*~*~*~*~
Spike stepped out from behind a mausoleum just in time for her to slam against him. She hit with a mumbled curse as they flipped end over end down a small embankment and finally came to rest in a small puddle of leftover rainwater that was more mud than water.

“Bloody hell, Slayer!” Spike snapped, leaping to his feet and removing his jacket. He shook it, hard, sending thick globs of mud flying through the air, where a majority struck Buffy’s face and hair. “I should make you have this cleaned!”

“Spike!” she growled, leaping to her feet and shoving him backwards. “What the hell are you doing? Following me?”

“You ran into *me*. Not the other way around.” He gave his jacket a final shake and put it back on, finally looking at her. The stagnant water and disgusting smells of overflowing trash bins had masked what was clearly evident to him now that he could see her. She had been injured. Her hands were a mess. “What happened?”

“Vamps.” She put her hands behind her back quickly, not wanting him to see the damage. She didn’t like to be touched anymore. By anyone. She wanted to be left alone.

He glanced at the ground around them. “Where’s your Slayer bag?”

“It’s at home.”

“Where is your weapon?”

“What?”

“You’re the Slayer. Where’s your stake?” He reached forward, attempting to pat her down.

“Get away from me, freak!” she snapped, shoving him again.

“You don’t have one, do you?”
He studied her closely, then, sizing her up. Her heartbeat was erratic and it wasn’t from the jolly romp down the hill they’d just enjoyed. She was scanning the woods around them, clearly looking for someone. Or something. “What are you running from?” he asked, pulling a small hatchet from his back pocket as he glanced into the darkness as well.

“I’m not.” She noticed the axe. “Too bad that didn’t cut your head off.”

“And she spews more venom. Gotta tell you, love, it certainly smells better than the other junk you spewed last night.” Turning to look at her again, he raised an eyebrow. “So where were you?”

She glanced down guiltily. “Just blowing off some steam.”

“Just out for an after dark jog then? In SunnyHELL? Where every demon knows what you are and would love to have a go at you?”

“I can still hold my own.”

“You forget, love, I’ve seen your attempts at that lately.”

She stepped out of the mud puddle, making sure she directed her feet his way when she attempted to kick the mud off her shoes. She grinned a little when a glob hit him in the face, then she actually chuckled when he picked up a handful and sent it flying her way. She ducked, then stuck her tongue out at him, only to be rewarded with his second handful catching her on the forehead.

Spike smiled, genuinely pleased to see a little spark of amusement dancing in her eyes. He watched her wipe the dirt from her face and pack it into a hard, round ball, which she tossed into the air while she watched him. She pretended to throw it. He fell for it and ducked and she smashed it into his face, laughing now.

“That’s it!” Spike growled, pretending to be enraged. “I’m going to let you have that one because you had a rough day, but-”

Buffy, who had been forming a new mud ball, stopped what she was doing. “What do you know about my day?”

“Your watcher came by looking for you and told me what happened.”

It shocked her how easily she became agitated, how quickly she could leap from playful abandon to rage. “How nice of him to share,” she snapped, throwing the ball at a sign nearby, splintering the wood. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

She drew up short so quickly that he walked into her back. She looked up at him. “I know where I live.”

“I needed to talk to Niblet anyway.” He took her arm, leading her toward town.

“I don’t need an escort.” She pulled away. The way he touched her was eerily reminiscent of Bob. She didn’t know why, but something about Bob unsettled her more than anything she could remember. “And you don’t need to see Dawn.”

Spike was undeterred. He fell in step beside her, hands in his pockets. “You’re unarmed. You’re bleeding. And you’re the Slayer which means the smell of you is an elixer to most, if not all, demons.”

“Why aren’t you all fang-ugly if I’m an elixer?”

“I *know* you. Anyone as bitter as you are can’t taste as good as you smell. I’m immune.”

She shook her head, but walked next to him without protesting. They crossed the intersection at Main Street, earning quite a few curious glances due to their filthy state. Buffy, who was so over being the center of attention, rolled her eyes and cut through an alley, heading toward her neighborhood.

Spike let he axe recline against his shoulder as they wordlessly strolled through the darkened alley. He would have thought, given her lack of a weapon, that she would have been on the alert, but she had her arms crossed over her chest and was staring down at the cracked asphalt in front of them. “What’s on your mind, love?”

“You psychoanalyzed me last night. I’m not playing along tonight, Spike.”

“Giles doesn’t *want* to leave. It’s a British thing. We’re a noble lot.”

“I thought staying and fighting evil was noble.”

“He is fighting, love. Not the big scary beasties that roam the streets here, but the big scary ones inside a man. It’s not easy to choose between the woman you love and the life you know.” Spike waited several seconds. When she didn’t respond, he added. “Just look at me. I was supposed to be the big bad. But I chose the woman I love and walked away from that life. Just like Giles is walking away from being a watcher.”

Buffy felt a little something move inside her heart. He still loved her. At least he thought he did. The wall she had built tried to come down just a little, but she pushed it back into place. “You have a chip in your head that is stopping you from using that axe on me in ways that even I probably couldn’t fathom. You didn’t choose to walk away from being a vampire. You were forced.”

“And so is he. Think of the kid in her belly as a chip. It’s changed the course of his life.” He was stung by her words. So much so that he added, “And just for the record, my love for you is as real as-”

“Stop!” She threw her hands up, stalking down the alley away from him. “The last time you tried to show me how real your love was you chained me to a wall and threatened to let Dru kill me. Yeah, that’s great love.”

His jaw tightened considerably and he stalked after her. “Actually, the last time I tried to show you how real my love was ... I scaled a tower in an attempt to save your kid sister and then spent the entire summer guarding her with my life because I promised you I would. So yeah, that *is* great love.”

Her step faltered a little and she grinded her teeth, refusing to acknowledge what he had done for her. “Stop talking to me.”

“And how many times have I saved your ass since you’ve been back from Heaven?”

“Don’t you dare mention that!” She stopped, spinning to face him. “You don’t have a right-”

“Why the hell not, Slayer? One of us should mention it. You won’t tell your friends. You won’t tell your watcher. If you really want him to stay then tell him how fucked up your head is because you got yanked out of paradise.”

“We are not having this conversation,” she spat, her lips snarling in a savage way. “You can NEVER tell. Never!”

“You don’t think they’re going to get wise sooner or later? You’re a mess, Slayer!”

She resumed walking, albeit at a much quicker, angrier pace. “Stop following me!”

Spike trailed a couple of feet behind her as they made their way down Revello Drive and followed her, nonplussed, into the house. She took the stairs two at a time, not bothering to acknowledge the curious glances her friends gave her. Spike moved around the packed suitcases that belonged to Giles and walked into the kitchen.

Dawn was attempting to make a grilled cheese at the stove and he shook his head. “I thought you were banned from cooking.”

“I’m hungry. We have no food in this house!”

Spike pushed her aside and added more butter to the skillet then flipped the sandwich with a spatula. “What’s with the research mode in the dining room?”

“Xander got attacked by a demon. Big, ugly, red. They’re trying to figure out what it is.”

Sandwich complete, Spike flipped it up in the air and caught it on a plate, causing Dawn to giggle as she accepted it. “Enjoy, ‘bit.”

“I miss this.” Dawn took a bite and moaned in enjoyment. “I miss you cooking and me eating and then playing video games and board games. I wish it was still the summer.”

Spike stared at her. “You wish Buffy hadn’t come back, then?”

“What!? No!” The sandwich dropped back onto the plate and she gazed at him with big, panicked eyes. “I’d never wish that!” She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then added, “Besides, she wishes it enough for all of us.”

That was unexpected. Spike, who had been heading into the dining room, came back and leaned against the island in the kitchen. “Why do you think that?”

“She has nightmares almost every night and wakes up yelling. I go into her room every time and try to comfort her, but she pulls away. It’s like she’s afraid of me, afraid to let me hug her. And I’ve heard her crying a couple of times when she was in the shower.” She picked up her grilled cheese and took another bite. “I can’t even imagine what kind of hell dimension she was in that would torment her so much still.”

Spike glanced up at the ceiling, where he could hear her light footsteps as she moved around. “What does Giles say?”

With a shrug, she took a sip of her chocolate milk. “He says that we’re doing the best we can with her. I mean, it’s not like people come back from hell every day. Right?”

“Right,” Spike watched her for a few seconds, then forced a smile on his face. How could these people ... the very ones that claimed to know her and know what was best for her, not realize that she was mourning being back ... not suffering from where she had been.

He filled Dawn’s glass again, then went into the dining room, taking a seat across from Giles, who glanced up at him. “Spike.”

“Giles,” he returned with a nod.

“Brits are so dramatic.” Xander said, holding a frozen dinner against his eye. “It’s called ‘hello’. Simple little word really.”

Spike glanced over at him. “What took a bite out of you?”

The young man lowered the box and prodded the rapidly purpling flesh around his eye. “I think a bite would have hurt less. I got to see the business end of a forked tail. Up close and personal.”

“And it was red?”

“The tail? I’m pretty sure it was-”

“The demon attached to the forked tail.” It took all of his resolve, but Spike maintained his patience. “Dawn said it was red.”

“Oh.” Xander slapped the box back against his eye and nodded. “Red. Ugly. Wearing a toga thing with a funny design. Spoke a little English. Just enough to let me know I was gonna die.”

Spike picked up a pen and quickly doodled something on a scrap of paper. “Was this the design on the demon's 'toga'?”

“Hey! That is it!” Xander cried, peering at it with his one good eye. “I don’t know whether to applaud you or suspect you of having something to do with it!”

“Belzor.” Spike put the cap back on the pen and shook his head. “A Grimlor demon with delusions of grandeur.”

“Try saying that ten times fast.” Willow smiled at him over the lid of her laptop. “I’m going to google Grimlor and Belzor.”

“Won’t find him on the net, pet.”

“Ah, talk about delusions of gradiouse poetry,” Xander chuckled. “Net, pet. Get it.”

“There’s nothing here.” Willow frowned and tried another spelling. When the search yielded no results, she sighed and closed the lid. “So, archaic research it is. Pass me a watcher journal. I like those a lot.”

“Won’t find him there, either.” Spike sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Belzor is not the sort to leave behind witnesses. Ever. He locks in on something he wants and he goes after it, destroying everything in his path. I’ve escaped him twice, but just barely.” He turned his attention to Giles. “And I don’t keep journals or write accounts of what’s happening so don’t even ask. Why should I when I’m going to be around to tell it forever.”

“We need to do something about that.” Xander turned the box over, trying to find another cold spot. “I’m just saying.”

Spike ignored him and continued. “If Belzor is here in Sunnydale it’s because there’s something he wants. I suggest we find whatever it is first.”

“How?” Willow propped her chin in the palm of her hand, frowning.

“He’ll be using a locator spell on whatever it is. Locator spells leave traces every time they’re performed. Go back to where Xander was attacked and try to pick up the remnants of it.” Spike sat back again. “You’re the witch. Go spell him out.”

*~*~*~*