Part III

The exhausted Spike and Buffy never noticed when Dawn and Willow came downstairs. Dawn glanced into the living room, smiling and holding her finger to her lips when Willow peered curiously after her. She stiffened for a minute, then, at Dawn’s fierce glare, nodded slowly and tiptoed into the kitchen.

Their whispered conversation about the events of the previous night was interrupted by Xander’s noisy entrance and they sat up with guilty expressions and panicked eyes.

“Morning, ladies,” he said, helping himself to a cup of coffee. “Buffy not up yet?”

“No,” Dawn hissed, “so keep your voice down.”

“She won’t hear me from here,” he said, surprised at being shushed so abruptly. His gaze fell upon the familiar leather duster hanging on the back of Dawn’s chair and he set his cup down, ignoring the way coffee sloshed over the side.

“Please tell me this is a souvenir from a dusty event?”

Dawn’s attempt to shush him failed completely, and a muttered, “Bloody hell!” from the living room brought his head spinning around. He followed his gaze to the entrance of the living room, pausing in the doorway, frozen at the sight before him. A noticeably bruised and battered Spike was stretched out on the couch with Buffy curled up beside him, only her spot-lighted deer expression indicating that she was awake. He ignored the vampire’s silencing glare to ask, somewhat rhetorically, “What the hell?”

Spike’s warning growl was cut off by Buffy’s quiet, “It’s okay. I’m awake.”

She blinked her eyes, then met the puzzled brown ones of her oldest male friend.

“Hi,” she ventured. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you and the evil undead spent the night all snuggled together on the couch.”

“Okay, maybe it is what it looks like.”

She sat up, allowing the quilt to fall back and expose her flannel pajamas and Spike’s fully clothed body. The tension visibly left Xander’s shoulders as he absorbed the relative innocence of their appearance.

“Okay, clothes on. That’s of the good. Sleeping with the vampire when you have a perfectly good bed upstairs – less of the good. Why are you here?”

“Because Spike was too badly hurt to make it up the stairs,” Buffy said. “And I didn’t want to leave him alone. I was just going to nap, but… ”

“Oh, okay, well that makes sen—what? Wait. Why didn’t you want him to be alone? Alone is good.”

“He was – is – hurt. I was worried about him.”

He stared from her anxious face to Spike’s carefully blank expression and then back to Buffy.

“Since when do you worry about Spike?”

“Xander,” Buffy sighed, not looking forward to beginning the day with the explosion she was sure was going to follow her stumbling explanation. “Things are going to-- they might be…different. Spike might be around more than…Look, you might just have to--”

“To what? I might have to get used to seeing his undead carcass on the couch every morning?” Xander eyed the unusually silent vampire’s battered face. “Nice look, by the way, Deadboy, Jr. What did you tangle with, and did Buffy kick its ass for you?”

With a guilty wince, Buffy quickly jumped to her feet as Spike dropped his head back on the cushion, ignoring Xander’s question.

“I’ll get you the rest of the medicine,” she said, dashing into the kitchen and pulling the container from the refrigerator. She poured it into a glass and came back into the room where Xander was staring at the uncharacteristically still vampire, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead. The frown deepened as Buffy gently helped Spike to sit up and then held the glass to his lips.

When he had swallowed the whole thing, she lowered his head and stood up, clutching the empty glass tightly until the pained expression on Spike’s face relaxed. Gesturing for Xander to follow her, she walked back to the kitchen and set the glass in the sink.

“Are you going to answer my questions? What did he tangle with, and is he going to be staying on the couch until you get tired of taking care of him?”

“He’s not going to be on the couch once he can walk,” she answered obliquely. He thought back over her initial response as to why the vampire was on the couch.

“So,” he asked as casually as he could, already sure of the answer as he noticed Dawn and Willow watching him intently, “Where will he be when he’s all back to his obnoxious self? Back to his crypt, I hope?”

“Sometimes,” she answered slowly. “But sometimes…sometimes he might be here.” Her eyes went to his, her gaze apprehensive, but steady, as she waited for the meaning of her words to sink in. There was a tense silence, then Xander blew out his breath with a loud sigh and sank onto a kitchen stool.

“Well, damn!” he muttered. “I’m going to owe Anya some expensive jewelry.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Go, Anya!” This last came from Dawn, who figured it out before either of the older girls.

“Yeah, I guess she wins that bet,” he admitted. “I should have known better than to bet against an ex-vengeance demon, I guess.”

“Bet?”

Xander grinned sheepishly at his two best female friends. “Yep. She bet me that you and Spike were having some kind of a …thing. I guess this means she wins.”

Buffy’s entire body, which, until it was gone she hadn’t even realized had been coiled with tension, relaxed, causing her to stumble against the counter.

“Wha-?”

“Look, I’m dating an ex-demon. Not really in a position to…” He took a deep breath. “You might have noticed that Anya is pretty…um…outspoken about some things. One of them, and never mind how much it grosses me out, would be stories about her years as a vengeance demon and some of the things she’s done….” His voice trailed off and he visibly shuddered. “Anyway, she’s been bending my ear about the bleached menace and how much he’s done for you and Dawn, and how much he’s changed from the Big Bad that wanted to kill us all.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Can’t really argue with her there – much as I might want to.”

“So, you’re okay with this?” Disbelief and hope fought for prominence in her voice and face.

“In the sense that he’s not good enough for my Buffy? Of course not. But if he’s what you want…I guess you could do worse than find yourself somebody who loved his last girlfriend for over a hundred years.” He laughed at their stunned faces and then said to Dawn,” Let’s go, short stuff. School’s awaitin’”

As they went out the kitchen door, he turned back and caught Buffy’s eyes. “Just remind old formerly evil undead that I still work with wood every day. Lots of it.”

Buffy sat at the counter, staring at the closed door with her mouth open and her eyes unfocused.

“Buffy?” Willow’s voice brought her back to her surroundings and she started guiltily.

“I’m sorry, Wills, were you saying something?”

“I said how long have you been hiding this because you were afraid of what we’d say?” Willow asked, raising a shrewd eyebrow at her friend.

“For a …a while? I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe there isn’t yelling and threats of stake-age.” She looked into her best friend’s sympathetic eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I misjudged you. You and Xander.”

“You probably didn’t,” Willow admitted with a small smile, remembering their reaction to seeing Spike and the Buffybot for the first time. “If you’d done this last year, there would have been yelling and carrying on and lecturing, and, with Giles still here, much polishing of glasses.”

They shared a small smile as they remembered the watcher’s reaction to being told that Buffy was having public sex with Spike, then Willow continued, “But Giles is gone. He left you to grow up and make your own way – so pfft for his right to complain about your choices. And Xander and me? Like he said, he’s going to marry an ex-vengeance demon who has tortured and killed more men than Spike could imagine – so really not in a position to throw stones; I mean, Anya came here to grant Cordelia a wish, for god’s sake! We were almost all dead!”

Buffy snorted at the reminder of how they had all met Anya.

“And, me?” Willow’s voice softened, her unhappiness palpable. “I managed to drive my less-than-conventional lover away by using magic to manipulate her mind. Really not feeling all that superior here.”

“Thanks, Willow.” Buffy smiled gratefully and stood up. “I appreciate the support. Now, I guess I’d better get dressed and go get some blood for Spike so he can finish healing.”

“What did happen to him? I haven’t seen him this beat up since Glory.” Willow looked at Buffy expectantly.

“I happened to him,” Buffy whispered. “I am so ashamed of myself, Willow, I can’t tell you. I hurt him for trying to help me. I don’t deserve him.”

“Oh.” Nonplussed, Willow clearly wasn’t sure what to say at first. Giving herself a little shake, she put on her ‘supportive friend’ face and said gamely, “Well, I’m sure you had a good reason for it.”

“Not really. I took out all my anger at the people who brought me back, and the man who left me to cope on my own, against the one who had nothing to do with any of it and who would never leave me. Pretty hard to justify that.”

“I think you just did,” Willow said with a sad smile. “You were hurting and you took it out on the only one who could take it and survive. Sucks for Spike, but I think he probably understands.”

“Understanding it doesn’t mean it was right.”

“No. I’m not saying it was right. It wasn’t. I’m saying there’s nobody here in a position to throw stones at you – including him. You’re sorry, you’ve made it clear that you’re sorry and you’re taking care of him now. You need to forgive yourself, Buffy. Trust me, carrying around a load of guilt is no fun…”

Jarred out of her own misery for a second, Buffy covered Willow’s hand with her own. “You’re doing great, Willow. With the not using magic, I mean. It’s going to be all right.”

Willow squeezed Buffy’s hand back, then stood up. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?” she sighed.

They smiled at each other, then Willow asked, “What did he do that made you so mad at him? Not that you have to tell me, cause, really not my bus—

Buffy suddenly remembered why she wanted to be awake before Willow left for the day.

“Oh my god! How could I forget?” She made a guilty face at a puzzled Willow. “I think…well, I did last night, anyway…we thought I killed a girl. Accidentally. But I was going to turn myself in to the police and Spike tried to stop me.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “It turns out, he might have been right – that I shouldn’t turn myself in…Because maybe…maybe I didn’t do it. I need for you to get into the police computer, or whatever, and find out who she was and anything else that might help us figure out who else might have done it and who might know something about time shifting and demon summoning.”

Nodding her head vigorously, Willow said, “I’m already on it.” She looked over her shoulder as she was leaving the room. “I’m going to be on campus all day. I’ll bring dinner home with me, ‘k?”

“’k. Thanks. I guess I’d better get going too. I need to get Spike some more blood.”

She followed Willow out of the kitchen, noting that Spike appeared to be sleeping again. She quickly ran upstairs and threw on some clothes suitable for an early morning visit to a butcher shop. When she was ready to leave, she paused beside the couch and brushed her hand against Spike’s shoulder. He opened his one good eye and gazed at her as though not sure where he was.

“Hey,” she said softly. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I just wanted you to know - I’m gonna run out to the butcher’s and get a supply of blood for the fridge. I’ll be back pretty soon. Don’t try to get up until I get back, ok?”

“Not going anywhere, pet,” he mumbled, closing his eye again. “I’ll be here when you get back.”