Chapter 1 – You Need a Plan

Spike sat at the Bronze bar under the huge mirror and watched the room. Actually, he sat down at the bar so he could watch Buffy and those blighters she called her friends. As usual, Buffy was laughing and dancing and having a grand time for herself. She avoided Spike like the Bubonic Plague, which was also as usual.

Buffy was dancing with Harris, in a way that Spike considered entirely too sexy for her to be doing with anyone but him. He’d have to give his slutty girl a good spanking when she showed up at his crypt.

She could come over and say hello, considering. Considering they’d torn that abandoned house down having a shag fest. Considering they’d been shagging like maniacs for a month. Considering he’d told her about fifty times he loved her.

But, she didn’t.

So, he sat at the bar, getting pissed on Jack Daniels he bought with money he’d stolen from the Whelp earlier. Spike stopped by Buffy’s table and got chased off by Harris, so he felt it was right Harris should pay for his booze.

Spike was about to give up on Buffy, while he could walk more or less straight, and go back to his crypt to wait for her to show up, when an attractive brunette walked up to the bar next to him and waved to get the bartender’s attention. He’d seen her around town, but couldn’t place her. Then, he remembered. She’d been the Whelp’s girlfriend a couple of years ago. She had terrible taste in men, but she’d be someone to talk to while Buffy ignored him.

He remembered this girl was one of the few friends of Buffy’s who didn’t bother to sugar coat things and said what she thought. He also remembered she was surrounded by men of all ages and descriptions. She was attractive, but her good looks didn’t explain the powerful force she exerted on the opposite sex.

“How about a drink, luv?”

***

It wasn’t fair, Buffy thought as she stared at Spike’s back when Xander wasn’t eyeballing her. It wasn’t fair that Spike could stare at her in the mirror and she could only look at the back of his coat.

It also wasn’t fair that she was dancing with Xander, her old friend, who’d been obsessing over her since the day they met in high school. Xander danced like a geek.

She wanted to dance with Spike. Spike was way hot. He was crazy in love with her and a good dancer, too. She wanted to feel his hand on her neck, where he bit her last night. She touched her bite mark under her shirt and jerked her hand away as if she’d been burned.

She had no one to blame but herself that Spike didn’t have his arms around her this minute.

She was a coward. Buffy, the Chosen One. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, who was strong as a regurgitating frolax, who’d taken on demons, vampires, the Master, a Hellgod, No-Soul Angel and any number of apocalypses without so much as turning a hair, well, maybe a few hairs, was afraid. She was afraid to tell her friends that she had a thing with Spike.

And, she was being cruel, too. When Spike came over to talk to her earlier, Xander chased him off and Buffy did nothing to stop Xander. She saw the hurt look on Spike’s face and she did nothing.

She did nothing, because she was afraid her stupid friends wouldn’t approve.

***

Cordelia looked at the vampire with cotton-white hair who’d offered to buy her a drink.

She’d never met him before, but she knew who he was. Spike.

Spike - who’d messed up her romance with Xander. Spike - who’d kipnapped Willow and Xander, so Willow would perform a love spell on his psychotic vampire girlfriend. Spike - who Cordelia held personally responsible for her getting a metal stake through her belly when she went with that creepy werewolf character, Oz, to rescue Xander and Willow at that nasty burnt-out factory. The scar from being skewered with that metal stake messed up any possibility of Cordelia ever wearing a thong bikini again. Unforgivable.

She hated Spike, but she had been out of town for months and none of her regular puppies were available to flirt with and buy her drinks. Buying her own drink was unthinkable.

“I’m Cordelia,” she said. “You’re hotter looking than any of the men here, so I’ll let you buy me drinks until someone with a heartbeat comes along.” She didn’t say anything more, because in her scheme of male and female relationships, it was up to Spike to provide witty conversation since he didn’t have an interesting family trust fund.

Spike slurped from his glass and pushed a few dollars to the bartender to pay for her drink.

A young man approached Cordelia and asked her to dance. Spike snapped into his vamp face and told the punk to piss off. The young man scurried away.

“Hey! I was thinking about dancing with that guy.”

“Not thinking very hard, were you, luv?” He shook off his vamp face.

She made a small smile calculated to encourage but not convey any real interest.

“You’ve been gone a while,” Spike said. “Coming back to Sunnyhell for good?”

“No. My mom is selling her house. I came back to get rid of my stuff.”

She had no intention of telling this albino bloodsucker the whole story of how her mother was moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania. Mom wanted to be close to the federal prison so she could see Cordelia’s father, the tax evader, on visiting day. Allentown, PA was one place Cordelia never planned on going. Her father was number one on the list of people who’d ruined her life, followed closely by Captain Peroxide, here.

Spike looked at the mirror again to see what Buffy was doing.

Cordelia turned around to see who he was watching. He was staring at Buffy.

Cordelia hated Buffy, too, for a variety of reasons. She’d kept Xander infatuated while Cordelia dated him and she allowed Angel to carry a torch long after their relationship was so history. Also, Buffy earned Cordelia’s enmity for choosing Willow and Xander and other assorted geeks to hang around with when she, Queen Cordelia, offered her friendship and acceptance into the cool crowd.

Why was Spike keeping an eye on Buffy? Was he in love with her?

“Are you mooning after Buffy?”

“Bloody hell.” It was bad enough to be running after the Slayer like a whipped cur, but to have other people notice how wretched he was, that was too much to bear.

Cordelia watched Buffy and sipped her drink. She caught Buffy sneaking a look at her and Spike every few minutes. Buffy was acting very much like she was jealous. Spike sat at the bar by himself watching Buffy in the mirror and Buffy, who could have been dancing with someone passable, danced with Xander and kept her eye on Spike. The situation suggested certain possibilities to Cordelia.

“Are you sleeping with Buffy?”

Spike choked on his drink. “What’s it to you?”

“I find it interesting that the Chosen Slayer is having sex with a vampire. Again. It’s so star-crossed or something.” She found it interesting that Miss-High-and-Mighty Buffy was associating with Spike for other reasons as well.

Spike snarled at Cordelia’s reminder of Buffy’s romance with Angelus.

“Crossed is right. She won’t even tell her mates that she’s seeing me.”

So, Buffy was still keeping secrets.

Cordelia didn’t understand why Buffy was keeping Spike under wraps. She’d been open enough about her relationship with Angel until he got nasty and killed Miss Calendar, tortured Giles and opened up a hell dimension. Spike was a lot more presentable than Xander and a handsome guy like Spike could be used to lure other attractive candidates. Xander had no luring possibilities, as Cordelia knew.

She considered the way Xander hid their relationship from the Scoobies. Not that she’d minded; dating Xander was one of the most embarrassing things she’d ever done in her whole life. At the time, she thought Xander hid their relationship because he lusted for Buffy and imagined one day Buffy might come to her senses and fall in love with him. *As if.* Cordelia heard through the grapevine Willow had done the same thing and hidden her relationship with Tara from the gang for weeks.

“I get it,” she said. “Nobody’s supposed to know about the two of you. The Scoobies would be upset if they knew you and Buffy were getting all groiny. They always get upset when one of the gang has sex. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Spike rolled his eyes and said nothing.

Cordelia felt she owed Buffy some punishment for keeping Xander on a string and for ignoring her own overtures of friendship. She owed Spike some damage for what he’d done, too.

“She doesn’t want any of her friends to know about you.”

Spike sighed. “Worse than that.”

“Oh?”

“If you must know, I’m crazy about her and she won’t give me the time of day.”

Cordelia laughed. Spike didn’t appear to have the slightest idea how much affect he had on Buffy.

“She doesn’t care about you at all, which is why she looked over here fifteen times in the past minute to see what you were up to talking with me.”

“She did?” Spike turned to see if he could catch Buffy spying on him, but Cordelia grabbed his arm and jerked him back to face the bar.

“Don’t look at her, Mr. Lame. No wonder she’s giving you a hard time.”

“Huh?”

Cordelia sighed. “Haven’t you heard of playing hard to get? How old are you anyway?”

“A hundred and … Hey, I was romantically involved with Drusilla ever since she turned me. I didn’t run around with other vamp girls. Well, not much. I didn’t have to play hard to get with Dru. She loved me.”

It was Cordelia’s turn to roll her eyes. Spike was bragging about being the love object of a crazy female vampire. “Pathetic much? I heard about how much she loved you. She had sex with Angel and ran off with a Chaos Demon. Aren’t they the ones with the drippy antlers?”

Spike made a face and ordered two more drinks. “Can we change the subject?”

The bar was getting crowded and a number of acceptable male companions had come in while they were talking. Cordelia, seeing an opportunity to pay back Buffy and Spike and to accomplish something for herself, dismissed a couple of potential male prospects.

“No, I like this subject. I can help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“I can help you with your Buffy problem. I can give you some pointers on how to get her to notice you.”

“I’m not interested in playing games with the Slayer.”

“No, you’d rather sit here at the bar and get drunk while you watch her dance with another man.”

Spike growled.

“That’s what I thought. You need a plan.”