy put off calling or going to the shelter for several hours until she realized that the longer she waited, the more likely Spike and Anne would be back in their apartment. Having no desire to see any more domesticity than she already had, Buffy quickly left her room to run to the shelter and try to catch Spike before he went upstairs with Anne.

Luck was with her Well, here’s a first. Something goes right for Buffy romantically she thought wryly when the first volunteer she asked told her Spike was in the basement and that Anne had gone out for supplies with one of the other volunteers. She quickly tripped down the stairs to the basement of the old shelter and looked around for the vampire. A string of colorful British curses led her to the area where he was trying to wrestle an old armoire across the room.

Buffy watched with a smile for a few seconds, knowing that he was more than strong enough to carry the large piece of furniture, but having trouble getting the right grip on it. After she’d watched him struggle, and listened to him swearing and sounding very much like himself, she quietly stepped to the other side and picked up one end of it. He threw a startled glance up as the load became lighter and easier to control, then nodded briefly as though strong blonde girls helped him every day. He gestured toward the far wall and said, “It’s going right over there, pet.”

With both of them carrying it, the reluctant closet was soon sitting against the wall waiting for someone to put something in it. They stepped away from it and stood awkwardly, facing each other from a few feet away.

“Thank you, luv,” he said automatically. He was not looking at her and missed the way her face lit up, but not the increase in her heart rate. Realizing what he’d said, he quickly tried to backtrack.

“That wasn’t… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay, Spike.” She smiled at him sadly. “It’s just how you talk to women. I know that. I promise not to make anything out of it.”

Thoroughly embarrassed, he put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shuffled his feet.

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” he said softly. “After last night. I thought you might not want to come back here.“

“I didn’t,” she said flatly. “But I promised Dawn I would ask you to call her. You won’t remember this, but when she starts whining for something it’s just in everybody’s best interest to give it to her and not drag out the agony. It’s only postponing the inevitable anyway.”

“Gets her way a lot, does she?”

“Well, with you, she certainly did. You couldn’t refuse her anything.”

Buffy’s lip had unconsciously snuck out in a small pout as she complained about the way he catered to her sister, and once again his eyes were riveted on it.

“I suspect there wasn’t much I could deny you, either, Slayer,” he said dryly, tearing his eyes away from her lips.

“Not much,” she agreed softly. “You always give—gave me whatever I wanted or needed.”

“Pussy-whipped, huh?” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

“You are such a pig, Spike,” she snorted automatically.

He grinned and came back with, “So where is this creature with the powerful whine? Can I call her later tonight?”

“Well, She’s in England. So if you wait too long, it’ll be the middle of the night. She said she’d wait for your call- but that was a while ago….”

“I don’t have a cell – we could go up to the apartment—“

“No!”

The raw emotion in her voice made him cringe and he cursed himself for being an insensitive fool.

“I’m sorry, pet. That was… I’m a stupid git. Let me get my coat and we’ll go somewhere else to make the call….”

Mortified that she’d let Spike see how affected she was by his new life, Buffy blinked back tears and said as calmly as she could, ”No, I’m sorry. I need to… to accept the situation and learn to deal. To move on.”

He tilted his head at her and studied her resolute face. Once again, he was as impressed with her emotional strength as with the physical. He’d only known her twenty-four hours and already he understood that when she loved it was fiercely and passionately. And, clearly, after almost two years of thinking he was dead, she still loved him. He felt a sudden pang of regret that he didn’t remember this amazing woman and what she meant to him.

Bloody hell, what did I do to earn this kind of loyalty from a woman like this? There’s no way I’m fit to carry her coat. I’m beneath her.

“I have my cell with me,” she said into the silence. She pulled it out of her pocket and held it out to him. “There’s no signal down here, though. We’re going to have to go outside.”

“Alright then,” he agreed, taking it from her. “Let’s go turn off the whine machine.”

Smiling, she led the way back up stairs, only to find an angry-looking Anne on her way down.

“What are you doing down here?” she demanded coldly. She made no attempt to hide her feelings from either one of them and Buffy reacted in true Slayer fashion by hardening her own expression.

“I was talking to Spike,” she said with a challenge in her voice. “Dawn asked him to call her.”

“We’re just going outside where the phone will work, love,” Spike tried to mediate. “I’ll be right back.”

“That’s what you said last night,” Anne replied stubbornly, still standing between them and the top of the stairs.

“I came back,” Spike said in a tone she’d never heard from him before. He stepped around Buffy, trying to ignore the way his body reacted to her warmth, and gently turned Anne around and urged her back up the stairs. When they all reached the top, Buffy pushed past the taller blonde with a glare.

“If it’s all right with you,” she ground out. “My little sister would like to talk to the vampire who cared for her when I wasn’t able to. You know, the one she loves? The one she thought was dead?”

“He isn’t going to know her any more than he knows you,” Anne said, knowing she sounded like a petulant child, but unable to help herself. Spike’s surprised frown did nothing to help her mood, and she walked away before she said anything else she might regret later.

Another uncomfortable silence ensued while Spike looked after his girlfriend in confusion and Buffy smothered homicidal urges. Then they turned as one and headed for the door. While Buffy’d been inside, the sun had begun to sink into the west and there was plenty of shade in which Spike could stand while he talked on the phone.

Buffy found Dawn’s number for him and pushed the button to make the call before handing the phone back to him.

“What do I call her?” he asked hurriedly as it began to ring.

“Call her Dawn,” she answered quickly. “If I tell you her nickname, she’ll never believe you aren’t… you.”

She watched his face carefully as Dawn answered on the second ring, searching for any sign that her sister’s voice could evoke something hers hadn’t. But the vampire’s face remained smooth and calm as he said carefully, “Dawn? How are you, pet?”

From the look on his face, Buffy could tell Dawn had launched right into a rant about what a jerk he was for letting them think he was dead and she smiled as he grew more and more uncomfortable when the voice on the phone became shriller and shriller. He was holding the phone slightly away from his ear and said jokingly, “Hey, you’re being a little hard on the vampire hearing, Bit. Think you could tone it down?”

There was blessed silence for several seconds and then the sound of sobbing came clearly through the phone. He turned bewildered eyes to Buffy, only to find her eyes filling with tears also even as a smile trembled at the corners of her mouth.

“Oi! I’ve had just about all the female tears I want for the rest of my unlife in the past day,” he said, shoving the phone at her. “Here, do something! I don’t know what I said to set this off.”

“You called her ‘Bit”, Buffy said softly, never taking her glistening eyes off of him. “You called her ‘Bit’.”

She took the phone from him and talked into it softly. “Yes, Dawnie, I heard him. No, I don’t know. Yes, I will. Yes. Yes it is. Yes. Me too. Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning. Yes. Yes. Love you too. I’ll tell him.”

She closed the phone and held it tightly while Spike shifted around nervously.

Hoping he was right, and knowing he wasn’t, he asked, “So, I called her a ‘bit’ and made her cry. Does she not like that word, or something?”

Raising one eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of him when he heard something patently ridiculous, she just looked at him until he lowered his gaze and said, “Guess not, huh?”

Buffy shook her head. “Nope. That was your name for her. “Bit” or “Niblet” or “Bite Size”.

“I still don’t remember anything, Buffy,” he said quickly. ‘I don’t know where that came from, but it didn’t suddenly make my memories appear.”

“I know,” she said softly. “But it’s a start. It shows you’re in there somewhere.”

“Don’t go making more out of it than it is, Slayer,” he warned, his desire to remember the woman in front of him at odds with his reluctance to hurt Anne any more than he already had.

“Okay,” she agreed, much too readily. He sent her a suspicious look but she just looked back at him innocently. “Spike doesn’t love Buffy any more. I got it.”

“Just so we understand each other,” he grumbled, not sure if he liked the way she agreed so easily.

“I’m going patrolling later. If you’d like to come. If it’s a slow night, we should have time for me to fill you in on some more things from your past.”

“I’d like that, pet,” he agreed eagerly. “Meet you at the cemetery? About 9:00?”

“It’s a date,” she said cheerfully and strode off down the street.

“It bloody well is NOT a date!” he shouted after her, not noticing Anne standing in the doorway until he turned around.

She said nothing, just went back into the building and back to serving the evening meals. With a sigh, he went up to the apartment and fixed himself a mug of blood, gulping it down quickly. He warmed up another one and sat down to watch the news and enjoy that one in a more leisurely fashion.

When Anne came up stairs later and watched him putting on his coat, she said nothing, just put her dinner in the microwave and sat back on the couch, holding the book he’d found the night before.

“That was written by humans, love,” he said quietly.

“So?”

“So they don’t know what they’re talking about any more than those morons you used to hang out with in Sunnydale knew what a vampire really was. Don’t go reading that and thinking you know about vampires. Don’t need my memories to know that.”

She didn’t reply and after an exasperated minute he left without saying anything other than, “I’ll be back later.”


Spike approached the cemetery to find Buffy engaged in fighting a very large, very drunk Fyarl demon. He waited by the gate, admiring her grace and athleticism until he saw the Fyarl throw her against the wall of a tomb. It wasn’t until Buffy groaned and struggled to get up that he realized she had no weapon but the stake in her hand. She’d been fighting the demon on its terms because she had no other options and her arms were too short to do serious damage with the stake.

She staggered to her feet, only to be carried back to the ground under the angry demon’s weight. With a roar, Spike grabbed the Fyarl and yanked it up and off the slayer, meeting her accusing eyes with an apologetic shrug before kicking the demon back and away. He quickly pulled Buffy to her feet, muttering a “sorry, pet, got caught up in watching you fight,” before they both turned to face the still angry and attacking demon.

With no more communication than a nod, they attacked as one – Buffy driving toward the demon’s knees and Spike burying his fangs in its throat. Between having its throat ripped open and the stake Buffy was able to drive through its heart, the demon was quickly dispatched. They stood up, panting slightly and stepped away from the still-bleeding corpse.

While Spike gagged and spit over the demon blood he’d ingested, Buffy put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“The Spike I know would never pass up a chance to join a fight just to watch,” she said angrily.”

“The Spike you know is used to seeing you in action, pet. He probably wouldn’t have been so gobsmacked at how beautiful you are when you’re fighting.”

The sincere compliment took the sting out of Spike’s delayed reaction to her need for back-up and Buffy tried not to sound as mollified as she actually was when she responded, “Well, now I’m all bruised and dirty and….”

“And, what?”

“And I wanted to look pretty for you tonight,” she mumbled, fingering a rip in her jacket and wrinkling her nose at the Fyarl blood all over her pants.

“You look bleedin’ beautiful, Buffy,” he said softly, sounding so much like her Spike that her heart jumped. She looked up quickly only to find his eyes filled with the admiration of a stranger. There was appreciation, definitely; and more than a trace of lust, but the love and recognition she was looking for wasn’t there and she sighed tiredly.

They’d been walking for several minutes before Spike realized Buffy was limping and wincing with each step.

“You’re hurt, Slayer! Why didn’t you say something?” The concern on his face was genuine, if more impersonal than she would have liked.

“Yeah,” she admitted, stopping to sit down on a tombstone. “I think I might be done for the night. I’m sorry,” she added apologetically. “I thought we’d get a good patrol in, but…”

“Nothing to apologize for, luv. If I hadn’t been such a git, you wouldn’t be hurt. ‘S my fault. Can just sit and talk if you like. We can patrol some other time.”

Buffy smiled happily at the suggestion that they would be out together again, then looked at her ruined clothes and bit her lip.

“Do you think that we could go back to my hotel and sit there?” she asked timidly. “I’d really like to get cleaned up and maybe put some ice on my hip.”

She held her breath, waiting to see if he would refuse to be alone with her in the more intimate setting, but he just jumped up and replied, “Of course, pet. Let me help you.”

Buffy swallowed the automatic “I can walk myself” when she realized he was planning to carry her. The vampire scooped her up, marveling once again at how someone so tiny could be so powerful.

They were both very stiff as he began striding down the sidewalk, Buffy not wanting him to think she was taking advantage of the situation and Spike worried that she would notice the effect her nearness was having on him and misunderstand his intentions.

It’s nothing to do with her, really. Just a reaction to the fight – that’s all. he told himself silently as he tried to deny the way his body was reacting to her scent and the feel of her skin. When he tried to shift his grip so as not to be touching bare skin, he almost dropped her. Buffy gave a small “eep!” and threw her arms around his neck.

“Sorry, luv,” he almost gasped as he realized his attempt to keep his distance now had her holding on for dear life.

“It’s okay,” she said, equally breathlessly, using her closer proximity as an excuse to rest her head on his chest. “I’ll just hang on a little tighter.”

“Oh yeah,” he tried not to groan. “Good idea. Bloody good idea.”

With Buffy giving directions, they were soon in front of her hotel and he set her down carefully, keeping one arm around her waist as she pulled out her key and opened the side door. Spike held the door for her and she limped past him with a grateful smile. As soon as she was in and Spike spotted the elevators, he picked her back up and quickly strode to the nearest one.

Buffy smiled with embarrassment at the elderly couple sharing the elevator with them and blushed when she heard them as Spike stepped off on her floor, “Isn’t that sweet? They must be newlyweds.”

In front of her door, Spike once again reluctantly set her down, telling himself he was just worried that she’d fall. It’s not like I really want to keep holding her like that. Just trying to keep her safe is all.

Buffy limped into the room and grabbing some sweats from a drawer she said, “I’ll be right back.”

The bathroom door had barely shut behind her when Spike grabbed the ice bucket and key and went searching for ice. By the time a cleaner Buffy emerged from the bathroom, he was back and wrapping the ice in a pillowcase.

“Here you go, luv,” he said gruffly. “Put this on that hip.”

Her grateful smile and whispered, “Thank you,” sent a warm rush through his chest and he smiled back at her affectionately before catching himself and walking over to the only chair in the room. Buffy gingerly climbed onto the bed and propped herself up on the pillows before settling down with the ice pack on her aching hip.

They sat in surprisingly comfortable silence for several minutes before Spike ventured, ”So, pet. Since we aren’t going to be beating any more big bads tonight, how about you tell me what you know of my life before you?”

‘What makes you think you had a life before me?” she teased gently.

“Ha, bloody ha, Slayer,” he growled without real menace.

“I asked you before, Spike,” she said, suddenly serious. “Are you sure you want to know all this?”

“Let me have it, Slayer. Give it to me good.”

“’K, then, let me tell you about a shy poet and how he became a part of the scourge of Europe.”

Buffy talked for over an hour, pausing to answer Spike’s questions when she could; apologizing when she couldn’t. Sometime during the recitation, when she’d attempted to reach out to him with a comforting hand and hurt her sore hip, Spike had moved to the bed. He sat beside her, leaning against the headboard and listening intently, but not touching her. When she said her mouth was dry, he absently handed her an ice cube from the bucket, shivering a little when she took it from his fingers with her mouth.

When Buffy had run out of facts about his past both as human and vampire, and Spike had run out of questions, they rested side-by-side while he tried to find something familiar in all the information she’d given him. He growled softly in frustration as his damaged brain refused to respond to any of it.

Buffy looked at him curiously when he growled and he shook his head and gave her a small smile.

“Sorry, pet. It’s just so bloody frustrating not being able to recognize anything or anybody with all those new facts to gnaw on. Didn’t frighten you, did I?”

Buffy’s snort of derision reminded him that he was sitting next to the longest-lived slayer in history and he ducked his head in embarrassment.

“Right. Sitting next to the slayer who used to kick my arse regularly. Forgot there for a second.”

“Need a reminder?” she teased, pretending to be throwing a punch at his face. Spike’s automatic response was to throw a hand up to protect his nose and they both froze at the clear reminder that somehow his body knew her even if his heart and mind didn’t.

Spike looked away from her hopeful eyes and muttered,” So my nose is your favorite body part, eh, Slayer?”

“Only when I’m trying to hit you,” she said with a shrug, peering at him through her lowered lashes.

“What about when you aren’t trying to hit me?” he asked huskily, berating himself for the leading question, even as he met her flirtatious gaze with a heated look of his own.

“It depends,” she answered breathlessly, leaning forward just far enough for him to feel the heat of her body. “Sometimes I think it’s your lips.” She ran the tip of one finger around his mouth lightly, shivering when he wrapped his lips around her finger briefly. “Sometimes I think it’s your cheekbones,” she continued, stroking the side of his face gently. “Or,” she went on, growing bolder, “it could be your nice flat tummy.” She ran her hand down his chest, over his suddenly tensed muscles, stopping when she got to the top of his low-cut jeans. Sliding her hand under the hem of his tee shirt, she ran her fingers across the soft skin of his lower abdomen to touch the ridge of his hip, then back across the silky expanse of skin to the other prominent hipbone.

The vampire was almost quivering in anticipation, the bulge pressing against the zipper of his jeans aching for her to continue her slow litany of her favorite body parts. Instead of touching him where his mind was insisting she shouldn’t go, and his body was screaming she had to, she moved her hands to his arms and stroked his biceps and forearms, moving down to his hands and linking her fingers with his.

“Or, it might be your hands. Your hands that have pulled me to safety so many times, the fists that you’ve used to defend me and mine, your fingers that know all the right places to touch me…” She stroked his hands with her thumbs and ducked her head to plant soft light kisses on his knuckles.

The vampire’s audible groan and the way he shifted uncomfortably on the bed told her she’d done all she could to awaken his body’s memories, and giving his hands a little squeeze, she let go and sat back against her pillows with a satisfied smile.

“You pleased with yourself, Slayer?” he growled, making no attempt to hide the way he was adjusting himself in an attempt to relieve the pressure in his pants.

“You know you liked it,“ she responded with grin. “You love it when I tease you. It gives you an excuse to get all growly and rough”

“And do you like it when I’m growly and rough?” he asked, trying to put memories of the care he had to take with Anne from his mind and failing utterly. The thought of making love with a woman who not only welcomed the demon in him, but could take whatever the demon dished out and meet it blow for blow was making him harder by the second.

“Oh yeah,” she admitted, cutting her eyes to the side to watch his reaction. “I think your growl is really sexy. I thought that even when you were trying to kill me. When you had me pinned down and you growled, it made me tingly all over.”

Images of having Buffy pinned to the ground with his body flooded his brain and he was speechless for several seconds imagining how it must have felt to be pressing her to the ground with his fangs on her throat. He had to clear his throat several times before he could get out, “If I’ve had you down with my teeth on you, why the bloody hell aren’t you dead?”

“Good question,” she said cheerily. “Maybe it makes you all tingly too.”

Suddenly serious, she looked at his tortured face and whispered, ‘Wanna find out?”

He groaned and fought the urge to throw himself on top of her, demon to the fore. “You’re playing with fire, here, Slayer. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“Yes, I do,” she said seriously. “I know your body. Just like you know mine. I know what you like. I know what makes you moan, and cry out and what makes your demon come out to play.”

“And the point of this is?”

“I want you,” she said honestly. “I really want you to remember me and love me and want me the way you used to. But if I can’t have that, I’ll settle for your body. It’s been too long, William. I want—I need to feel you again.”

She bit her lip and tried to maintain eye contact as she laid her emotions bare before him. Buffy knew she could have kept teasing and flirting and probably lured him into making love to her, but something told her that she needed to be honest with him and let him make the decision.

When minutes dragged by and he remained precious inches away, clearly fighting his body’s obvious desire for her, she felt her eyes begin to fill with tears and she looked away, blinking rapidly. The vampire had seen the wetness and smelled the tears, though, and he cursed himself for letting things get to this point.

What kind of a wanker am I, to let these two wonderful women shed so many tears over me? If I could just remember! I know what Anne means to me; but this one… she pulls on me in ways I never thought I’d---but I can’t love somebody I don’t know.

Spike fell back against the headboard, cursing softly under his breath and trying not to feel the bed shaking with Buffy’s now audible sobs. The only sounds in the room were the slayer’s soft crying and the vampire’s muttered curses until Spike’s innate inability to listen to a woman’s crying forced him up. He rolled to his side and gently pulled Buffy toward him, taking care not to hurt her injured hip as he did so.

When his arms went around her and he began to rub soothing circles on her back and whisper comforting nonsense in her ear, she clutched his shirt and let out the pent up grief she’d been trying to contain for two days. He held her as tightly as he could while her body was wracked with hard, gasping sobs. Eventually, exhaustion set in and her sobs tapered off to gulps and sniffles, allowing him to loosen the tight grip he’d kept on her while she allowed her emotions free rein.

As Buffy’s breathing evened out and went back to normal, she relaxed onto his chest and he realized that she had cried herself to sleep. He settled back onto the pillows behind her and let her sleep on his chest while he tried to imagine a way out the situation that wouldn’t cause pain for either of the two women. He didn’t love the girl in his arms; didn’t remember loving her, but he was already sure that he didn’t want to do anything to add to the pain she’d clearly suffered in her short life.

I could love her, that’s for bloody sure. It would be so easy, wouldn’t take more than another day or two. Or a good shag. I’d be hers, no question about it.

While he mulled his options, his senses were soaking up her scent, the sound of her heartbeat, the feel of her silky hair on his face. The even beat of her heart and the soft sounds of her breathing had a soothing effect on his battered emotions and he drifted off to sleep himself, his arms still wrapped around the tiny blond slayer.

He awoke to awareness that dawn was only a few hours away and he carefully extricated himself from the warm body curled into his. Buffy murmured in protest when he slid his arms out from under her, but didn’t wake up. Not sure why he did so, Spike dropped a soft kiss on her forehead before moving to the door and leaving the room.


Spike entered the apartment quietly, noting with relief that Anne had not waited up for him this time. He quickly shed his clothes and eased into the bed, turning on his side to face away from the woman pretending to be asleep beside him. Anne frequently forgot about Spike’s vampire enhancements and was unaware that he could tell she wasn’t really asleep. However, since it enabled him to pretend right along with her, they remained in silence until she could no longer bite back her anger.

“You might at least have showered before you got in bed with me.” Her tone was bitter and colder than he’d ever heard from her.

It took him a second of guilty thought before he realized that, unlike another vampire would have been, she was not reacting to Buffy’s smell being all over him, but just assuming he’d been having sex with her. The human woman had no way of knowing there was no trace of sexual contact on his body.

“Nothing to shower off, pet,” he began in a conciliating manner. “Nothing happened. She told me all about my poncy human self and about Angelus, Dru and Darla and some of the things we did together. It wasn’t pretty and it took a toll on my soul to hear about it. Especially knowing that there are still decades of killing she couldn’t fill me in on. I fell asleep, is all. When I woke up, I came home.”

“Why not?”

“Why not, what?” Spike asked, genuinely confused as he’d already forgotten the first part of his speech.

“Why did nothing happen. And why should I believe you?”

“Because I promised you it wouldn’t,” he replied with a touch of anger. “And you should believe me because I don’t lie to you.”

There was no response to that and he eventually allowed himself to relax and fall back asleep, staying in bed well into the afternoon.


Chapter Six

Buffy awoke slowly, her body still aching from the beating it had taken the night before. She went over the evening in her head but remembered nothing past her hysterical crying on Spike’s chest. She did remember his soothing words and gentle hands, and since she had no memory of his leaving, she assumed he’d stayed with her for at least a while after she stopped crying.

All right. Honesty didn’t work; I guess it’s time for more feminine wiles. Who would have thought that some day I’d be trying to woo Spike? The vampire who stalked me for a year before I gave him his crumb. Who allowed me to use and abuse him and returned nothing but understanding and love. Who went and got his soul because he thought he’d hurt me. The vampire who died to save the world for me. The one whose love I took for granted for so many years I don’t even know how to begin to earn it back.

Deciding a hot bath was a good start; she forced her aching body out of the bed, pausing to sniff the pillows that still smelled faintly of tobacco and leather. She began filling the tub with hot water and collected her shampoos and bath gels in preparation for a good long soak.

She luxuriated in the tub until the water began to cool, then quickly washed her hair and got out. She spent more time rubbing lotions on her body, making sure her skin was soft everywhere he might touch her. She threw on some clothes and ran out to have an early meal, allowing herself plenty of time to get ready before darkness set in. She couldn’t have said why she was confident that he would come back that night, but she knew that he would. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer intended to be ready for him.

She was in the midst of trying on and discarding outfits to wear that evening when she heard a knock on the door of her room. Frowning slightly, she looked out the window to see that it was still daylight, so unlikely to be Spike showing up early.

Years as a slayer had her hiding a knife in her sleeve as she went to the door and pulled it open slowly. Standing on the other side was a very determined looking Anne, clutching a small book to her chest.

“Can I come in?” She stared defiantly at the smaller woman, refusing to back down from the cold glare.

Buffy silently stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way. She made a big show of taking the knife out of her sleeve and putting it down on the nightstand, before going back to her wardrobe.

“We’re mated, you know,” Anne astonished her by stating baldly.

“You’re whatted?” Buffy’s knowledge of vampire mating rituals was very slight. Giles had never felt it necessary to address that side of her enemy’s nature, feeling the less she knew about a vampire’s ability to love, the easier it would be to do her job.

“Mated. I’m claimed.” Anne tilted her head and pulled back her long hair to display the scars on her neck.

“He bit you,” Buffy said coldly. “That’s not a life-long commitment; that’s a snack.” She spoke firmly, but her stomach was suddenly turning over in trepidation. She remembered seeing Spike nuzzle the marks on her first day there and the way it had made her feel.

“If a vampire bites you, without wanting to kill, it’s a claim. An irrevocable connection that lasts until one of you dies. It’s all right here,” she said, thrusting the book at Buffy.

Buffy glanced at the title “Mating Rituals of Vampires” and said slowly, “No. Spike wouldn’t do that to me. He would have told me if he and you—“

“Spike is too nice for his own good,” the other woman said angrily. “He doesn’t want to hurt you. That’s why he didn’t tell you. This mark means I belong to him – and he belongs to me.”

“Only until he gets his memories back,” Buffy said through gritted teeth. Her heart pounded in fear that she might be speaking optimistically out of ignorance of what the bites actually meant, but she kept up a confident front in the face of her rival. Neither woman was making any attempt to pretend they weren’t having a confrontation over the vampire.

“Buffy,” Anne tried to sound reasonable. ”Spike loves me. I’m sure of it. But I think he might have loved you too. A long time ago.” She ignored Buffy’s high pitched, “MIGHT have loved me?” and continued as though she was explaining things to someone very slow to understand. “What do you think will happen if you find a way to bring back his memory and he finds himself mated to me for life? Knowing you still want him and he can never be with you? It will break his heart. Is that really what you want? To tear him apart like that?”

“I can’t control what happens with his memory,” Buffy replied, fear clenching her heart at the thought of hurting Spike again.

“If you’re not here, there won’t be so much to remind him of things. And even if it comes back, if he thinks you don’t want him any more he’ll be willing to stay here. With his mate. Where he’s been happy.”

“I don’t believe this mate stuff,” Buffy growled. “So he bit you once. That doesn’t make it a claim or a mating.”

“It does if he did it while we were making love,” Anne insisted. “It’s all right here in this book. You can read it for yourself.” She tossed the book on the bed and turned to leave before it could occur to the slayer that she might solve the problem by throwing Anne out the window. “Just remember,” she offered as her parting shot, “if he spends the rest of his life miserable because he can’t be with you, it’ll be your fault.”

Buffy stood frozen, the shirt she’d been trying on still in her hand. Cursing herself for not paying more attention to vampire culture and ritual, she eyed the book on her bed as though it was an angry cobra. She went back over Spike’s behavior the past two days. The obvious desire in his eyes and his unusual – for him- ability to walk away from what she offered. She’d seen the conflict in his face, felt the trembling of his body as he resisted the physical memory she’d awakened. A sudden terror seized her heart at the idea that Anne might be telling the truth, that the vampire she was in love with had unwittingly bound himself forever to another woman.

She dropped the shirt on the floor and, with a trembling hand, picked up the book and sat down. She stared hard at it for a full minute, as though the force of her glare could change what she was going to find inside, then sighed and opened it to the first page.

tbc