The car smelled of Armor All and the unstated fear of ending life as a Darwinian failure. Spike sometimes wondered if midlife crises were a strictly human thing, or a strictly male thing. If he was honest with himself, the desire to dye his hair a new color seemed to come around every fifty years or so. Did that count? Or was the point moot, because he would never, ever find a mate or have children in the same sense that drove human men to spend ludicrous amounts of money on sporty cars and expensive gym memberships when their hair began to gray?

Not that he would ever admit his contemplations in front of Giles, much less in the watcher’s speedy, red BMW.

And maybe Giles wasn’t too far off the mark. Maybe women were drawn to a shiny vehicle with a big engine and leather seats. Meret certainly seemed to like it. She had been banished from her perch on the dash board after a bug hitting the windshield barely an inch from her nose had resulted in a hissing spasm of brightly colored wings right in front of the watcher as he tried to change lanes. That hadn’t gone over well, and so Meret was sent to the back seat with the vampire to pout. Not that her sour mood had lasted very long. She was soon pressed up against the far window, watching the southern California landscape whiz by.

Spike was slouched in the back seat of the car, tucked uncomfortably under the raised ragtop. He wasn’t tall by any estimation, but the car company hadn’t designed the back seat to see much use. At least not with the top up. Or while the vehicle was moving. Spike snorted at the idea of the stuffy watcher performing any such vehicular acrobatics, but paused in thought. He seemed to remember some rumor involving chocolate and a police car. With a distrustful look at the back of the watcher’s head, Spike leaned a little closer to the leather seat and sniffed. Leather cleaner and a hint of spilled coffee from some weeks ago, but nothing else.

Thank all that’s unholy.

He settled back into his uncomfortable slouch, and listened to Buffy’s descriptions of their latest find. The drive to Sunnydale International had given her plenty of time to go over the details, with only a few interjections from the vampire. He didn’t see fit to interrupt her much though. Even though she tended to lace her reports with words such as magicky, deadish, groady, webage, or anything else she could tag with an unusual suffix (Spike still wasn’t entirely certain what “groad” meant though), she was remarkably thorough.

It was interesting what she did miss. At the mention of the Crawford Street mansion, Giles’ eyes had tightened with old pain. Perhaps the watcher didn’t think Spike could see him in the rearview mirror. Truly out of sight, out of mind as it were. Buffy had managed to build new memories of the building, and this, paired with her boundless ability to forgive Angelus, meant that she could walk into the mansion without the wounds of the past reopening.

Buffy seemed almost congenitally incapable of keeping a grudge, much less understanding someone else’s, and so she had run roughshod over Spike’s desire to avoid the mansion, regardless of the potential treasure hidden there. Without realizing it, she was doing the same to her watcher. The events of that year had stripped Giles of the woman he loved, his confidence in himself, and his surety in his Council training. Bound and tortured, he had lost more in the aftermath of Acathla’s raising than Buffy could possibly know, but Spike understood. Giles would have rather cut out his own eye than return to the mansion, but he would. Because Buffy was asking it of him.

The similarities were ironic. Spike too had lost the woman he thought to be the love of his unlife that year to Angelus. Broken, beaten, and confined to a wheelchair, Spike had been subjected to the type of tortures and humiliations he had thought to never experience again. He was a powerful scion on the Aurelius line in his own right, but without the use of his legs, Angelus had been able to humble him beyond anyone’s predictions, tormenting him until joining forces with the slayer seemed a reasonable course of action. Spike hated that mansion for everything it represented to him: Angelus, Drusilla, a sense of helplessness only rivaled by his first few days being chipped. He would have rather pulled out his own fangs than darken the mansion’s doorstep again, but he had. Because Buffy had asked it of him.

It was something else Spike would never mention to the watcher. Some truths simply didn’t help anyone.

Spike felt something tickle his hand where it rested on the seat. He looked down to find Meret, unblinking eyes fathomless, but mind open and understanding, staring right back at him. With the kind of tender smile that would have sent the Scoobies scrambling to research possession had they seen it, Spike scooped the little serpent into his hands and deposited her on his other arm where they could both look out of the window at the miles of desert stretched out under the dark sky. And the California countryside slipped by.

*****

In the end, Tara and Willow’s send off was everything and nothing the vampire had expected.

Giles had called in a few favors and had managed to get both of the witches enrolled in the semester abroad program at the University of Bath. While the schooling was perfectly legitimate, and as Willow had jokingly pointed out, it looked great on a resume, the real reason for their departure was for training with the Westbury coven. Althanea and Yvonne were going to meet the girls when they landed in Southampton, and had offered their home to the girls for the duration of their stay.

The real going away party had been held the night before at the Magic Box. There had been cake, music, tacky decorations and, since no one’s birthdays had been involved, no interruptions from Sunnydale’s demonic community. Except for Clem, but that didn’t really count. The floppy skinned demon was quickly being adopted by the Scoobies, especially after Giles pronounced him harmless when he thought he was out of the vampire’s hearing range.

Spike still felt somewhat out of place at such familiar get togethers, but the Scoobies were trying to include him. They really were, so he had been coaxed to stop hiding in the shadows and join in. Everyone had seemed to have a good time; even Tara had come out of her shell by the end of the evening. That might have had something to do with the flask Spike had dumped into the punch when the boy-band music got too tedious, but he felt it better that no one be the wiser on that front. Like all good things, the party was over too soon, and the crew had retired for the evening, leaving the night to the vampire and the slayer.

The next day had been a flurry of packing and last minute preparations. The witches had spent the late afternoon with Willow’s family, freeing up Spike and Buffy for their mansion raid. Afterwards, everyone had met at Giles’ apartment. Giles drove the mobile debriefing room while everyone else piled into Xander’s car and headed for the airport.

Meret had made her goodbyes before they had entered the airport, so as to not cause a panic amongst the high-strung airport security guards. After a fun turn through the metal detectors and x-ray machines, the group found themselves at the gated entrance to the concourse. There were tears, promises of phone calls and e-mails, jokes, and touristy suggestions. When it came Spike’s turn to say goodbye, Willow got a scrap of paper, which looked suspiciously like Buffy’s ladybug grocery shopping list, with a list of the vampire’s favorite London haunts if they managed to get a weekend in the capital.

To Tara, he handed over a few strands of his own hair. At her widening eyes, he simply shrugged. “Don’t have a phone or computer. Use ‘em if you need me or toss ‘em. Whatever you like.”

Tara had nodded mutely and wrapped the gift in a tissue before sliding it into her wallet. Such a gift, freely given, could confer great power over a person in the hands of a skilled witch, but the vampire trusted his unlife in Tara’s hands. After a stuttered thank you, and much to Spike’s surprise, he found himself holding an armful of blond witch. His well-tuned sense of demonic dignity was embarrassed, but the greater part of him just wanted to hug her back.

The bemused, and somewhat shocked, faces of the others brought Spike back to himself. With a gruff “Take care of yourself, Glinda,” Spike backed away and let the others continue with their goodbyes.

And just like that, the two were gone down the walkway to their plane. They were taking a short hop to L.A., followed by an all-nighter to New York, a red eye to London, and a final skip to Southampton. Spike did not envy the girls their flight. He usually managed to avoid planes, but he had learned in his limited experience that jet lag was a ruddy bitch, even for those with vampiric constitutions.

Spike walked through the airport in silence. Outside of the members of the Summers family, who on the whole seemed to have a strange weakness for the bleached vampire, Tara had been the first person to really give him a chance. He missed her already.

“That was sweet,” whispered Dawn as the remaining Scoobies walked back out to their cars.

“I’m a vampire. I’m not ‘sweet,’” he growled.

“You’re right. That whole hugging thing back there? That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen a vamp do,” she managed to get the tease out though an impressive yawn. It was getting late for those of the group who bothered trying to keep a human schedule.

“Shut your gob.”

Despite his acerbic tongue, when Dawn asked to join them in Giles’ car, he made room for her in the tiny back seat. Revello Drive found the Key fast asleep on Spike’s shoulder, his coat around her shoulders.