Spike was exhausted.

The trip from Chicago to Cleveland was only supposed to take about six hours, depending on how religiously one felt like following the speed limits, but Spike had taken over four hours just to reach the halfway point on his map, and now he could go no further. The entire trip so far had been full of delays and near-misses. It was starting to get to the point where, if he didn't know better, didn't know in his bones how far beneath notice he was now that he was alone, he'd think that the Powers That Bugger were trying to send him a message.

First was the delay in getting started. Specially tempered, vamp-friendly car windows were useless if you had to roll them down to pay the tolls, so he'd had to wait till nightfall to start out at all. Then there was the buggering wildlife, from raccoons up to bloody gigantic deer, fat from raiding the Midwestern cornfields and whose only natural predators were apparently the bloody vehicles on the highway. Sodding miracle he'd missed the third one he'd seen, and Spike was fairly sure that if it hadn't been for vamp eyesight picking up the near-bloody-invisible gleam of fur in his headlights, his new car would be demolished and he'd be bloody walking to Cleveland from here on out.

This did not help his mood.

"Go to her, she needs you" – right, he thought. Couldn't make it bloody easier to get there, then, could you? No, 'course not. That, and "she needs you" didn't say a thing about whether she wanted him, or would be at all happy to see him back from the dead after all this time. Likely because she wouldn't.

The deer finally gave up and disappeared, and Spike was starting to relax when he discovered that, no, they weren't so much showing some sense and avoiding the road as they were taking shelter from the weather.

He'd lived in southern California too long. Gotten spoiled, he had. Sunnydale and Los Angeles didn't see a lot of rain, being on the edge of the bleeding desert, and they sure as hell never saw thunderstorms like this. It didn't matter how good his eyesight was, nor his reflexes, when the rain was so heavy he couldn't see more than a couple paces in front of his hood ornament. It was pounding down on the car roof hard enough to drown out the music, unless he turned it up loud enough to make his ears bleed.

Spike couldn't remember how many decades it had been since he'd been out in weather this awful. Sensible fella stayed indoors on a night like tonight, with a few candles lit and either a bottle or a body to drink from till he fell asleep. Weather was fine, if it was out there and you were in here. But driving in it? You'd have to be a bug-shagging nutter, wouldn't you?

Obviously, him being love's bitch even after all this time meant he qualified.

But if Buffy needed him, he would go, through hell and back, till the end of the world, even if it dusted him. It already had, once. He'd show up wherever she was, and she'd be furious and resent him for being there, but he'd help because she needed him. The soddin' oracles said so. And once she was safe from whatever it was, she'd hate him, and that hatred plus his own cowardice would drive him off, but not far because it never did and because he was helplessly drawn to her and always would be. Whether or not he deserved to be near her didn't enter into it...

Spike scowled. Clearly the rain wasn't helping his mood any, either.>

Bloody miracle he'd caught the exit sign, with visibility this bad. Now he was pulling into some minuscule little town a just this side of the Indiana/Ohio line and praying they weren't too small to have at least one hotel or truckstop, or something with walls and a roof where he might catch some rest till the weather cleared up a bit. He'd take a barn if it would get the noise of the rain to stop. Spike could sleep to Johnny Rotten screaming the tunes at full volume, but this constant roar just made his head hurt and his shoulders crawl up round his ears.

Bloody Christ, he hated being alone.
 

---

"Buffy! Over here!"

Buffy looked up from baggage claim just in time to brace herself for a bear hug. "Xander, ohh," she said leaning into him, "God am I happy to see you!"

"Me, too," he said into her hair, "me, too. Ow. Ribs! Ribs!" They pulled apart laughing. "Let me look at you, it's been so long, I can't believe you're finally here. You look… wow." Xander blinked. "Don't take this wrong, Buffster, but you look really…"

"The word you're looking for is exhausted," she said. Tried to pull together a smile for him.

"Yeah," said Xander. His own smile looked about as believable as hers felt. "Uh, but hey, the truck, I got a really good parking spot so you won't have to walk far at all. Then you can vent at me, or sleep till Toledo, or whatever you want."

"I should try to stay awake," she said, "the jetlag, you know…"

"I remember," said Xander with a nod. "Venting it is, then. With or without the caffeinated goodness?"

"Definitely with." She grabbed the last of her bags off the conveyor. "Pretty sure I won't make it otherwise."

It wasn't long before she was buckling in for yet another ride, this time in Xander's truck where she could stretch her legs out, slurp hot coffee, and finally, finally, let some of her guard down. They talked the entire way to his house, Buffy going until she was hoarse, floating from one topic to another and just babbling in a way she hadn't let herself in… she fell silent, thinking back.

"Something wrong?" Xander asked after a minute.

"No," she said, "just trying to think how long it's been since I could just… you know… talk like this." She looked down at her hands, clasped around her coffee. "I've really missed you. I guess I didn't realize how much."

"Missed you too," said Xander, quiet in the darkened truck. They pulled into his driveway, but he left the engine running. "Can I ask you something?"

Buffy nodded, still looking at her hands.

"It's just… we, you, talked the whole way here, but I'm still not totally sure what happened in England that you had to leave so suddenly. Not that I'm not glad you're here, I am – and, you know, if you don't want to talk about it –"

"It's okay, Xan," she said. "You know me and the deep feelings stuff. Not really good at the discussing things like that…" she sighed. "I… kinda broke up with Giles. If you can call it that."

It was Xander's turn to be silent for a minute. Finally he said, "Wow."

"Yeah." She swallowed a lump in her throat, and added in a small voice, "There's more to it, but I figure the etiquette is to only drop one bombshell at a time, right?"

"Sounds like we need more coffee," said Xander. "You want it here, or should we go somewhere?"

"I've been traveling forever, Xan," she said. "Just find me a couch and I'll tell you everything."

"You got it," he said. He gave her leg a squeeze. "C'mon. There's supposed to be a storm coming tonight. We should get your stuff and get inside."

"'Kay," said Buffy. "Xan?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad I came. I'm glad I'm here." Closed her eyes for a second, fought back the tears. Again. "I'm just… I'm glad I'm here."

"Yeah," said Xander. "Me too."
 

---

  His name wasn't really Figg, but it was the closest anyone human could come to pronouncing it, so that was all right. He was old, and tired; his hair now was as silver as his eyes, though without the greenish tinge, and when he took off the glamour, his horns curled all the way from his temples to the base of his neck and back around to touch his ears. His family and friends had all gone and he was waiting for them to return, but the waiting was hard.

He needed help, sometimes, a friendly face to give him the strength to keep going, to keep his watch until the family came back. They'd come. He knew they would. He just didn't know when anymore.

So Figg couldn't help but feel pleased when the young man with the long black coat and peculiar hair came into the Quik-E-Mart, shaking off the rain and muttering under his breath. Figg could feel it – this one wasn't human, he was like Figg. He could help. He would be good company while Figg waited for the family to come back.

Humans could help him wait in a pinch, but they never lasted as long.

He pushed himself slowly to his feet, leaning heavily on the scuffed bar stools that were all the Quik-E-Mart's diner offered, and listened as the young man spoke to the pimply-faced girl behind the counter, asking if there were any hotels nearby where he could get out of the soddin' rain.

Figg ran the greenhouse on the edge of town. It was lonely there without his family, but the young man had mentioned sod, and Figg understood about sod. This young man would be very good company. He seemed nice.

He shuffled on over, then, and introduced himself. Told the young man he had plenty of room, told him that if he'd be willing to keep Figg company for a bit he could stay as long as he liked. Once they stepped out under the awning, after he hawked up a bit of phlegm, Figg took off the glamour so the vampire could see he had nothing to fear. They were alike, he said; the humans didn't always understand, but Figg and the young man would get along just fine, wouldn't they?

The young man allowed as to how they might, at that. He smiled, and Figg beamed back at him. Such a nice young man.

Figg climbed into his pickup and drove slowly so that the young man would be able to follow him home. He invited the vampire in – he remembered he needed to do that – and led him between the rows of plants in the dark, till they got to the potting shed that sat between the flower greenhouse and the vegetable greenhouse. He warned the young man about the old cistern in the floor and told him to watch his step. He thanked the young man for helping him carry his things, and showed him where on the workbench to put the extra bags of fertilizer and such.

Then he hit the vampire across the head and shoulders with a shovel, knocked him down, and kept hitting him until he stopped moving.

It was such a bother doing that with humans, Figg thought, pulling out the lengths of chain and barbed wire and stooping painfully to bind the vampire's limbs. You always had to be so careful not to break them.

The young man would be much better company.