Spike lit a cigarette, ignoring her ostentatious cough. “Oh, yes, I’m sure he’s quaking in his long black cloak! He’s always been like that – big entrance, makes with the bat and wolf bit, loads of biting and thralling, then off he goes again. No staying power, that’s his sodding problem. Always has been. Bloody hell, even Peaches can concentrate harder than Drac. Harmony can concentrate harder than Drac!”

Buffy stared at him, curious. “Did you want him to stay in Sunnydale?”

“I wanted my bloody cash back, Slayer. I told you, he owes me eleven quid.”

“Which is what in real money?”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Still eleven quid! In funny American money, I suppose it’s about seventeen dollars and that would buy me a load of blood. And then there’d be interest. I wonder how much that would add up to? Say five percent per year, divide by 3, take away the number you first thought of - ”

“Why did you lend it to him in the first place?” Buffy snapped interrupting the diatribe. “I mean, does he look like the type of vamp who’d bother repaying a debt? He’s Dracula, Geez, Spike. I sometimes wonder if you’ve learnt anything in all the years you’ve been dead!”

“Poker game. The day World War II was declared. Sitting listening to that poxy bloke Chamberlain bleating on that we were at war with Germany. We had a good laugh that night. The thought of all that death and destruction – ”

He flinched at her horrified expression and hurried on, “Anyway, I wasn’t playing. Been outside with Dru for a quick - well, we’d been outside! Drac was short of a tortoiseshell. All he had were two Persians and a half Siamese which the other blokes said didn’t count. I had no kittens left at all, so I lent him eleven quid and he won the blooming lot. Over forty kittens! Then it was all, “Oh, got to go. Need to be in Berlin tomorrow. Puff of smoke. Crash of thunder. Gone like the bloody gloryhound he is. And never paid me back!”

Buffy turned to go. She’d had enough of Spike and his memories to last her a lifetime. Then something tugged at her mind. “So what did you do in the War?” she asked curiously.

Spike went very still. There was a question. He remembered a submarine, Liam, Nazis, blood. And other things, too. Things he bloody well didn’t want to talk about to the Slayer. After all, he had a reputation as a Big Bad to keep up, didn’t he.

Buffy shrugged at his silence. “I’m going home,” she said. “I’m baby-sitting Dawn tonight.” And she walked away.

The words, “Who the hell’s Dawn?” quivered on Spike’s lips and as he watched the slim blonde girl leaving the graveyard, for a weird, long second he felt as if his brain cells were being rearranged into a different pattern.



I’m closing this series of Never Ever Tell stories at this point and posting it as a finished work.

I’ll pick it up again a bit later on with the rest of the meetings between Buffy and Spike that we never knew about.

Do hope you have enjoyed them.