Chapter One

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It had been three months. Three months since they had defeated Glory. As usual, the averted apocalypse had been followed by a period of relative calm so by Sunnydale standards, it had been three months of bliss. Except, Buffy was feeling less than blissful right now. Just a week ago, her Watcher had announced that he was going back to England.

“I just don’t understand why he’s going,” she exclaimed, turning to her companion with a frown.

Spike took a drag of his cigarette and turned to her, raising one eyebrow. This was another new development in the last three months: it seemed fighting Glory had given Spike a taste for violence of the good kind and after he had stalked her on patrol for a couple of weeks, she had finally give in and invited him to join her. After all, another pair of – super strong – hands could never be a bad thing.

“Watcher’s got an inferiority complex.”

“Huh?”

“His li’l Slayer’s all grown and don’t need him teaching her anymore.”

“That’s not true!”

“’Course it is. When was the last time you trained with him?” Spike asked pointedly.

She frowned as she tried to recall. She had been training with Spike a lot lately- again the perks of a super strong partner – but Giles hadn’t seemed to mind.

“But I still need him for…for bookey things…”

“And that’s supposed to keep him here?”

She frowned and crossed her arms, turning away from Spike. What did he know anyway?


“I don’t see what’s so great about England anyway,” she sulked, kicking at a stone on the ground, sending it flying at the nearest gravestone, “It rains all the time.”

“You’d be surprised how much you can miss a thing like rain. ‘Specially in this godforsaken town. Hardly ever bloody rains here.”

“So he’s going all the way back to England for the rain?” she remarked sarcastically, turning to the vampire.

“Doubtful. But it’s the little things… proper tea… Bovril… Yorkshire puddings…”

The vampire almost looked wistful as he spoke and she rolled her eyes, moving on around the graves.

“So, it’s the cuisine that has him making with the leaving?”

The vampire caught up to her again and she didn’t miss the roll of his eyes.

“Least he’ll be somewhere where they speak English,” he muttered.

“Hey!” she protested, but suddenly her argument with Spike was forgotten as she spotted a demon up ahead. She pressed her back against a crypt, dragging Spike to her side.

“Yeah, yeah, take it easy. I saw him.”

“You go right, I’ll go left.”

“Deal.”

She turned and met his eyes for a brief second and then they split up, moving in a wide circle towards the demon.


She got to the demon’s side and glanced to the other side, ready to signal to Spike - but he was already breaking out of the bushes and attacking the demon. With a groan, she dashed out and joined the fight just as the demon deflected Spike’s first hit, sending him flying into a nearby gravestone and knocking him out. She smiled slyly and launched at the demon alone, lashing out with a roundhouse had it stumbling backwards. She followed that up with a series of hard punches that sent the demon finally stumbling into the wall of a crypt. She kicked it hard into the stone and it roared weakly, before crumbling to the floor. Quickly, she leant over and twisted its neck sharply - and then jumped back when it melted into the ground and disappeared.

“Eww,” she got out quietly and then, brushing her hair out of her face, she turned back to where Spike appeared to just be coming round.
She went to him and smiled sweetly as he raised his head and frowned at her, blood trickling down from his temple.

“You always get knocked out this easy?” she teased.

“No,” he bit out, taking the hand she held out and yanking himself to his feet roughly, wiping away some of the blood with his sleeve.

“If you’d have waited, that wouldn’t have happened.”

“You were taking too long,” he countered, hands fumbling in his pockets. He frowned and then turned, spotting his cigarette packet and lighter on the floor where he had fallen. He bent and picked them up and turned back to her with a grimace, putting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it up.


They moved on, walking silently side by side.

“You look rough, by the way,” she pointed out, glancing at the smear of blood across his forehead.

“Cheers ever so,” he muttered, wiping at his head again with his sleeve.

“You’re just making it worse.”

She could see him clenching his jaw and smiled to herself - she did so enjoy taunting him. She had been worried that after his declaration of love (which was still wigging her out majorly) he would be annoyingly stalkery and there would be none of the bickering she had been so used to. She had been much mistaken though – their relationship remained the same as ever, insults and fights galore.

Sometimes though, she would catch him watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking and she saw then a tenderness in his expression that didn’t sit well with the Big Bad’s look. Generally, she chose to ignore it though.

“Bloody hell,” Spike muttered, drawing her out of her daze and back to him. He was frowning at the blood smeared across the back of his hand and across his beloved jacket.

“Is it bad?” he asked, stopping and turning to her.

“You’re such a baby,” she replied, rolling her eyes as she stepped forwards and pressed her fingers to the cut.

“Ow,” he moaned, moving away from her touch, and she rolled her eyes again.

“Stop moaning and stay still so I can look.”

He did so but squirmed every time her fingers went anywhere near the cut on his temple.

“Always knew you were a sadistic bitch, Slayer.”

She lowered her eyes to his and narrowed them, pulling her hands away.

“You’ll be fine. Just need to clean it up. You look a mess.”

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes at her and she smiled sarcastically, wiping her bloody hands on her jacket with a small frown.


They reached his crypt and she followed him inside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, frowning at her.

“I’m supposed to be going to Giles’ going-away party and I’ve got your blood all over my hands…and my jacket. I need to get cleaned up.”

“And you expect yours truly to play the attentive host?”

“After I saved your ass, yeah.”

He said nothing in reply, sulking as he moved across the room, slipping out of his jacket and laying it across a chair.

“Here, use this,” he muttered, throwing a bottle of water in her direction.

“Too kind,” she answered, perching on the sarcophagus that took up the middle of the crypt and taking her jacket off. There was no use trying to clean it- it would need to be dry-cleaned. She frowned and laid it down, opening the bottle.

“Have you got a cloth or something?”

She looked up to find him attempting to clean his own wound and rolled her eyes.

“Look, I’ll do that in a minute, just get me a cloth to clean this with.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he bit out sarcastically, getting to his feet again and appearing a moment later with a dirty cloth. She frowned at it but took it, then paused for a moment, catching his arm as he turned away.

“Come here,” she sighed – after all, it didn’t make much sense to clean her hands before his head as she would just get dirty again.


He stood deathly still as she poured some water onto the cloth and touched it to his cut gently.

“Ow!” he hissed.

“You’re just lucky it’s not alcohol. Stop being a baby.”

He fell silent again as she cleaned the wound as best she could with the dirty cloth.

“There. It looks a bit better,” she announced, pulling back – only to find him watching her intently.

He quickly dropped his eyes from hers and touched his fingers to his head.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Welcome,” she answered absentmindedly as she took the cloth and cleaned her bloody hands. When she had finished, she threw the cloth down and pushed herself to her feet.

“Right, I should get going to Giles’s.”

“Yeah,” the vampire murmured, eyes now fixed on the television as he slouched in his armchair.

“Patrol tomorrow?”

“Probably.”

“Great,” she sighed, moving towards the door as she called out, “Night, Spike.”

“Night, love.”

She ground her teeth together at his use of the endearment but decided to leave it for now, heading out of the crypt for Giles’s.