Buffy groaned, undoing the top button of her jeans and leaning back on the sofa to give herself room to expand. “Why did you let me eat that second carton of kung-pao?”
 
Spike had only been gone for a week, that time. He never told her where he went when he disappeared. But he always came back – usually with dinner. He smirked at her. “You’ll be hungry again in an hour.”
 
“I refuse to believe it.”
 
“True, though.” He got up and went over to the bag he’d brought. “Got somethin’ for you.”
 
“You got me a present?” Buffy sat up eagerly, her full-to-bursting-ness forgotten.
 
“Blueberry pie,” he said, holding out the box.
 
She grinned. “Good bribe. But we’re not watching Juno again.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
To Buffy’s annoyance, she had been hungry again in an hour. But the pie was delicious and between them they’d stained their mouths deep purple eating the entire thing. After the last piece, Spike watched her put down her plate and collapse back on the sofa almost purring in pleasure. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted her to spring back up to brush her teeth or to stay lying there, unconcerned. Either was dangerous.
 
“So,” she said, wriggling her bum in the air while she pulled a folded piece of paper out of her back pocket. “I’ve, um, I’ve got the second set of questions.”
 
Spike rearranged his face into a careful blank. “Why’re you doin’ this?”
 
Buffy’s smiled slipped. “If you really don’t want to, I’ll drop it. I just … we used to talk about stuff.”
 
“We talk about stuff all the time, Buffy. Just not about Sunnydale.”
 
She shrugged, being oh so careful to keep her voice neutral. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped running and dealt?”
 
He smiled warily – more a baring of teeth than anything else. “That’s rich, comin’ from you.”
 
“I’m sorry I used to be the one who ran, okay? I am. But this questionnaire – you’re letting me in like you haven’t in years, and … I miss you.”
 
He curled up a little deeper into his chair. “Dunno how you can miss me when I practically live here.” He sighed. “Fine. What’s the next question?”
 
She beamed – that thousand-watt smile he once would have given his left arm to see. Only now it was purple. Maybe it wasn’t so bad she hadn’t been desperate to clean her teeth.
 
“Lucky thirteen,” Buffy said. “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?”
 
He stared at her for a long time before answering. Once upon a time, it would have made her squirm in discomfort. Now … now she just looked back.
 
“Like to know where all this is headin’,” he said finally, gesturing at the questionnaire.
 
“Me too,” she said softly, mostly thinking that that particular question was one they really ought be asking each other. “See? Easy.” She looked back down at the page in front of her. “Is there something you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”
 
“Finding out if I freckle,” he said, forcing his voice to come out light and teasing.
 
“Seriously?”
 
“Feelin’ the sun on my skin again’s no small thing.”
 
“What about that funky glass that costs stupid money?”
 
“No heat. Not the same.”
 
Buffy took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t want to be human again?”
 
“Christ, no!” Spike actually looked horrified.
 
“But you’d be able to, you know, freckle. Or whatever.”
 
Spike took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Can’t say I never thought about it. But I’ve made my peace with who and what I am.” He eyed her warily. “Not lookin’ for anything else.”
 
Buffy studied him for a few seconds. “I don’t care, you know.”
 
“About me?” Spike said, the barest hint of bitterness sneaking past the sarcasm.
 
“No, doofus. That you’re a vampire.”
 
His face came over all inscrutable again. Buffy really missed being able to read him like a picture book for three-year-olds.
 
She let out a sudden nervous giggle. “If nothing else, it makes the age gap less awkward. I mean, I could hardly share blueberry pie with Mr Great Big Pile O’Dust, could I?”
 
Some of the tension left him, but he remained wary. He didn’t believe for a second that what she said was true, but he couldn’t work out why she’d say it if she didn’t mean it. Buffy always had been a dab hand at deluding herself…. “What about you, then? You got any dreams left?”
 
Buffy laughed, shaking her head. “After a girl’s seen Paris, what else is there?”
 
“No lingerin’ desire to be normal?”
 
“God, no!” Buffy said, laughing even harder. “I tried normal and I hated it. I figure it’s the same as regular people and beach vacations.” She turned thoughtful. “Finishing college might be nice, though.”
 
Spike laughed. “You? Sittin’ still and reading all day? Love to watch you try.”
 
“Yeah, yeah. Yuck it up. ”
 
“Buffy Summers, BA … has a certain ring to it, I s’pose.”
 
She shrugged. “Some day. No rush.”
 
“What’s the next question?” He actually sounded interested this time.
 
“What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?”
 
“Too easy.”
 
Buffy smiled. “Dying?”
 
He nodded. “You?”
 
“Same.”
 
“Hard to top savin’ the world.”
 
“Pfft! We did it last week.”
 
He laughed. “S’pose we did, at that.” He relaxed a little more. This was easier than he’d expected it to be.
 
She smiled at him, a little nervously: gearing up to something. “You weren’t somewhere—” She stopped. “I mean, coming back wasn’t – you were okay, right?” Her whole body radiated anxiety.
 
For him.
 
It was heady stuff.
 
“No heaven, no hell,” Spike said gently. “Went straight from burning up on the Hellmouth to non-corporeal in LA.”
 
“Good,” she said, visibly relieved. “I’m glad.”
 
He cocked his head. “How long you been holding on to that question?”
 
“Ever since I heard you weren’t dead.”
 
His eyes widened, but otherwise he didn’t react. “Never asked, though, did you?”
 
“I did!” she said indignantly. “I so asked.”
 
His brow furrowed. “When—?”
 
She slumped a little. “Not, um … not politely.” She winced.
 
“Right,” he said slowly. Some of the things she’d said while being “not polite” could be interpreted as asking, but only if one were feeling very, very generous. At the time, he hadn’t. Jury was still out if he felt that generous now. But it mattered that she’d thought about it….
 
Buffy watched him process. It had been such a surprise to her when she’d realised his quick and vicious verbal smack-downs were a defence mechanism – a way to buy time because he never knew how he felt about anything until he’d had a good long think about it. Even more shocking was that once she’d started explicitly ignoring that first torrent of vitriol, he’d stopped attacking and just taken the time he needed.
 
He smiled when he noticed she was watching him.
 
Buffy gestured at the list of questions. “You ready for more?”
 
He nodded.
 
“What do you value most in a friendship?”
 
He blinked a few times. “Any time they’re not actively tryin’ to kill me.”
 
“Seriously?”
 
“Don’t knock low expectations. Haven’t been disappointed in decades.”
 
“That’s incredibly depressing.”
 
He shrugged. “Most everyone I know’s tried to kill me at least once.”
 
“Is that some kind of vampire thing?”
 
He laughed, shaking his head. “Pro’ly. But I reckon I’m just that lovable.”
 
“Dawn hasn’t,” Buffy said confidently.
 
“Threatened to set me on fire while I slept.”
 
Her eyes widened. Suddenly the way he sometimes watched Dawn made so much more sense. “Was that after—?”
 
“Yep.”
 
“Sorry?”
 
“That’s my line, innit?” He smiled bleakly.
 
“Spike—”
 
“In the past,” he said, firmly shutting her down.
 
Buffy wondered if he talked to Dawn about Sunnydale, or whether the rules only applied to her.
 
Spike gave her a considering look. “Would’ve said somethin’ similar applies to you.”
 
“With the friends and the killing?” she said thoughtfully. “I guess it kinda does, doesn’t it? Perk of the job, maybe.”
 
Spike shrugged.
 
“I think the thing I value most in a friendship is being entirely accepted for who and what I am, the good and the bad, no matter what.”
 
He looked up sharply. “Have a lot of friends like that, do you?”
 
She stared him down. “Used to be just the one,” she said softly. “He taught me to ask for it from others.”
 
“What about Dawn?” His voice was just as soft.
 
“She’s family; she doesn’t count. Besides, she still wants to fix my ‘daddy issues’.”
 
He grinned.
 
She thought his purple teeth and ancient eyes made a bizarre combination. He’d been alive so long, changed so much, but his eyes were the only part of him that would ever show it. It wouldn’t be much longer, Buffy thought suddenly, before she’d be the one who looked older. Five years, maybe? Then her face would start catching up to her eyes like his never would.
 
She looked back down at the paper. “What is your most treasured memory?”
 
“You go first.”
 
Buffy sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I can’t think of anything!”
 
“C’mon.”
 
“What? My mind’s gone blank.”
 
“There’s gotta be – ah! You’ve thought of something.”
 
She squirmed “It’s embarrassing.”
 
He leaned towards her over the arm of his chair, letting his hands dangle over the edge. “Does it involve sex?”
 
Buffy let out a sharp bark of laughter. “A world of no!”
 
He grinned. “So spit it out, already.”
 
“Kicking Dracula’s ass,” she said guiltily.
 
“Seriously? That’s your most treasured moment?”
 
She shrugged helplessly.
 
“How is that embarrassing?”
 
“It makes me feel like what’s-her-face – all fangirl-y.” Her face lit up. “Oh, wait! I thought of a better one.”
 
“Out with it, then.”
 
“At my high school prom, they gave me a ‘class protector’ award.”
 
Spike groaned. “This isn’t the Best Slayer Awards. Pick somethin’ more meaningful than who you’ve offed.”
 
“This coming from the ‘Slayer of Slayers’?”
 
“Pfft.”
 
She stared at him, accusatory. “You know what yours is!”
 
He looked faintly uncomfortable.
 
“You totally had something in mind as soon as you heard that question!”
 
“Maybe,” he said, nonchalantly shrugging himself a bit deeper into his chair. “But you’ve still got to tell me yours ‘fore I’ll tell you mine.”
 
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I can do meaningful.”
 
She stared at the wall, thinking.
 
“‘M getting old here.”
 
She snorted. “Quit being so impatient.”
 
He peeked out at her over his arms.
 
“That night,” she said slowly.
 
“Care to be more specific?”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “The one we spent together in the abandoned house.”
 
His voice went cold and tight. “No. You don’t get to do this.”
 
“Do what?” She leaned out over the edge of the sofa towards him.
 
He pulled himself out of reach, but didn’t break eye contact. “You know damn’ well I don’t want to rehash those years, Buffy. For once, can you please just do what I need?”
 
“I am not rehashing! I’m trying to tell you that I treasure something you did.”
 
He laughed. “So that’s a ‘no’, then.”
 
“Don’t you dare give me that crap! You don’t want to rehash the past? Fine. Stop punishing me for it.”
 
“I’m not—”
 
“Just shut up and listen. You gave me faith in myself when I had none. You did that in an abandoned house in Sunnydale when everything between us was painful and confusing. And I will treasure that experience for the rest of my life.” She took a breath. “Okay. Now we can go back to following your stupid passive-aggressive rules on acceptable topics for conversation.”
 
“Thank you,” he said, after a few seconds.
 
She had no idea whether he was thanking her for the memory or for agreeing to follow his rules.
 
They sat in silence for several minutes. They’d been really good at that, once. It was something else this questionnaire was making Buffy realise she missed: sitting with him in perfect silence had once been like mainlining pure comfort. Sure, they had easy, comfortable silences now like never before. But they’d long since stopped being comforting.
 
“So what’s yours?” she asked finally.
 
“My what?”
 
“Your most treasured memory.”
 
He let his legs unfurl until they were resting on the floor again. She wondered if he was getting ready to leave. He’d been closed off before, but at least he’d looked like he was staying put.
 
“You won’t like it,” Spike said.
 
Buffy shrugged. “Won’t know ‘til you tell me.”
 
He pursed his lips. He looked like he was throwing down a gauntlet. “My most treasured memory is waking up undead and not being afraid anymore.” It wasn’t, in fact, his most treasured memory, but it was definitely in the top five. And it was the one he thought she most needed to hear, given her earlier declaration that she didn’t mind about him being a vampire.
 
Buffy opened and closed her mouth a couple of time. Then she gave a sharp nod of her head. “You’re right.”
 
“Don’t approve?” he asked mockingly. Inside, he was bracing for impact.
 
Buffy stared down at her hands. “It’s not about that … you told me you woke up buried.”
 
And didn’t that just come straight out of left field? Spike was truly shocked, and looked it.
 
Buffy seemed almost angry. “You told me you had nightmares. For years, you said. Decades, even.”
 
Spike could vividly remember every single second of the night he’d told her all that. But she’d been asleep. Her breathing – everything – he’d been so sure. “You were sleeping,” he said dazed.
 
She shrugged. “I used to pretend.” She gave him a watery smile. “I always figured you knew.”
 
He shook his head in disbelief. “How much did you – were you ever asleep?”
 
She gave him an arch look. “Thought you didn’t wanna rehash.”
 
He swallowed. “So I was wrong.” He looked at her like he’d never seen her before. “How – why?”
 
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe I don’t feel like talking about it.”
 
He rolled his eyes.
 
“I’ve thought about saying something,” she said, giving in. “Lots of times. But I thought you knew and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. And then you had your precious rules. So.”
 
“Why did you pretend to be asleep, Buffy?”
 
“You know why.”
 
He sighed, scrubbing at his face with both hands. He did know. He thought about asking her to say the words anyway. But while knowing changed everything, it also changed nothing.  And that was exactly why he didn’t want to talk to her about things like this. He settled for going back to the original subject.
 
“My nightmares were physical. The fear I lost?” He tapped his head. “All up here. Bein’ terrified ‘bout whether I had the right knot in my cravat – or some other rubbish. After I turned? Someone disapproved of my choices? Beat the shit out of them then drank their blood. All that fear….” He stared at her. “That crippling need to please perfect strangers. Gone. Poof.”
 
Buffy snorted. “Only to be replaced by your crippling need to please your skank-ho girlfriend.”
 
“Mock all you like, but you know what I was like before. Might regret most of what I did with her, but I could never regret Drusilla. She taught me to want, to strive.”
 
Buffy nodded, slowly. “She’s your Pandora.”
 
“My what?”
 
“Your Pandora. She opened up the box of all the things that were awful in you, but she also let out hope.”
 
“Okay,” he said uncertainly. “That all you got to say about it?”
 
Buffy sighed. “I … you aren’t that guy anymore.”
 
He stiffened. “‘Cept I am, Buffy.” He sounded exhausted. “May’ve changed what I do an’ how I feel about it, but I’ll always be that guy.”
 
“You carry the weight of what you’ve done. That makes you not that guy. That guy didn’t care about anyone but Dru, not even himself. You care. You have … I don’t know … aspirations.”
 
Spike stared down at his knees. Buffy was just full of surprises tonight. It had taken him years to get to where everything he did wasn’t at least partially geared towards forcing her to see him as a different person – a changed man. But he’d finally come to believe that she couldn’t – that, for her, his past would always trump his present and future. It had been powerful, acknowledging that. It had led him to rethink who he was, and for the first time, he’d started living like his choices were his and not some shiny bobble to present to whichever woman was foremost in his life.
 
Could he have been wrong?
 
“So what’s the next question, then?” he asked.
 
She folded the paper down and blanched. “Maybe not this one.”
 
“What is it?”
 
“What is your most terrible memory?”
 
He laughed. “You sure this thing’s meant to bring people together?”
 
“We could come back to it later.”
 
He sighed. “Up to you.” He looked at her – really looked, like he could see all the way inside. How much had he missed these last few years? He’d thought he’d just been protecting himself....
 
“What do you think it means by ‘most terrible’?” she asked.
 
He quirked an eyebrow. “‘S all about intimacy, right? Must mean somethin’ you wouldn’t normally tell.”
 
“So … like something you’re ashamed of?”
 
He shrugged. “You got anythin’ you’re ashamed of I don’t know about already?”
 
“No.” She sighed. “Maybe shame isn’t the way to go with this.”
 
“Would’ve thought ‘most terrible’ ‘d be obvious for you.”
 
She flashed him a big, overly-fake smile. “But there are so many super-fun memories to choose from!”
 
“Gettin’ ripped out of heaven doesn’t trump the lot?”
 
“No,” she said firmly, a little surprised he’d even brought it up. Looking at him, he seemed to have surprised himself, too. “It’s … I can’t even remember what it was like anymore.”
 
Spike’s surprise turned to worry. “Like you’ve lost time or somethin’?”
 
“No! I lost heaven. I remember feeling … at peace. But no details. Not anymore.”
 
“I’m sorry.”
 
She smiled, small but genuine. “Don’t be. It was hard, comparing it with everything else. Too hard.”
 
“You were so broken,” Spike said softly, staring off into the middle distance. “Was terrified you’d try to – to go back.”
 
Buffy stared down at her hands. “I did. More than once.”
 
“What stopped you?”
 
“Dawn.”
 
He let out a shaky breath.
 
Buffy met his eyes. “The first time. You, the last time: with all the singing and dancing and bursting into flame.” Buffy shivered.
 
“We don’ need to talk about this.” Spike started easing out of his chair. “You wanna take a break? I could do with a drink.”
 
She laughed; it hurt. “Why is it so important to you we not talk about Sunnydale?”
 
Spike slumped back into the chair. “‘Cause talkin’ ‘bout the past’s even cheaper’n an apology. Costs nothin’ an’ doesn’t change a thing.”  He sighed. “You wanna know my most terrible memory? It’s Sunnydale. All however-many years of it.”
 
At Buffy’s stricken look, he said quickly, “Don’t regret a second of it. Don’t even wanna think about how much more blood I’d have on my hands if I hadn’t … but it never got much better than survivin’.” He let out a mocking half-laugh. “Goin’ through the motions.”
 
“You never knew I pretended to sleep until today,” Buffy said fiercely. “You even admitted you were wrong not to talk about it! That has to change something, doesn’t it?”
 
He gave her an arch look. “The misery of Sunnyhell wasn’t all you, y’know. Had months and months of common garden torture courtesy of Angelus an’ the Initiative.”
 
“Yeah, but if I hadn’t been there, you probably would’ve killed Angel, cured Dru, and been back in South America or wherever by the time the Initiative showed up. Maybe you’d even have the Gem of Amara – be all tanned and everything.”
 
“If you hadn’t been there, His Nibs would pro’ly still’ve been eatin’ rats in a sewer somewhere an’ we’d never’ve found him in time. Not sure I’d’ve wanted to outlive Dru back then…. But the past is done an’ gone. Nothing either of us can do to make it right.”
 
“What if I want to try?”
 
Spike’s head snapped up and he laughed. “Christ. Better tell Dawn to add martyr complex to her list of things to fix.” He sighed. “Only time I ever expected better’n a broken nose from you, you were makin’ Dru look sane. I knew that tune – was my place to set boundaries, an’ I didn’t. I never once said ‘no’. Anythin’ you did to me was ‘cause I let you.”
 
That certainly explained his obsession with rules. “You weren’t strong enough,” Buffy said, softly but firmly.
 
He snorted.
 
“I don’t mean you were weak for never saying ‘no’, Spike. I mean that I am that much stronger than you that you couldn’t’ve stopped me if you’d tried.”
 
“Bollocks.”
 
“You joke about the arm wrestling thing, but … you can barely lift a troll hammer, and I use them one-handed.” She took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t have listened if you’d said ‘no’.”
 
He laughed in utter disbelief. “You’re no monster, Buffy.”
 
She raised an eyebrow. “When I was sixteen, I threw my mom’s boyfriend down the stairs and broke his neck ‘cause he threatened to institutionalise me. And pure dumb luck’s the only thing that stopped me from murdering Faith – more than once, if I’m totally honest.” She paused. “I helped the Initiative capture demons I knew full well weren’t doing any real harm. And did you never wonder why Sunnydale stayed miraculously bite-house-free after you showed me what Riley was doing?” She laughed, hollowly. “There’s lots more, if you want to hear it. And not involving you, either.”
 
“Whatever you think you’ve done, it can’t compare with – just drops in the ocean.”
 
“You used to say I belonged in the dark.”
 
“‘Cause I thought it’d get me in your pants!”
 
She smiled. “Yeah, but you’re dumb that way – even if it did kinda work.”
 
He scowled at her.
 
“I, Buffy Anne Summers, can be violent and vengeful and unforgiving. It took me a while to accept those parts of me, but I got there eventually. We can argue about whether or not it makes me a monster if it makes you feel better, but even you can’t say I’m all pure and perfect with a straight face. And you know what else? Dawn should work on your martyr complex, too, Mr I’ll-Just-Quietly-Drape-Myself-Over-a-Cross.”
 
“I tried to rape you, Buffy. You can’t just—”
 
“I didn’t just anything. You betrayed me and it hurt. Really, really hurt, a lot, and I hated you for a long time. But you never made excuses or asked for forgiveness. You changed. You went and got a soul so you wouldn’t hurt me again. Then you spent years and years and years building back trust. That’s what matters. It’ll never be okay, what you did.” She shrugged. “But I don’t think it’ll ever be okay that I beat you half-to-death, either.”
 
“That was – I practically begged you to do it, Buffy. It was my choice.”
 
“I know you believe that,” she said quietly. “But don’t you dare try to pretend you wanted me to just walk away after.” She looked over at him. “You keep asking me why I won’t work out with you? That’s why.”
 
Spike spluttered out something that Buffy guessed was a question.
 
She let out a bark of humourless laughter. “Your rules, Spike. Your rules.” She sighed. “Look, my most terrible memories aren’t from things I did, but things I didn’t. And I should never have let my fists do all the talking with you.”
 
“Not just your fists,” Spike said with a sardonic smile. “Seem to remember a fair few other body parts bein’ quite communicative.”
 
Buffy laughed, blushing so slightly Spike’s nose picked it up before his eyes. “Yeah, well.” She sighed. “I think maybe it’s time for that drink now.”