Chapter Two

*~*

Years of responding to unexpected threats had Buffy battle-ready in an instant, and she slipped seamlessly into a fighting stance well before her mind registered Spike’s apparent lack of aggression.  Several people had stopped to watch by the time she realized he was neither moving to attack nor looking particularly threatening at all, and with a sigh she dropped her hands to her sides, forcing her fists to uncurl and relaxing her stance just enough that the busybodies lost interest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked when the people moved off, retreating a few steps backward and scowling when Spike followed.

“Last I heard, you were lord and master of Sunnyhell, not L.A.,” Spike said as he slid onto the bench, throwing his arm across the back of it and crossing his feet out in front of him.

The smoke from his newly lit cigarette wafted into the air, and Buffy fanned the offensive odour away and deepened her scowl.  “What do you want, Spike?”

He took a huffy breath and flicked some ash onto the pavement.  “Can’t a fellow say hello to an old chum without the round of twenty questions?”

Buffy thought he was trying to look offended, but the hint of a smirk curling his lips spoiled the effect. 

“You’re a lot of things, Spike,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “But my chum isn’t one of them.”

“Awe, come now, Slayer,” he said.  “We’ve had some good times, you and me.”

“Oh yes,” she said, laying down the sarcasm as thick as mortar.  “All those times you tried to kill me?  Oh, and the thing with the Judge?  That was super fun.”

Spike chuckled and threw his half-smoked cigarette away.  “Well, I did help you save the world that time.”

The invisible knife in her chest twisted, dug in a little deeper. 

Saved the world and sent Angel to hell.

She pressed her fingernails into her palms, counting on the pain to keep her inappropriately timed emotions at bay.  “You know what?  Just go away.”

“You go,” he said.  “You look about ready to bolt, anyway.”

It irked her how close to the mark he was.  She was all flighty and no fighty Buffy tonight, and if the tension in her legs was anything to go by, she was on the verge of fleeing again if only to avoid prolonging this oh-so-happy reunion.  Her options here were bleak at best — leave and give Spike the satisfaction, or stay and endure his presence until he either gave up and left on his own or annoyed her into making him leave. 

Buffy sighed, noting the familiar presence of her stake in her jacket pocket.  There if she needed it, but with the crowd of people and a supreme lack of desire for violence, she didn’t want to have to use it.  Even on Spike.

Spike, who was sprawled across the bench wearing a smirk so smug she nearly changed her mind about the stake. 

“Staying put, then?”  He lifted one eyebrow a little higher.  “Pity.  I was hoping for a little game of cat and mouse.”

Buffy scoffed and folded her arms across her chest.  “Oh please,” she said, irritation rising like an itch in her belly, “like you could catch—”

Strong fingers wrapped around her wrists, trapping them at her sides as Spike leered down at her, his face and body barely an inch away. 

“Off your game tonight, Slayer,” he said, in a low, velvety voice that raised all the hairs on the back of her neck. “What’s the trouble?  Not getting any?”

Buffy wrenched her arms free and shoved him backward, hard.  “Shut up.”

“Aha!” he said, with entirely too much satisfaction.  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?  Begging Angel dearest to take you back?”

Heat flared in her cheeks as something angry, something built of rage and shame and a billion other things billowed up inside her and burst free.  Her vision blurred and the world tipped and spun and cleared again in a flash, with Spike pinned beneath her and the point of her stake pressed into his chest.

It felt like being trapped inside a bubble.  Outside everything existed but you couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it.  Inside, her hand trembled, the stake tearing a hole in Spike’s shirt, cutting into the pale skin beneath it.  But he didn’t move.  Didn’t fight.  Didn’t anything.

The bubble burst.  Somebody screamed.  Buffy scrambled off him, shoving her stake into her pocket and retreating to the safety of the bench. 

“What the hell?” she hissed, gripping the edge of the bench and ignoring the voices around her.  Of all the times she pictured Spike’s ending at her hands, his suicidal surrender never factored in.

Spike met her eyes for barely a second, just long enough for her to see something glistening there in the yellow lamplight.  Something weighty and awful that made that painful, frozen part inside her want to reach out to him in shared misery.  He said nothing as rose from the ground and parked himself at the other end of the bench, dropping his face into his hands.

“Sir? Sir, are you okay?”

Buffy scowled at the middle-aged woman about to set her hand on Spike’s shoulder.  “He’s fine.”

“I wasn’t asking you!”  She moved closer.  “Do I need to call the police?”

Spike jerked away just before she could touch him.  “You bloody do not,” he said, only now noticing the newly gathered crowd.  With one last look at Buffy, he jumped up and stalked away across the promenade.

With Spike gone, all eyes settled on Buffy, narrowed and accusing or wide and curious.  Whispers and finger pointing and a few readied cell phones soon joined the dozen or so stares, and Buffy made her own dash to freedom before anything else happened to worsen her night.  A few voices called after her but she ignored them, slipping her way into a knot of fair-goers and disappearing into the crowd. 

It took her a few minutes to acknowledge that she wasn’t scanning the promenade to make certain she wasn’t being followed.  No, the moment her eyes settled on a familiar bleached head, glowing like a beacon as it passed beneath a hanging black light, Buffy let out a heavy sigh and turned to follow, wondering about the jittery feeling slowly building in her chest.  Spike had already shown he wasn’t interested in a fight, so it wasn’t that anticipation bothering her.

Except that it was, only the other way around.  The image of Spike’s eyes, haunted and hurting as he hauled himself off the pavement, refused to leave her alone as she trailed after him.  The universe had tipped so far into the unknown Buffy didn’t know what to make of it.  She just knew she had to get some answers.

A rogue gust of wind came up from behind, whipping her hair around and lifting the edges of her jacket.  Spike’s whole body tensed beneath his black coat and he stopped, tilting his face up to the wind.  Taking two slow, deliberate steps forward, Spike leaned against the nearby building, his back to her, the smoke from yet another cigarette curling around him.

She balled her hands into fists to stop them from trembling as she closed the gap between them, her pace slowing the closer she came.  Spike pushed away from the wall and turned around.  For the second time that night, Buffy found herself staring into a familiar face whose complete lack of expression stirred a storm of uncertainty in her gut. 

Because somewhere between the gust of wind and her final step, she figured it out.

It was quieter out here, back behind the administrative buildings.  Quiet and empty, and while her senses used to betray her sometimes in the beginning, right now she was certain she and Spike were alone.  No other people.  No other vampires.

She must have gasped, or made a face, or done something to reveal her light bulb moment, because Spike looked away quickly, turning his face down to watch his hands flick his zippo open and closed.

“Best laid plans,” he said, voice quiet and almost trembling.  “Should’ve known you’d manage to fuck that up, too.”

“Spike—”

He looked up then, eyes a little too moist, smile a little too forced.  “Guess we got more in common than you thought.”

*~*