Buffy had assumed they’d just end up falling asleep in front of the TV. It certainly happened often enough. But it was now 2:00, and not only were they both still wide awake, but Spike had progressed from hand and foot fidgets to whole body jitters. If it didn’t keep threatening to knock over her drink, it might have been almost cute.
 
“Hey,” he said, tugging her hand away from her head, “you don’t stop twistin’ that hair, ‘s gonna come out.”
 
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just Spike with a violent case of the twitchies.
 
“You wanna go out and kill something?” Buffy asked.
 
“Christ, yes!” Spike groaned. “Thought you’d never ask.”
 
While he laced up his boots, Buffy ducked into her bedroom to grab stakes.
 
There, on the dresser, was the third set of questions. She stared at it. Then she glanced uneasily over at her bed. Is that where we’re going with this?
 
Ever since they’d started the questionnaire, they’d been touching – small, tentative forays into each other’s personal space. They were building up a kind of casual intimacy she couldn’t remember ever having with him, even when they’d been at it like rabbits. She wasn’t sure she’d ever truly had it with anyone before. She looked back at the bed.
 
Does he even want that?
 
Do I?
 
“Buffy?” Spike’s head appeared around the corner of the doorframe.
 
“Coming!”
 
Buffy tossed the stakes his way and, while he was distracted, snatched up the list of questions and stuffed it into her back pocket.
 
She’d ask him what he wanted. It was the grown-up thing to do. And she’d do it tonight. Even if it killed her.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
The jaunt to Buffy’s favourite local graveyard was reassuringly normal, with all and any conversation taken up by the practicalities of killing while not being killed. It struck Buffy that over the decade-plus they’d known each other as enemies, allies, (ex-)lovers, whatever the hell it was they’d been that last year in Sunnydale, and finally, now, friends, they’d somehow managed to build a kind of protective bubble around what he called hunting and she called patrolling. Even when they hated each other, this part just felt easy. Fun, even.
 
Well, provided they always fought slightly apart: more than six feet, for preference. Fewer injuries that way.
 
“Mine!” Buffy yelled, elbowing Spike out of the way at first sight of the vampire they’d been tracking.
 
Spike sat down on a gravestone to smoke while she toyed with the vamp – easily twice her size. Poor bastard never had a chance.
 
Buffy brought her stake down with an exultant flourish about a minute later, then looked up and caught Spike’s eye. She was flushed and panting, but glowing – exultant, even. Purple teeth and all.
 
Happy.
 
Suddenly the whole world stopped for a second, just like in every badly-scripted teen romance. Spike resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but something must have shown on his face, because Buffy immediately straightened and started walking back towards him.
 
“Something wrong?”
 
She looked worried. About him.
 
He smiled up at her. “Nah.” He dropped his butt then stood up to grind it out with his boot.
 
Still watching him warily, she started brushing the dust from her clothes.
 
For the first time, Spike registered the sound of rustling paper. “You’ve got round three of that questionnaire on you, haven’t you?”
 
Buffy nodded, a little guiltily.
 
He snaked one arm around her waist to lift it from her pocket. It could have been suggestive, but he did it with only the barest minimum of touching. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.
 
“S’pose we should finish this,” he said, unfolding the paper. “Question twenty-five: Make three ‘we’ statements each. For instance, ‘We are both in this room feeling….’”
 
This was her chance. Buffy took in a deep breath and went for broke. “We are both in this graveyard feeling ready for a change in our relationship.”
 
Spike’s gaze snapped up to meet hers. She’d made it a statement, but her heart was racing like it was a question. “Okay,” he said slowly.
 
Their eyes stayed locked, while her hand crept out towards his, almost but not quite touching. He could feel the heat of her skin long before their fingertips finally brushed against each other.
 
Buffy relaxed at the touch, her knees going wobbly in relief. “We are both feeling scared of…” she trailed off, the right words deserting her.
 
Spike dropped his gaze, watching her suck her lower lip into her mouth and slowly let it slide out from beneath her teeth. When he looked up again, her eyes were anxious. “Scared of losin’ what we have now,” he said gruffly.
 
Buffy nodded gratefully, eyes crinkling into a smile. “Afraid of going back to old patterns.”
 
His hand closed around hers. “But we’re also feelin’…”
 
He’d clearly meant it to be a quick, light squeeze, but she kept hold of him, refusing to let go.
 
“Hopeful?” He said it so quietly, it was barely a breath.
 
“Yes!” Buffy closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him while she said this. Not if she was wrong. “We believe we could … could have something different. Something … something more?”
 
He went eerily still. “You – you want … that?” His tone gave not one single clue to how he felt.
 
She nodded quickly, jerkily, eyes still tightly shut. It felt like there was a million miles between them, for all she still had a death-grip on his hand. “D-do you?”
 
The pause went on far too long. She let go of his hand and opened her eyes, her expression frozen.
 
“Don’t not want it,” Spike said quietly.
 
“What does that even mean?” Her tone was cold, defensive anger visibly stirring.
 
“Don’t you dare get angry just ‘cause I’m not givin’ you the answer you want!”
 
Buffy snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
 
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well. Different people now, right?” He threw up his hands in frustration and sat back down on the gravestone. “Dunno what I want, alright?”
 
Buffy counted to ten in her head and reminded herself that Spike had never responded well to sudden shocks and changes. “I’m not sure either,” she said finally. “Just … hopeful.”
 
“No,” Spike said, shaking his head.
 
“What?!”
 
“If you’re not sure? No.”
 
She forced herself to laugh. “You waiting for a marriage proposal or something?”
 
“You said you’n Matt split ‘cause you realised you never told him anythin’. When you two first got together? All you did was talk. You – you shut ‘em out, Buffy. ‘S what you do. You’re not sure, you freeze them out. I won’t guess with you – never again.”
 
Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. “So I have intimacy issues. So do you!”
 
Spike laughed. He looked back down at the questionnaire in his hand, before shoving it into his pocket. “We are both really, really fucked up. And not in a good-for-each-other way. I’m not … I can’t cope with uncertainty. And you can’t be certain! ‘S no place to start when the best either of us can manage is ‘hopeful’.”
 
Buffy sighed. “We spend at least four nights out of seven together. We’re basically dating except for the sex part and we have been for months and months. Thinking about changing our relationship isn’t new for me, Spike. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”
 
“You’re sayin’ you think we should be more. Not that you want us to be. Not that you feel somethin’ more. Love isn’t logic, Buffy. Doesn’t work like that.”
 
She sank down onto an adjacent gravestone. “Blood not brains,” she whispered to herself.
 
“If you like.” Spike laughed shakily. “You scare me absolutely shitless.”
 
She looked stricken. “Why?”
 
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He shifted forward so his forearms lay along his thighs, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands. “Last time, with us, what I did ... how I felt.” He took a deep drag. “Never been like that before. Not once. No matter what Dru did – an’ she did a lot – I never, ever even thought about harmin’ her. But you….”
 
“I make you crazy,” Buffy said softly, leaning in towards him a little.
 
“Not blamin’ you, right? Just … yeah.” He shivered. “Don’t want the inside of my head like that ever again.”
 
“I know what you mean.”
 
His lips twisted into a grin that never reached his eyes. “You really, really don’t.”
 
Buffy hunched into herself. “Oh, but I really, really do.”
 
Spike rubbed at the back of his neck, looking over at her obliquely. “I don’t trust either of us in a relationship. Not together, anyway. We’ve got … mutually destructive patterns.”
 
“You been talking to Angel’s shrink again?” Buffy asked lightly. Angel and Sally-the-shrink had been dating for a little over six months now. Sally found them all just fascinating.
 
Spike shrugged. “Might’ve been out LA-way last week….”
 
“What else did she say?”
 
“‘Don’t shag her, you stupid shite, whatever you do’.”
 
Sally didn’t like Buffy much. Or at all, really.
 
Buffy laughed. “Good advice.”
 
“We should stay friends,” Spike said quietly.
 
“You’re saying should. Not want. Not feel.”
 
He let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Got me there.” He took in another deep lungful of smoke. “But we’ll live longer that way.”
 
“I’m already past my sell-by,” Buffy said quietly. She watched the smoke curl upwards from Spike’s hand for a few seconds. She grinned – or maybe grimaced. “It hurts thinking of you with someone else.”
 
“Always has,” Spike grumbled good-naturedly, leaning forward over his knees again. “Possessive bitch that you are.”
 
They smiled at each other.
 
“We should get going,” Buffy said, looking up at the sky.
 
Spike crushed his cigarette out against the gravestone and stood up.
 
He held out his hand, and she used it to pull herself up. She didn’t let go when they started walking.
 
He was surprised when Buffy jerked her hand free again a few seconds later – until she reached into his pocket for the questionnaire. She wasn’t the gentleman he’d been about it, either.
 
Spike stopped walking, side-stepping out of her reach. “Why’re you doin’ this?”
 
She waved the folded paper at him. “Five seconds ago you wanted to finish it!”
 
He stared at her. “Fine,” he groaned. He began walking again.
 
She followed, folding down the edge of the paper and beginning to read. “Complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share….”
 
“Pickles,” Spike said firmly.
 
“Oh, c’mon! You can do better than pickles.”
 
“What do you want me to say? There’s bugger-all left in my life I don’t already share with you!”
 
“Says the guy who refuses to talk about his girlfriends – excuse me, sexfriends – and disappears without explanation for weeks on end.”
 
“Oh for fu—” He stopped, rigid and angry. “You never bloody ask!”
 
“I thought you didn’t want me to know!” Buffy shouted.
 
Spike laughed suddenly. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Christ, we’re a pair.”
 
They started walking again. Their hands – seeming to act independently – found each other almost immediately.
 
“Do you always go to LA?” Buffy asked softly.
 
“No – first time I’ve gone without you in … two-three years?”
 
“Where, then?”
 
He shrugged. “Mostly work – can’t all be on a Council salary like you.”
 
Buffy frowned. “Wait – you’re not?”
 
He looked surprised. “You didn’t know?”
 
“No! Why not? I mean, I know they offered—”
 
“Yeah, but after a century of tryin’ to kill Slayers, didn’ feel right takin’ money from ‘em.”
 
Buffy frowned. “So all the times you’ve come with me … last week – that was – what was that?”
 
He shrugged. “Don’ need payin’ to watch your back.”
 
“Oh. Right.” It had never occurred to Buffy that he wasn’t paid to stay on call for apocalypses or whatever else was going on – like she was. Because clearly they still called him whenever they called her. “So, um, so what’s the work then?”
 
He grinned. “What d’you reckon?”
 
“Killing stuff?”
 
“Bit of that. But testin’ security’s where the money is – turns out decades of breaking and enterin’ makes me ‘uniquely qualified’.”
 
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
 
“You never asked!” His steps slowed. “No. That’s not fair. For the first time in my life I’ve got somethin’ that’s completely mine. Not Angel’s hand-me-downs. Not Dru’s. Not … not yours. Mine. Maybe … maybe I needed to keep it to myself for a bit.”
 
Buffy smiled weakly. “I gotta say, ‘a bit’ doesn’t usually mean years, plural.”
 
“‘M sorry.” he said, curling her arm into his and squeezing her hand. “Really didn’t think you were that interested.”
 
“Jeez, insecure much? Of course I’m interested.” She paused. “So, when you disappear, it’s … it’s really not because of me breaking your rules?”
 
Hu shrugged. “Not always.”
 
“You are such a jerk! You’ve been letting me think all this time that it was all me—”
 
“‘S not like that!” he said quickly, seriously. “Never been much good at sayin’ no – specially to you. Leavin’s the best way to make sure I don’t ever have to.”
 
“What are you so afraid I’ll ask?”
 
“Not so much what you’d ask as what I’d give. Told you already, won’t … can’t afford to lose myself again.”
 
“Y’know, for someone who claims not to like games, you sure are good at playing them.”
 
Spike laughed. “Did you forget the part where you scare me shitless?”
 
“I want you to take space if you need it! I just….”
 
Suddenly, he realised: “You panic when I leave, don’t you?”
 
“Little bit?” Buffy said, screwing up her face and holding out her fingers in a pinching motion.
 
He let out a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ll call, next time. Or text. Somethin’. Let you know where I am an’ when to expect me back.”
 
“You don’t have to.”
 
“Want to.” He paused. “Never meant to make anythin’ hard for you.”
 
“Thanks,” Buffy said. “Even if it is a couple years late.”
 
He tightened his hold on her arm. “So what’re you wishin’ to share that’s better’n pickles, then?”
 
“That blueberry pie was pretty good.”
 
“Done that. Can’t keep wishin’ for it.
 
“I could wish for you to bring me pie again. It could be our thing.”
 
“Our thing is Dexter and pizza.”
 
“But it could be Dexter and pizza and pie.”
 
He grinned. “You can’t do better’n pickles, can you?”
 
“Can so!” Buffy said huffily.
 
Spike’s grin kept getting wider the longer the silence lasted.
 
“I think I’d like to try building something,” she said finally. “Or maybe growing something? I’ve always been so focussed on death and destruction, I don’t think I ever really learned how to … how to create. And I think it would be better – more fun – to share that with someone else.”
 
“Sounds like you’re after kids….”
 
“NO! God, no!” Buffy laughed. “I will be a very happy and fulfilled aunty when other people do that. I was thinking more like a house I could fix up. With a garden, maybe.” She giggled. “Although it’ll probably end up looking like a moon crater – I can’t even keep a cactus alive.”
 
She glanced over at him, waiting for the mocking to start, but Spike just looked thoughtful.
 
“Bloke I know’s offerin’ loft space in exchange for keepin’ the rest of the buildin’ free from nasties. Long-term.”
 
“This one of the guys you building-sit for?”
 
Spike nodded.
 
“Wow. That’s – I thought you loved your gypsy lifestyle.”
 
“Haven’t decided yet,” he said quickly. “An’ it’ll need a lot of work – ‘s practically derelict now.”
 
Buffy snorted. “As opposed to the places you usually live.” She paused. “I could help, you know.”
 
“Why d’you reckon I mentioned it?” He smiled. “You actually know anythin’ ‘bout renovations?”
 
“I know they’re very expensive unless Xander donates time and materials … and basically does them for me.”
 
Spike laughed. “Still more’n me.”
 
Buffy grinned, leaning into him. “This is perfect! I can screw up your place as practice before screwing up my own!”
 
“Hardy har har.”
 
“We could learn together, maybe?”
 
“Yeah,” he said, nodding.
 
She folded down the next question awkwardly with one hand. “If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.”
 
They walked in thoughtful silence for a few seconds.
 
“So c’mon then,” Spike said finally, squeezing her hand. “Start sharin’ some deep an’ important knowledge with your partner over here.”
 
She snorted. “I have no secrets from you.”
 
He stopped walking. “How do you really feel about me, Buffy?”
 
She froze.
 
He withdrew his hand from hers, slowly and carefully. “You … you say all this stuff about trust an’ … and somethin’ more. Not once have you said how you feel.”
 
She let out a nervous laugh. “Hey, isn’t this kinda beyond important things to know for a close friendship?”
 
“Is it?”
 
Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. “What do you mean?”
 
“We already have a close friendship. D’you just want a closer one? Where we hold hands an’ I don’t keep so many secrets?”
 
“You mean do I still want to jump your bones?”
 
“No.” He smiled. “Quite capable of workin’ that one out for myself.”
 
She blushed.
 
“I meant … d’you want more with me ‘cause I’m already who you spend all your time with, or ‘cause it’s me?”
 
“I know I want this,” She said slowly, reclaiming his hand. “The touching. The – both of us sitting on my sofa. I know I want you to feel safe talking to me.”
 
“Still sounds like friendship.”
 
“You told me once that Angel and I could never be friends – that lovers can’t.”
 
“Did I? Pro’ly just jealousy talkin’.”
 
“More like booze.”
 
He snorted. “This meant to be some parallel ‘bout us? We’ve been friends for years.”
 
“Have we?” Buffy stared off into the middle distance. “I’ve been thinking lately that really we’re just doing our own version of When Harry Met Sally.”
 
Spike rolled his eyes. “So, what, you’ve decided that girls an’ boys can’t be friends now?”
 
“Not everyone, necessarily. It’s just … I don’t think we would ever have fought so hard for what we have now if really, deep down, we didn’t still love each other.”
 
“Buffy….”
 
“I love you, Spike. As a friend – as family. And, yeah, I’m not sure we’ll work as a couple, because it’s scary at every level I can imagine, but I know I want you to be happy and at peace and to have all of the good things and less of the bad things – or fewer of them. Is it fewer? It’s fewer.” She took a breath. “And incidentally? I’m pretty sure I do want to jump your bones, because there’s this fluttering feeling in my tummy whenever you’re near me that doesn’t happen with Xander or Charlie or any of my other guy friends. And when you were in the shower last week, I was seriously thinking—” She cut herself off. “Never mind. I know all this probably isn’t enough for you, because you don’t really trust me when it comes to love, and you’re right not to, because my track record is freakishly bad, and not just with you, but I want to be the one making you happy, not because I’m jealous, which, let’s be honest, I am, but because I don’t think anyone else can—”
 
He kissed her. It was soft and quick but full of promise.
 
“Really?” Buffy said, dazed.
 
“You’re cute when you babble,” Spike said quietly. “But it needed to stop.”
 
“So do you …?”
 
“I believe you want more. Still dunno what I want. But ‘m not sayin’ no.”
 
Buffy moved to kiss him again, but he turned his face away. “Baby steps,” he said softly.
 
They walked a little further in silence. It felt charged, and just this side of uncomfortable. Buffy didn’t want to push, so she didn’t immediately try to re-establish physical contact. But straight after they vaulted over the cemetery wall, he held out his hand to her again. She took his whole arm.
 
Spike snatched the questionnaire from her other hand. “Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.” He paused. “Didn’t we already do this?”
 
“We did ‘positive characteristics’.”
 
“An’ this is different how?”
 
“What, you can’t think of more things you like about me?”
 
“Reckon this is another of those ‘get-to-know-you’ questions – like that life-story-in-four-minutes one.”
 
“You can’t, can you?” She pouted.
 
He laughed. “Can you think of more things you like about me?”
 
Buffy frowned, then she smiled. “You smell nice.”
 
He raised both eyebrows.
 
“It’s something I honestly like about you, that I would never, ever, say to someone I’d just met.”
 
“How very repressed of you.”
 
“Jeez, you’re even worse at taking a compliment than I am.”
 
They both laughed.
 
“I like how you laugh when you really let go,” Spike said slowly.
 
“Huh?”
 
“When you let yourself get messy – snorting and gasping and rolling around.” He paused. “Never used to think you had it in you to laugh like that.”
 
“God, we’re weird,” Buffy said, highly amused. “I’m pretty sure we were supposed to say something like ‘I get lost in your eyes’.” She arched her neck and flamboyantly batted hers.
 
“Oh, that, too,” Spike said, batting his back. “Definitely.”
 
Grinning, Buffy grabbed the paper back from him and said, “Okay – next question: share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.” She let out a peal of laughter. “Ohmigod, Spike, what will you pick? There are just so many.”
 
“Oi!”
 
She giggled again. He scowled.
 
They walked in silence for a few seconds. When Buffy realised he really wasn’t going to go first, she said, “I broke a guy’s penis once.”
 
Spike burst out laughing.
 
“It’s not funny! I had to drive him to the hospital for emergency surgery.”
 
Spike’s laughter only increased.
 
Buffy shoved him. “Surgery, Spike! Surgery! In a hospital.”
 
He made a herculean effort to stop laughing. “That must have been terrible,” he said seriously. “Did he survive the drive?” He burst into another fit of giggles.
 
Buffy stopped walking and crossed her arms. “That was supposed to be a compliment, you asshole.”
 
He gave her a perplexed look. “How?”
 
Buffy just glared at him.
 
“What? I don’t get it.”
 
Buffy groaned. “You’re really gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”
 
“Make you say what?” Spike asked, laughing again. “‘Less I’m the only one whose dick you haven’t broken, ‘s nothin’ to do with me.”
 
Buffy’s face was getting steadily redder. “Oh, forget it! I’m not telling you.”
 
“Am I the only one whose dick you haven’t broken?” Spike asked, suddenly serious.
 
“Of course not!” Buffy snapped. “I just,” she took in a deep breath, “I have to be … careful.” She nodded to herself. “But with you … I didn’t. I could … I could let go. Completely. And that was … nice.”
 
Spike blinked a few times, not quite sure how to react.
 
“Now you have to tell me your embarrassing thing,” Buffy said firmly.
 
“Dunno if I can top breaking a man’s penis,” he said. “Then again, top’s the problem, innit?”
 
Buffy glowered at him. “C’mon, poetry boy. If you can’t think of anything, you could just compose me an ode.”
 
“No.”
 
“A sonnet?”
 
“Oh, piss off!”
 
“You dated Harmony for months. That’s gotta be embarrassment gold.”
 
“Never went on a date with her.” He shuddered. “Nightmare territory, that is.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Shagged her, then.”
 
“That just sounds wrong when you say it,” Spike said, wincing. “‘Sides, embarrassments’re all on her.”
 
Buffy gave him a disbelieving look. “Yeah, that excuse worked great up ‘til you got back together with her. Twice. And wasn’t there some secret third time I’m not supposed to know about?”
 
Spike shrugged uncomfortably. “If she doesn’ talk, she’s not completely unbearable.”
 
“You’re sick. You realise that, right?”
 
“You hate her!”
 
“So do you! And yet you kept sleeping with her!”
 
“Bein’ with her’s like … ‘s like masturbatin’. Only warmer. An’ with tits.”
 
Buffy gaped at him. “You’ve actually made me feel sorry for her. I didn’t think that was even possible.”
 
“But it’s Harmony!”
 
“She’s still a person! With feelings!”
 
Spike’s brain came to a complete stop. This was … this wasn’t Buffy deluding herself, or trying to talk herself into something she didn’t really believe. She would never, ever defend someone she hated as much as she hated Harmony unless her lack of soul really, truly wasn’t an issue. At all. Dazed, he said, “My, my haven’t we changed our tune?”
 
Buffy was momentarily thrown. Then suddenly she got it. “Wow.” She looked over at him. “Really? You still believe I think like that?”
 
“I do,” Spike said. “Why shouldn’t you?”
 
“But you’re – we’re – such good friends with Charlie,” Buffy said in a small voice.
 
Spike shrugged. “Never claimed to be logical.” He stared down at the ground. “But he never hurt you like I did. Didn’t think you’d ever forgive me – reckoned you couldn’t.”
 
“I’m not interested in punishing you. Maybe I was, once, but not anymore. You need to forgive yourself, Spike. I have.”
 
“You’re one to talk.”
 
“I think that’s one of the reasons we get on so well,” Buffy said, trailing her fingers up his arm and cupping his cheek. He leaned into her hand a little, but he was still avoiding eye contact.
 
“How can you not hate what I am?”
 
“You do such a good job all by yourself, I don’t need to.” Buffy sagged against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. After a few very long seconds, he let his arms fall around her. “We are so screwed,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
 
Spike laughed. “Not yet, but here’s hopin’.” He waggled his eyebrows.
 
She stuck her tongue out. “Pig.” They shifted positions to start walking again, arms still draped around each other.
 
“Next question?” he asked.
 
She nodded, folding back the paper again. “When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?”
 
“Don’t cry,” Spike said.
 
Buffy snorted.
 
“What?” He sounded affronted.
 
“You cry when you’re drunk.”
 
“Bollocks.”
 
Buffy giggled. “You can’t seriously think you’re gonna win this argument.”
 
“I do not cry!”
 
She laughed. “After more than two bottles of whiskey? You get maudlin and you cry. Every time.”
 
“I get violent when I drink!”
 
“Yup, right up to the two-bottle-mark. And after that you cry.”
 
Righteous indignation suddenly turned to smirking. “Least I don’t get handsy.”
 
“I – what?! I am a Friendly Drunk. I am not handsy.”
 
Spike laughed. “Ask Charlie – hell, ask Willow.”
 
Buffy scowled. “You’ve probably prepped them to agree with you.”
 
He grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Ask Angel, then.”
 
Buffy went ashen. “I haven’t….”
 
Spike nodded gleefully. “One of the many reasons Sally hates you so bloody much.” He kissed her temple. “Don’t worry, luv, you’ve never done anything I wouldn’t do.”
 
“Not helping.”
 
“I know.”
 
And then suddenly, to their surprise, they were outside Buffy’s apartment building.