1. Default Chapter

            It was raining.

            Buffy Summers hoiked her bag up on her shoulder and looked around the airport concourse, her spirits falling.  Grey, grey grey.  Everywhere was grey.  She'd been told England was beautiful - all lush and green - but all she could see here was concrete.

            She dug a piece of paper out of her pocket, scrawled with her own writing.  Piccadilly Line to Kings Cross St Pancras.  She trudged back inside and towards the train station.  What on earth did Piccadilly Line mean?

*

            Rupert Giles and his protégée, Willow, stood on the Kings Cross platform for what felt like hours.  Willow, a slim redhead in a bright striped jumper, was holding a 'Welcome Buffy' sign and getting odd looks for it.

            "I guess you Brits aren't big on Welcome banners, huh?" she said to Giles.  She was from California, Like Buffy, although the two girls had never met.  Willow was very much looking forward to meeting the other girl, who Giles had forged a friendship with when he was working at Buffy's college, teaching Classical Myths.  Now he'd returned home to take up curatorship of a prestigious London museum, and Willow had become his favourite student, always in and out of the museum, looking at mummies and Roman vases.

            "Maybe she misread the map," she added.  "I know I found it confusing.  Everything's so boxy.  And the names are so funny."

            "What's funny about London place names?" Giles wanted to know.

            "Well, nothing," Willow stalled, "but you know, Piccadilly's a funny word, and you think everything at white City's gonna be white, but it isn't..."

            "Is everything in Los Angeles angelic?" Giles asked drily, and Willow blushed.

            "Well, you know what I mean.  This Buffy girl's from a place called Sunnydale.  Was it always sunny there?"

            Giles nodded.  "God, yes."

            Willow smiled.  She'd expected Giles to be very golly gosh, but his vocabulary was much the same as her own.  She did get tired of his constant grammatical corrections, though.

            "So why's she coming over, again?  A vacation, right?"

            "Yes.  Well.  She had a bit of a bad break-up this summer, and I suggested she - oh, there she is!  Buffy!"

            Giles waved, and Willow jumped up and down to see over the crowds of commuters.  She could see a petite girl - oh, good, Willow thought, she won't tower over me - wearing a hat pulled down over her hair, and a red leather jacket.  She was slim and very pretty, and Willow sparked with interest.

            "Giles!"  Buffy reached them and threw her arms around him.  "I'm so glad to see you!  Mom sends her love."

            "How is your mother?" Giles asked as politely as he could.  He and Joyce had had a small fling a while ago: Buffy was aware of it and teased them both mercilessly.

            "Oh, she's great.  These trains are something else!  What do they call it, not the subway, the, uh..."

            "The Tube," Giles said.  "Do you have any - oh, yes, I see you do have some..."

            He trailed off, seeing the pile of luggage Buffy was dragging.

            "Well, I didn't know what the weather was going to be like.  Is it still raining?"

            "I think it is," Willow volunteered, and Buffy noticed her for the first time.  Giles introduced them, and Buffy gave Willow a bright smile.

            "Great!  Someone else who knows what HBO is."

*

            She saw him out of the corner of her eye.  He was standing at the far edge of the platform, leaning against the curved wall and smoking idly.  She just had time to make out pale hair and black leather, and his pale eyes on her, before Giles and Willow whisked her up the steps and out of the station.

            Outside Giles shook out a large black umbrella and led Buffy down the road.  "It's just around the corner," he said, and it was, a pretty little maisonette in what Buffy learned was an area called Bloomsbury.  This was more like it.  The building was old and there were flowers in window boxes.  Buffy's room at Giles's house was small and pretty, and despite her jetlag she wanted to go out and explore immediately.

            "We could go to the museum," Willow suggested shyly, and Buffy shrugged.

            "Will it be full of mummies who come to life?"

            Willow laughed.  "You've been watching too many movies!"

            The museum was a short Tube ride away, and Buffy was impressed a how huge the building was.

            "Do you work here with Giles?"

            Willow nodded.  "Kind of.  I'm actually a student at the University of London, but I'm studying Ancient History and I'm working here part time.  Only in the gift shop, though."

            They went inside and Willow took Buffy to her favourite area, where all the ancient things were.  She pointed out lots of very old crumbly things which Buffy said reminded her of Giles, and although she wasn't interested in the artefacts, she found herself liking Willow a lot.

            The redhead was just explaining about a Roman sandal to Buffy, whose eyes had glazed over, when someone came stumbling into the large, empty room.  She was a girl about Buffy's own age, much taller, with dark blonde hair and crying eyes.

            "Tara!"  Willow raced over and Buffy followed uneasily.  "Baby, what's wrong?"

            "N-nothing," Tara stammered.  "Just s-some boys teasing me."

            "Hey, don't let them get to you.  If they can't accept us then that's their problem."

            Tara nodded.  "I know, but I feel so wretched..."

            Willow looked helplessly up at Buffy.  "Uh, this probably isn't the best time, but Buffy, this is my girlfriend, Tara.  Tara, this is Mr Giles's friend, Buffy, you remember him telling us...?"

            Tara nodded tearfully.  "Hi, Buffy."

            Buffy wasn't sure what to say, but Hi sounded good so she tried that.

            "I think we'd better go for some tea," Willow smiled.  "You know, the English love their tea," she joked.  "Buffy, you want to come?"

            Buffy didn't want to intrude.  "No, I'm good.  I'll stay here.  I'm really interested in this, uh, this bracelet thingy."

            "It's a torque," Tara sniffed helpfully.

            "Right.  Yeah.  Shiny," Buffy added, feeling something else was needed.

            She watched the two girls walk away in the direction of the tea room, and wandered around for a bit, swinging her arms, wishing Riley was here with her.  But he was in South America.  Being a guy.  Like guys did.  Just upped and left you.  Stupid guys.

            She leaned against a glass case and nearly had a heart attack when a voice said, very close, "You're not supposed to do that, love."

            Buffy leapt upright, her hand on her heart.  "I - I'm sorry," she stammered, "I didn't know..."

            But then she saw the person who'd spoken, and he was the man from the station.  Tall and menacing in a long black coat, his white-blond hair slicked back, his eyes piercing above cheekbones so high Buffy could have skied down them.  If Buffy could ski.

            For quite a long while she stared at him, feeding on the sight of him.  He was _gorgeous_.  And he was smiling at her, in an amused way.

            "Had your eyeful, pet?"

            Buffy felt herself blush.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I saw you, before.  In the station.  You were watching me."

            He nodded seriously.  "That's right.  You're not safe."

            "I am perfectly safe!  London's supposed to be a safe place, right?  I'm in a frigging museum.  How safe is that?" Buffy babbled as the man looked on in silent disbelief.

            "Do you always talk this much?"

            "No," Buffy said defensively.  She didn't like this man.  Even if he was unbelievably hot.

            "Good.  I just thought I'd tell you."

            "Tell me what-" Buffy began, but he was already striding away, biker boots thudding on the marble floor, sending echoes around the room.  "Hey!  At least - tell me your name.  Aren't you Brits supposed to be all stiff-upper-lippy and formal?" she challenged.

            He stopped, turned, and he was shaking his head at her.  "You're just off the plane, right?"

            Buffy scowled.

            "Yeah."  He reached out a hand and tousled her hair.  Buffy ducked.

            "Stop that."

            "Make me."

            She glared at him, and he laughed.

            "What's coming after you won't be put off by a glare, pet."

            "Who is coming after me?"

            "Ask Giles."

            "You know Giles?"

            He started to walk away again.

            "At least tell me your name," Buffy called desperately.

            He walked a few steps further, before turning and executing a mocking bow.

            "Spike," he said.  "At your service."

            And then, in a swirl of black leather, he was gone.

            Buffy stamped her foot and swore.  She glared at the mummy in the case nearest to her.  "What are you looking at?"

*

            She found her way back to Giles's house, wrinkling her nose with annoyance.  Who was that guy?  And why was he following her?  Stalking would be a better word.  He was trying to freak her out.  What kind of a name was Spike, anyway?

            "Hi, I'm Spike," she said, and tried to imitate his Cockney accent.  "Hoi, Oi'm Spoike.  No, that's dumb.  Spike isn't a word.  Spike is a metal thingy - Giles!"

            He opened the door as she raised her hand to knock.

            "Buffy!  Where's Willow?"

            "She's at the museum.  With her girlfriend," Buffy said with relish as she took off her hat and shoes.  "I didn't know you Brits were so liberal."

            "Willow's American and - look, stop that.  This is the twenty-first century."

            "Not that you'd know it in that museum.  My God, Giles, it just goes on.  Miles and miles of dead things.  Mummy after mummy after mummy... Hey, are there any daddies?"

            Giles rolled his eyes and took off his glasses to polish them.  "You were bored?"

            "No!  No, I was just, uh, well," Buffy tried to look appealing, in the hope that Giles wouldn't be too hurt.  "Yeah," she conceded, when he didn't seem to be impressed.  "I was bored.  I'm sorry.  It's just not my thing."

            "Yes, well, I didn't think it would be," Giles said.  "But I do have something that might be slightly more up your street."

            As he talked, he was drawing her out of the little hallway and into the living room, where a gorgeously familiar voice said, "Hey Buff."

            Buffy stood and stared for a few seconds, then she launched herself at the young man standing by the fireplace.

            "Xander!  What are you doing here?  I thought you were working..."

            "Well, I was.  And then I wasn't."  He grinned at her.  Xander had been Buffy's best friend ever since she started at Sunnydale High.  He knew her mother, he knew her little sister, Dawn, and he'd even made a passing attempt at friendship with Giles.  "Anya and I thought we might take a vacation.  See how the Buffster is bearing up in grey old England."

            "How long have you been here?" Buffy asked, stepping back when she realised Xander's wife was standing possessively close.

            "Since yesterday," Anya said, glaring at Buffy.  "Xander, she was standing awfully close to you.  You're not thinking of having sex with her, are you?  Because that means you wouldn't be having sex with me-"

            Xander put his hand over her mouth and smiled at Buffy.

            "Hi, Anya," Buffy said, grinning.  Anya was one of those people who rarely kept a single thought to herself.  Everything she had was projected right out there.  Buffy found her hilarious.

            "Hello, Buffy.  You're looking thin."

            Buffy chose to take this as a compliment.  "Thank you," she said brightly.  "You're looking very, erm, brunette."

            The front door opened and Willow came in, followed by Tara, who made a shy wave to the room.  Xander and Willow stared at each other.

            "Will?"

            "Xander!"  They rushed at each other, but Xander's efforts to hug Willow were considerably hampered by the fact that Anya was hanging grimly onto his arm.

            "You two know each other?" Giles asked, rather unnecessarily, Buffy thought.

            "We were at kindergarten together," Willow began excitedly.

            "We lived next door to each other."

            "I haven't seen you in-"

            "Years and years, since you moved to LA.  Will, how you been?"

            They sat down together and reminisced, and Buffy tried not to feel bitter.  Xander was _her_ best friend.  He'd come to England to see _her_ - or at least, he'd come to Giles's house to see her.

            Anya was glaring at Willow too.  "I'm Xander's wife," she said earnestly, looking confused at this unexpected entry into her relationship.  "You can't have sex with him."

            Willow blushed and glanced up at Tara.  "I don't think that's an issue."

                "Yes, well, anyway," Giles cleared his throat, looking around the crowded room.  "Perhaps this calls for a celebration.  Dinner?"


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

            Next day, Buffy took Tara and Willow up on their invitation to look around the university campus.  Tara explained that the University of London had colleges all over the city, and that they'd moved out of their manky dorm after the first year and got a place together.  It was a tiny, tiny little flat, but the girls had decorated it with bright colours and lots of fabric, and the place was so warm with their love that Buffy forgot she hardly knew them and chatted for hours.  Later, they went for a drink at one of the many student bars, and Buffy had her first taste of English bitter.  It was horrible.

            She kept looking around for the odd pale-haired man called Spike, but she didn't see him anywhere.  Any time she saw a tall guy with shiny dark hair though, her heart flipped over.  It had been three months, but Buffy still saw Riley everywhere.

            On their way out of the bar, Buffy noticed a darkened room with lots of odd equipment.  A gym.  Her muscles ached for some exercise, after her day of travelling, sitting cramped up in a plane, then a train.

            "Guys," she said to Willow and Tara, who had gone on slightly ahead.  "Do you think I could use the gym?"

            They both looked slightly surprised, until Willow realised, and explained to Tara, "She's Californian."

            "So are you," Buffy exclaimed.

            "Well, yeah, but I live in England."

            "I think you could use the gym if you wanted," Tara said.  "We could-" she didn't look too happy with the idea, but she went along with it, "we could come down tomorrow..."

            Buffy was looking at the gym mats longingly.  "Do I have to wait?"

            The girls left her to the gym, and Buffy happily stripped off her jacket and heeled boots and stretched to warm herself up.  She spread out some mats and tried a few basic poses, then some rolls and tumbling, not seeing the man in the corner, watching her.

            Buffy picked up a pair of boxing gloves and flexed her fingers.  She attacked the punch bag energetically, imagining Riley's face on the leather, remembering the workouts they used to do together, before his army training became more important than her and he stopped hanging out with her at all, before he'd told her he was going to South America and maybe it would be better if she didn't wait for him...

            She aimed three high kicks, slamming her foot into the punch bag once, twice - then reeling round and planting her heel on the leather-clad shoulder of the man who'd been watching her.

            Spike.

            He caught her ankle and looked down at her in amusement.

            "You often work out in the middle of the night?"

            "It's not-" Buffy glanced at the clock.  "You often perv over girls in the gym?"

            "I was watching you.  You're good."

            "Yeah," Buffy tried to reclaim her leg, which was aching from being held up so high, "you have no idea."

            For a second they looked at each other, Buddy with her fists raised in classic boxer pose.  She'd have looked awesome, she thought, if it weren't for the fact that this man was holding her leg up in the air.  It wasn't comfortable, and it certainly wasn't ladylike.  This sort of thing never happened to Charlie's Angels.

            "I knew you were there," she told him, blowing hair from her face.

            "You didn't see me."

            "No, I smelled you."  Buffy sniffed.  "What, do you smoke twenty a day?"

            "Thirty.  You beat the crap out of punch bags.  We all have our therapy."  He nodded at the leather bag, swinging slightly behind Buffy.  "Who was he?"

            "I don't know what you're talking about."

            Spike rolled his beautiful eyes.  They were, Buffy noticed, just the colour of the English sky.  When it wasn't raining.

            "That wasn't just idle frustration," he said.  "Who was he?"

            Buffy yanked at her foot.  "Can I have my leg back?"

            He dropped her ankle, and Buffy stumbled into him.  He was warm and smelled of cigarettes and something else, something hot and deep and male and good.

            She drew back sharply.  "Ex boyfriend," she said.  "He's in the army."

            "Good for him.  He give you that?"

            Spike motioned to the ring Buffy wore, antique diamonds and gold.

            "Yeah," she said, still feeling defensive.

            "Very pretty," Spike began, taking her hand and looking at the ring.  Buffy was about to protest but his skin was warm and dry and anyway, a voice from the corner made her jump so hard she nearly leapt into Spike's arms.

            "As pretty as me?"

            Spike grabbed Buffy and shoved her behind him as he spun around to face to woman in the dark end of the gym.

            "Dru," he said, not sounding particularly happy.  "To what do I owe the displeasure?"

            "Aw Spike," she said.  "That's not very nice."

            Buffy couldn't see this 'Dru' around Spike's wide shoulders, but she sounded mildly crazy.  Her voice was adult and had the same London accent as Spike's, but she sounded like she was trying to be a child.

            "Spike likes his pretty things," Dru went on in her singsong voice.  "He likes very pretty things."

            "And that's why I don't like you," Spike said shortly.  "Could you tell me why you're here or bugger off?"

            "He's hiding something pretty behind his back," Dru went on, as if she hadn't heard him at all.  "Something very pretty.  But pretty things never last."

            "Yeah?  Well, this one will.  I don't mean to spoil the party, baby," Spike said, and Buffy frowned, "but if you don't get out of here in the next twenty seconds I'll drop that bunch of sandbags on your head."

            Buffy glanced upwards and saw that there was, indeed, a fat bunch of sandbags high up in the rafters, anchoring a climbing rope.

            But Dru giggled.  "Things fall from the sky all the time," she said.  "Important things, and no one notices."

            Buffy was quite sure Dru was mad.

            But Spike seemed to tense up.  "Drusilla," he said warningly.

            "I saw a shooting star," she said dreamily.  "In Mexico.  I wished on it."

            "What for?  A fully working mind?"

            Buffy almost giggled, but she managed to hold herself in check.

            "I wished I'd find what I wanted," Dru went on, still hidden in shadow.

            "And did you?"

            Drusilla came out of the shadows, and Buffy ached to see her.  But she daren't look around Spike's comforting strong body, and all she could make out was a cloud of dark hair and a long black coat.

            "It was gone," Drusilla said.

            "Was it now?"

            "Both of them were gone."

            "Both of what?"

            "It," Drusilla said.  "And him."

            "In plain English, Dru."

            "No spark," Drusilla said, and she sounded sad.  "Just bones and skin.  Bones and skin and no pretty gold, like sparkling sunshine, no spark."

            Buffy thought she heard Spike swear softly under his breath.

            "Well, thank you for that information," he said, "now sod off."

            Drusilla tsk'd.  "I gave you something," she said.

            "You mumbled a lot of riddles, Dru, that's not the same as giving someone something.  Apart from a lot of trouble."

            "Can't I even see?" Drusilla wheedled.

            "No."

            "Not even a tiny peep?"

            "Dru," Spike said warningly, and then Buffy felt him tense as he sucked in a breath.  She strained her eyes to see just a millimetre further, and then she froze too, because Drusilla was aiming a gun at them both.

            "Show me," she said, and now she didn't sound childlike at all.

            There was a second when none of them move, and then Spike said, "_Tumble_," under his breath, and Buffy dropped to the floor and rolled away, just as a gunshot rang out, and then a loud _pop_, and when she looked up there was white powder clouding everywhere, and a hand grabbed her out of the choking dust and yanked her to her feet.  She saw Spike's leather sleeve and clutched his hand as they ran.

            They ran for ages, Buffy barefoot and cold in her thin trousers and T-shirt, her feet dirty with bits of chewing gum and cigarette stubs from the pavement.  Once she stumbled, and Spike hauled her back to her feet, and when she trod on some glass and cried out, he swept her into his arms and carried on running.

            Buffy was too dazed to register where they were going, but suddenly Spike kicked at a door and they were in a warehouse, and he carried her to a pile of pallets and set her down gently.  Buffy cradled her sore, dirty foot and looked up at him.

            "Okay," she said, "so what the hell just happened?"

            Spike, still breathing heavily, pulled off his long leather coat and glared at her.  "You're welcome."

            "Thanks.  You're impressively burly.  I couldn't have run with a tiny little cut between my toes."

            He looked incredulous.  "A tiny little cut?  I carried you half a mile for a tiny little cut?  You were screaming like your foot was about to fall off!"

            "I was not," Buffy said indignantly.  "It damn well hurt-"

            "You just said-"

            "Don't you tell me what I just said," Buffy said furiously, getting to her feet and stumbling when she tried to put weight on her injured foot.  Spike caught her and lowered her to the pallets again.  Without asking, he took her foot in his hand and peered through the gloom at it.

            "I can't see a bloody thing," he said, dropping her foot, and stalked over to the nearest wall where he grabbed a torch and stood it on the pallets for some light.

            "There's glass in your foot," he said to Buffy, not angry any more.  "God, can't people put things in a bin?"

            "Can you get it out?" Buffy asked.

            "I don't suppose you have any eyebrow tweezers with you?"

            "In my purse," Buffy said.  "Which is - oh no," she added with sarcasm, "it's in the gym.  What did you do in there anyway?"

            "I ducked," Spike said.

            "I mean with all that white powdery stuff.  It tasted... salty."

            He looked up at her.  "You _tasted_ it?"

            "Well, it went in my mouth.  What was it?"

            Spike smiled.  "She shot the fire extinguisher."

            Buffy smiled. Then she laughed.  Then she laughed harder, and Spike had to hold tight to her foot to grab it and take the glass out, and then she stopped laughing, because it really hurt.  She was in a dark warehouse with a strange man and she had glass in her foot.

            Buffy felt tears slip out of her eyes.

            "Hey," Spike touched her face, "did it hurt that much?"

            Buffy shook her head.  "No.  Well, yes, but... Why was that woman pointing a gun at you?  And why did you help me?  And who are you, anyway?"

            At that he smiled, a proper smile.

            "I'm just here to protect you, love."

            "Do you have a real name?"

            "Yes, but I'm not telling you until I know you better."

            She rolled her eyes, no longer crying.  "Well, in that case I won't tell you mine."

            "Suit yourself.  Buffy."

            Buffy gasped.  "How do you _know_?"

            "I know a lot of things."

            Great, Buffy thought, a wise guy.

            "Do you know how to get some water to clean my foot up?  I don't want to get tetanus."

            He nodded at a staircase in the corner leading up to a balcony where Buffy guessed some offices had been.  "There might be a bathroom up there."

            He put her foot down gently and walked away, and Buffy found herself admiring how good he looked in jeans and how well his shirt fit across his muscular back.  He wasn't big, but he was lean and he was strong, and Buffy entertained herself remembering how good it felt to have been cradled against his hard chest while he carried her.

            She jumped when Spike touched her shoulder, and when she opened her eyes he looked amused.

            "Dreaming about me?"

            What arrogance.  "You wish."

            This only made him smile wider, and Buffy wondered if he could read minds.

            He held out an old kettle full of boiling water and some bits of cotton wool and disinfectant.  He also had plasters and tape.

            "Where did you find this stuff?"

            He shrugged.  "Looks like someone cleared out of here and didn't take all their stuff with them."  He lifted her foot and started cleaning away the dirt with the cotton wool dipped in the water for sterilisation.  Buffy winced, but she let him carry on.  It was like when she was a little girl and her mother used to clean her scraped knees.

            "Where are we?"

            He shrugged.  "Chalk Farm, I think."

            Buffy's eyes bulged.  "We're on a _farm_?"

            At that Spike laughed.  "It's a name," he said.  "Part of London.  Not too far from Giles."

            "How do you know Giles?"

            Spike lifted his shoulders and Buffy watched the movement with interest.  "We go way back."

            "Are you another of his protégés?  Like Tara?"

            "You know Tara?"

            Buffy was intrigued.  "_You_ know Tara?"

            "I asked you first."

            She sighed.  "She's Willow's girlfriend?"

            "Red?  Her name is Willow."  Spike nodded as if storing this fact away.  He dabbed disinfectant on the cotton wool and pressed it to her foot.  Buffy bit her lip.

            "How do you know Tara?"

            "Nice girl.  Knows a lot about Roman sandals."

            "Yes, but, how do you _know_ her?"

            Spike shrugged again.  "We sometimes work in the same field."

            "And what field is that?"

            "We both like women," Spike said, looking up at her through long lashes.  Buffy sighed in disgust.  She knew she wasn't going to get anything out of him.  She also knew that Tara had never had another girlfriend before Willow, and vice versa.

            Spike pressed some clean cotton wool against the cut on Buffy's foot and wrapped so much tape around it to hold it in place that Buffy was beginning to feel like one of the mummies in the museum.  Then he cleaned up her other foot, which wasn't very clean.  Buffy wasn't sure it was necessary, but his fingers on her toes felt damned good, so she let him.

            "Do you have a spare pair of socks, too?" she asked.

            "Oh, you're funny."

            "I'm laugh a minute.  Spike, who was that Drusilla woman?"

            Abruptly, he turned away from her.  "She was trouble."

            "Well, duh."

            "She's after something.  I don't know what," he said, but Buffy could tell he was lying.

            "Is it something I have?"

            He shrugged again, his shoulders tense in the darkness.

            "Could be.  Ignore what she said, she's cracked."  Spike turned back to her and looked at his watch.  "It's late.  You should get some sleep."

            Buffy blinked.  "I'm not staying here!"

            "You can't walk on that foot.  And I'm not carrying you all the way back to Giles's.  You're not that featherweight, you know."

            Buffy scowled.  "It's muscle," she said.

            "Sure it is."  Spike felt at her arm.  "Lots of muscle there."  He trailed his hand down her stomach.  "More muscle there."  His fingers went a little lower, and Buffy drew in her breath sharply.

            "Stop that."

            He looked up at her innocently.  "Just testing your fitness, love."

            "I'm not your love."

            Spike just smiled.

*

            When she awoke it was morning and there was daylight coming in through the dirty warehouse windows.  Spike was nowhere to be seen, although his coat had been draped over Buffy as she slept.  She glanced around to make sure he wasn't watching, then breathed in deeply.  The old leather smelled of Spike, and it was a good smell.

            She turned over and went crashing to the floor: Buffy wished someone had told her she'd fallen asleep on the pile of pallets.  Spike came rushing down the stairs from the offices above and grabbed her.

            "What happened?  Are you hurt?  Buffy-?"

            "I'm fine," she grumbled, letting him pull her to her feet.  "I just lost my dignity.  What time is it?"

            "A little after eight."

            "God!  Giles and the others will be wondering where I am!"

            "Then we'd better get you home."

            Spike handed her his coat, saying it was cold outside, and Buffy pulled the leather around her.  It nearly scraped the floor and there was something very intimate about wearing something that was so obviously a well-loved part of its owner.  She limped after him, feeling scruffy and dirty, trying not to get dirt in her bandaged foot.  But London was so dirty, centuries of dirt in the air and on the ground.  It was beautiful, but all Buffy could see today was the dirt on the ground, ready to sneak in and give her cut toes hell.

            Spike led her around a few corners until they came to a small shopping street.  He took her in a shop and Buffy was puzzled until he asked what size her feet were and she realised he was looking for shoes.  Laughing, she told him and then they had to work it out in English sizes.  He bought her a cheap pair of jelly sandals, like kids have on the beach, and she put them on, feeling better now her feet were protected.

            It was cold out, and she was grateful for the coat.  Spike didn't seem to be bothered by the chill, and Buffy wondered spitefully if he was just being manly so he could show off his great body under its tight T-shirt.

            Then she felt mean.  He was being really nice to her and all she'd done was bitch at him.

            "Is it far?" she asked.  "Giles's house?"

            Spike stopped her at a bus shelter.  "Better if we ride," he said.  "Those shoes weren't really meant for city walking."

            Buffy looked down at them.  Her feet did look ridiculous.

            "I - I don't have any money for the bus," she said, "or to pay you for the shoes..."

            Spike waved his hand.  "I can afford it," he said.

            Afford cheap jelly shoes and a bus ride.  Hardly fiscal solvency.

            Sitting beside him on the bus, her thigh pressed against his, she tried not to think about how close he was.  Giles's house wasn't far, but by the time they disembarked - Buffy refused to say 'got off', even in her head - her heart was thumping and her palms were sweating.  It was stupid.  It was like she'd never been near a hot man before.  Riley was hot.  Riley was really hot, especially in his commando gear.  Riley had women falling all over him.

            Maybe that was the problem.

            But Riley had never rescued her.  If anyone came onto Buffy in a bar or whatever, she fended them off herself.  Riley's friends used to joke that she could join their detachment any day she wanted.

            Buffy would rather have shaved her head than spent more time than was needed with those sexist testosterone freaks.

            They reached Giles's door and Spike raised his hand to knock, but Buffy caught it and he looked at her.

            "I just wanted to say," she could hardly breathe, "I just wanted to say, thanks.  For looking after me.  And stuff.  I'm not usually so helpless, I-"

            And then he kissed her.

            Buffy could have lived in that kiss.  It was golden sunshine.  It was a Faith Hill song.  It was life-giving.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, as hard as he was kissing her, and his body felt really good against hers, pressing her back against Giles's cold front door.

            Then the door opened, and Buffy fell in, dragging Spike with her, landing hard on the carpet with Spike grinning down at her.

            And then she looked up and saw Anya and Xander there, too.

            And she gulped.

            "Hi?"

            Xander waved.  "Hey, Buff.  Hey complete stranger with his lips attached to my best friend."

            Spike wasn't making any effort to move from her, and Buffy had to admit it wasn't a totally unpleasant feeling, being trapped under him.  But she felt damn silly with her friends looking down at her.

            "Um," she said.  "Spike?"

            "Yes, pet?"

            "You think you could move?"

            "'Fraid not.  I think you've broken me.  I'll have to stay here."

            She glared at him, and he laughed, his body shaking against her.  "Okay, Summers, you win."  He rolled off her and to his feet in one easy motion that Anya stood there admiring until Xander noticed and scowled at her.

            Giles came down the stairs, talking as he went.  "Xander, Anya, what is going on - Buffy!  Where on earth did you go?  I was worried sick about you, I've been on the phone to Willow half the morning..."

            He came over as if to hug her, but then hesitated and patted her shoulder instead.

            "British reserve, Rupert," Spike said, and Giles swung round to face him.

            "William?"

            _William_? Buffy thought, as Xander mouthed '_Spike_?' in disbelief.

            "I should have known you'd be in on this," Giles said wearily.  "Buffy, how on earth did you meet this reprobate?"

            "Uh," Buffy got to her feet, dusting herself off.  "Well.  It - uh - your name is _William_?"

            Spike glared at her sullenly.  "Not to you it isn't."

            "Not even now I know you better?" Buffy teased.

            "Hey, if I gave my name out to every woman I - never mind.  Rupert.  I saved this young lady's life and all you can do is scold me?  He's like a mother hen," Spike said fondly, making Giles scowl.

            "Why was her life in danger?  I thought you were supposed to be protecting her?"

            "Protecting me?" Buffy said, but no one seemed to be listening.  Xander had fetched a bag of crisps from the kitchen and he and Anya were watching like it was street entertainment.

            "I was bloody protecting her," Spike was saying to Giles.  "Dru showed up-"

            Giles took off his glasses and covered his eyes.  "Drusilla?"

            "Yeah."

            "How is the lovely lady?"

            Spike looked at him like he was insane.  "She's as fruitcake as ever.  Kept going on about shiny things and shooting stars."

            But Buffy knew Spike had understood what Drusilla had meant.

            "And she has a gun," she piped up automatically.

            "Oh, dear lord," Giles said.

            "Do you have any idea what's going on?" Xander asked Anya, taking the crisps from her.

            "Nope.  Do you have any idea who these people are?"

            "Well, that one's Buffy and that-"

            "I mean Captain Peroxide."

            Anya squinted.  "I think that might be his real colour."

            "Yeah, like yours is your real colour."

            She scowled and took the crisps back.

            "Hey," Buffy waved at Giles's face.  "Could someone please tell me what is going on?  Who is this insane Dru gal and why did she pull a gun on us and why did I have to spend the night in a warehouse and am I ever going to get my shoes back?  I liked those shoes."

            They were all staring at her.  Xander reached for some more crisps.

            "Willow has your clothes," Giles said.  "She found them at the campus gym.  Why-?"

            "I felt like a workout," Buffy said.

            "Californians," Giles shook his head.

            "Hey!" Buffy, Anya and Xander said in unison.  "And 'Hey!' for Will, too," Xander added.

            "Buffy," Giles turned to her, "perhaps you should come in and sit down.  It's too cramped in this hallway anyway.  There are some things I need to tell you."

            She followed him into the living room, Anya and Xander trooping in after them and sitting down to watch, still passing the bag of crisps back and forth like they were in a cinema.

            "Wait," Buffy said, feeling the room was empty, "where's Spike?"

            They looked around.  Xander checked the hallway.  "He's gone."

                Buffy sighed.  Nine in the morning and already it was a bad day.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

            Drusilla walked into the little theatre and let out a loud yell.  It wasn't a yell or frustration or anger or pain: it was just a yell, because Drusilla was quite crazy.

            From the wings of the little stage a man emerged, a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and soulful eyes.

            "Hey, honey," he said.  "You're home."

            Drusilla looked down at him and a smile broke out on her face.

            "I saw something shiny," she said, running down the aisle of seats and throwing herself at the tall man.  He caught her and swept her up onto the stage and kissed her cinematically.

            "You saw it?  The fifth one?"

            "Glowing and sparkling like the sun," Drusilla made motions with her hands.

            "Yes, but did you see it?"

            "So shiny..." Drusilla looked up at him.  "Angel," she said, passing her hands over his face.  "You glow.  You glow, too."

            "Yeah, I'm just a cigarette butt in the dark.  Dru, baby-"

            "But _he_ was there."  Her face darkened and she tore away from him, stomping across the stage.

            "He?  Who?"  Angel's face darkened.  "Spike?"

            "He was hiding her, he had her, I knew it," Drusilla whined.

            "Spike's protecting her?"  Angel did some creative swearing.  "That makes things harder."

            Drusilla was standing at the edge of the stage, her pale eyes sad, her face fragile.

            "All you care about is getting all five," she sulked.

            "Do you know how rich that will make us?"

            "That's all you care about, your gold.  That doesn't shine.  Money doesn't shine, it's dirty, I hate it, it makes you dirty..."

            Angel crossed the stage to her, his boots thudding on the boards.  "Dru," he put his arms around her.  "I'm doing this for you.  So I can buy you lots of pretty things."

            "You're a pretty thing," she said, tracing his face with a long, reverse manicured nail.

            "And so are you."  He grinned slowly.  "You glow."

            "You really think so?" Dru asked dreamily.

            "Mmm.  Now let's see if you glow all over..."

*

            Buffy stared at Giles.

            "But it can't be," she said sensibly.  "Where would Riley get something so valuable?"

            "Probably he stole it," Xander said, gesturing with a chocolate bar, now he and Anya had finished the crisps.  "I never liked the guy.  Too much muscle.  You can't like a guy with too much muscle."

            Anya took half the chocolate bar.  "You're just jealous 'cos you don't have any."

            "But, Giles," Buffy said, twisting her ring, "why would anyone want this?  It's just a present from a guy to a girl."

            "Buffy, try to think," Giles said seriously.  "Can you think that Riley might have had any dodgy dealings?  Any friends who seemed slightly shady to you?"

            Buffy thought back to the hulks that Riley had hung out with.

            "All of them," she said.

            "Well, was there anybody of especially bad reputation?"

            Buffy thought some more.

            "All of them," she repeated.

            Giles sighed.  "He was in with a bad crowd?  He always seemed so stable.  Such a-"

            "A nice young man.  Giles, you sound like my mom."

            "I thought he was nice," Anya piped up.  "Very burly."

            Buffy and Xander glared at her.

            "Well, he was.  Although his friends were sexist assholes.  Giles, do you got any popcorn?  This is entertaining."

            "No, and it's do you _have_, not do you _got_," Giles corrected irritably.  "And it's not supposed to be entertaining.  Buffy's life could be in danger.  The Angelus group is a very dangerous faction.  They've been known to kill people before, and in very unpleasant ways."

            "Is there a pleasant way to kill someone?" Xander asked.

            "Well, overdosing on sleeping pills wouldn't be too bad," Anya said.

            "Beheading's supposed to be quick," Buffy said helpfully.

            "Yeah, but did you know your brain keeps on working even after your head is cut off?" Xander said eagerly.  "There's blood everywhere, but your eyes are still moving and you could even speak, if you had the vocal chords."

            "Euw, gross," Anya bashed him.  "I'm going to die in bed with Xander.  Having sex with him.  When I'm very old."

            They all baulked at this.  Sometimes Anya's frankness did not lead to very pretty pictures.

            "Yes, well," Giles tried to reclaim the situation, "I have a feeling that the Angelus group are not planning on stuffing Buffy with sleeping pills or beheading her quickly.  Or anything else," he added sternly as Anya opened her mouth.  "Buffy, you need twenty-four hour protection.  I wanted you to leave California because I knew that the Angelus group operates out of there, but I didn't think... I'd forgotten about Drusilla..."

            "Yeah, and what's the deal with that?" Buffy asked.  "Is she insane?"

            "More or less," Giles said.  He polished his glasses and looked at her apologetically.  "Welcome to England."

*

            Tara made her way through the museum halls with her broom.  It wasn't, strictly speaking, her job, but Jenny who did the cleaning had to stay home with her son, who was ill, and Tara didn't want her to take any sick days.  So she'd trailed half of the huge empty halls with the broom, wondering where everyone was.  Didn't people go to museums any more?

            Concentrating on the floor, she frowned at a cigarette butt and chased after it with the broom, not looking where she was going and running straight into a pair of biker boots.

            "Oh!"  She looked up, her hand to her mouth.  "I'm s-sorry, I didn't s-see you there, I-"

            And then she looked up a little further.

            "Spike?"

            He scowled at her, taking out a fresh cigarette and lighting up.

            "You kn-now you can't s-smoke in here," she stammered, pointing to a smoke detector.

            "And that's gonna stop me, is it?"  He gestured to the butts she was sweeping up.  "Didn't detect any of them."

            Tara sighed and went after them with the broom.  Spike watched her, leaning against a glass cabinet filled with nineteenth century china.  It was an odd contrast: Spike with his ferocious edges, black leather and huge boots, and the delicate, floral china reflected in the thick glass.

            "I didn't think you were so interested in tea sets," Tara managed without stuttering.  Spike always made her nervous.

            "I drink tea," Spike defended.  "In polystyrene cups from dodgy guys at the station, but you know."

            "Not quite the same."

            "I wanted to see you," Spike said, and Tara dropped the broom.  Spike watched in amusement as she picked it up and dusted off the handle nervously.  Eventually she turned to face him.

            "M-me?"

            "Yes, y-you."

            "Don't tease me, Spike."

            He grinned.  "But you're all blushing.  It's very cute.  Do I make you nervous, pet?  I'd think you were in love with me but I know that's not the case."  He raised his eyebrows at her and Tara blushed further.

            "Why do you want to see me?"

            "You know Buffy."

            Tara frowned.  "Mr Giles's friend?  Not very well."

            "You were out boozing with her last night."

            "Well, we had a couple of drinks..."

            "Did she say anything?"

            Tara raised her eyebrows.

            "Well, she said lots of things," she began drily.

            "I mean, did she-"

            Tara stared.  Then she covered her mouth again.  Her eyes were dancing.

            "_What_?" Spike asked menacingly.

            "Did she say anything about _you_?" Tara giggled.

            "No, did she say anything about her ex.  And a ring he gave her," Spike waggled his finger at her, and then added, "And yeah, anything about me?"

            Tara leaned on her broom, still giggling.  "Are you jealous of Riley?"

            "No!  Guy's a poof."

            "Hey," Tara said severely, pointing her broom at him.

            "I - well, you know.  He's an idiot."

            "Have you ever even met him?"

            "No, but he sounds like an idiot."

            "He and Buffy were together for a whole year," Tara said.  "I think they had something pretty special there."

            "Still split up though, didn't they?  Anyway, listen kid, did she say anything about the ring?"

            Tara shrugged.  "I thought it was pretty, and she said her old boyfriend gave it to her for her birthday.  When she was twenty one."

            "Is that all she is?" Spike looked mildly appalled.  "Bloody hell."

            "That's all I am too," Tara said.

            "Yeah, but you're a student.  And you're - shut up," Spike said, annoyed.  "Did she say anything else?"

            "About Riley, the ring, or how hot she finds you?" Tara teased.

            He glared at her.  "This is purely professional," he said.

            "Of course," Tara replied solemnly.

            "I've been hired to look after her."

            "Of course you have."

            "I bloody have!"

            "And you took the job for how much?  Twenty p?"

            He jabbed his cigarette in her direction.  "You shut up.  I'm doing what I'm paid for."

            "Who's paying you?"

            "Can't tell you that."

            "Right."  Tara idly chased a sweet wrapper with her broom.  "Spike?"

            "What?"

            "If you're supposed to be protecting her, then where is she?"

            His face changed.

            "Oh, bloody hell," he snapped, and stormed out, Tara grinning behind him.

*

            Buffy lay in bed, hot despite the chilly night, her skin prickling where Spike had touched her.  She could still feel his warm fingers on her foot, she didn't want to take off the dressing he'd put there.  His hands had caressed her arms, her shoulders, his lips had been hot and his tongue insistent...

            Buffy swallowed.  If he came to her now what would she do?  Let him in?  Let him see her in her pyjamas - no, they were too childish.  She'd unfasten a few buttons and let the top slide down over her shoulder, maybe exposing some of her breast.  Let him take her in his arms and kiss her again, until she was dizzy and could no longer stand and he picked her up and laid her down on the bed, his hand slipping down over her bare shoulder to caress her breast, her aching, sensitive nipple.  And she'd kiss him hard, letting her leg slip around his waist so she could feel him against her, hard and excited.

            He'd kiss her neck, nipping the soft skin with his teeth.  He wouldn't be gentle, no, that wasn't his style.  He'd pull the buttons off her pyjama top and nuzzle at her breasts, taking one hard nipple between his lips and sucking, licking, bruising it with his teeth, while Buffy's fingers tangled in his hair and she slid her free arm under his coat to feel the hot, hard muscles under his T-shirt.

            The coat would fall away and Spike would be naked from the waist up, and that hard body she'd felt when he kissed her would be bared in all its glory for her to touch and kiss.  She'd lick his chest, feel the contours of his washboard stomach with her tongue, look up and see his face sharpen with pleasure.  He'd push her back down and wrestle off her pyjama bottoms, taking her knickers with them, and she'd lie there naked while his fingers caressed her thighs - no, he was going to be brutal, no caressing - he'd dig his long, strong fingers into her soft flesh, and Buffy would moan, lifting her hips, wanting him.

            And then, his eyes on hers, watching for her reaction, he'd slide his fingers between her legs and find her wet and slippery for him, stroke her while she writhed under him, slip his finger inside her as she moaned, "Spike, I want you inside me..."

            Buffy snapped her eyes open.  She was having erotic fantasies about a man called _Spike_?  She shook herself.  This was not good.  A man like him was not going to hold her afterwards and cherish her.  He'd pull up his jeans, toss a 'Thanks, love,' over his shoulder, and be gone.

            Buffy turned on her side, ignoring the ache in her nipples and the dampness between her legs.  She'd go to sleep and dream of puppies and rainbows and chocolate and non-sexual things.

            He dreams were full of Spike, naked and big and skilled, and she woke up in the morning panting.

*

            "So then, Buffster," Xander said as he poured milk on his cereal, "what do you want to do today?"

            Find Spike, Buffy thought, but she shrugged and picked up a croissant.  "I don't know.  Giles, can we go on that big wheel thingy?"

            "The London Eye?  Yes, I should think so.  I won't be able to come with you, though, I do have a lot of work to do."

            The phone rang and he went out into the hall to answer it.

            "Aren't you scared?" Anya asked Buffy.  "About that ring you have.  Someone bad is coming after you."

            "Thank you, Anya, I really needed to hear that first thing."  Buffy started pulling bits off her croissant.  "I dunno.  It doesn't really seem real.  It's not like he's out there, beating at the door-"

            Right then, someone started knocking on the door, and Buffy's head whipped round.

            "Okay, _that_ is not funny," she said, getting up and going past Giles to the front door.  She opened it without thinking of the chain lock, and stared at the visitor.

            "Spike?"

            He grinned.  "Nice jammies, love."

            Buffy looked down and realised she was still in her Yummi Sushi pyjamas.  Images of the last time she'd stood in this doorway with Spike flashed back through her mind, and she gulped.

            "What are you doing here?" she asked, trying not to turn red.  She felt for the buttons on her pyjama top: she didn't care if Xander or Anya saw more than they should, but somehow with Spike...

            Actually, with Spike, she _wanted_ him to see a little more...

            Stop, Buffy, she scolded herself, walking back into the kitchen, Spike behind her.  Bad Buffy.  Down girl.

            "Hey, mystery man," Xander looked up.  "You vanished yesterday."

            "Had things to do," Spike said enigmatically.

            Buffy folded herself back onto her chair and picked up her mangled croissant.  "But you're back now?"

            "I am.  I think you've slain that croissant, love."

            Buffy ignored that.  "How come you're back?"

            But before Spike could answer - or more likely, Buffy thought, fail to answer - Giles came back in.  He looked pale.

            "Giles?  What's wrong?"

            He shook himself.  "That was Willow.  There was a break-in," he said.  "Last night.  At the museum."

            "Was anything taken?" Anya asked.

            Giles took off his glasses.  "No.  But the vaults were ransacked."

            "You have vaults?" Buffy said.  "Cool."

            Giles gave her one of the looks only Giles could pull off: half severe, half despairing.

            "Anyone see anything?" Spike asked, and Giles looked up, surprised to see him.  How could he be surprised, Buffy thought, it was impossible to not know exactly where Spike was.  Or was that just her?

            "Well, we don't know," Giles said.  "There was one witness, we think..."

            "You think?"

            "Yes, well, she's not exactly in a position to tell anyone what she saw."

            An awful, icy suspicion clawed its way up Buffy's spine.

            "Who was it?" she asked, dreading the answer.  Her eyes met Spike's and she knew he was thinking the same thing.

                "It was Tara," Giles said, and Buffy suddenly felt dizzy.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

            The hospital was noisy and busy, and they weren't allowed in to see Tara.  She was in her own room in ICU - "Only bloody way to get any privacy in the NHS," Spike grumbled - and only close family was allowed in.  But Tara's family lived far away and Willow didn't have a phone number for them so she was sitting alone by her girlfriend's bed, trying hard not to cry.

            Outside, Buffy, Anya and Xander sat on hard plastic chairs, looking at peeling, faded posters advertising hepatitis jabs.

            "Man, this place is depressing," Xander said.

            "Do you think she'll die?" Anya asked.

            "No, of course not," Buffy said quickly.  "They said it was just head trauma..."

            "Hate to break it to ya, Buff, but head trauma doesn't go very easily with the word 'just'," Xander said.

            Buffy sat back in her chair.  "I hate this," she said.  "I liked Tara, she was nice.  A little quiet, but she was nice.  It's not fair she should get clubbed over the head with an Inca spear."

            "At least she wasn't stabbed with it," Anya said helpfully.  "Those things can go right through you."

            They both looked at her.

            "I saw it on the Discovery Channel."

            "You two need to get out more," Buffy said, as Giles and Spike rounded the corner.  She had yet to figure out what the connection between them was: how on earth had a curator and a - a - a whatever-the-hell-Spike-was got together?  He wore biker boots, for God's sake.

            "Summers," he said.  "You're with me."

            "Will you stop calling me Summers?  I have a first name."

            "Buffy?  What sort of a name is Buffy?"

            "The name my mother gave me.  _Spike_."

            "That's a street name and I earned it.  Now come on."  He took her arms and Buffy pulled it back.

            "What?  No.  Where?"

            Spike rolled his eyes.  "Away from here.  I'll explain on the way."

            "Giles," Buffy said helplessly, but he waved her away.

            "You'll be safe with him, Buffy."

            "I thought you said he was a reprobate!"

            "Well, yes, he is," Giles started cleaning his glasses, "but he'll look after you."

            Buffy looked up at Spike.  He grinned.

            "Okay," she sighed.  "Where are we going?"

            "Away," he said, and led her from the ward.

            "So remind me again," Xander said, "who the hell is that guy?"

            "He's a - well, it doesn't matter," Giles popped his glasses back on.  "I really think it might be best if you two don't get involved in this."

            Anya looked affronted.  "Why not?"

            "Involved in what?"

            "The Angelus group is very dangerous and they clearly want something that Buffy has.  We think," he lowered his voice, "we think they're behind the break-in last night.  Their treatment of Tara shows how brutal they can be to bystanders.  Poor Tara was just staying late, doing some paperwork for me."  He sighed.  "My point is, I don't want you two to get caught up in this.  I really think you should move on."

            "Back to America?"

            "Well, maybe not.  Just away from Buffy.  Until we have a handle on this.  I never suspected... Well.  You should pack your things.  You can get to almost anywhere from London."

*

            Buffy found herself being dragged along the pavement by Spike, who kept pushing her into the edge.

            "What the - hey, will you _let go_?"

            "Nope."

            "I could Mace you."

            "Be amazed if you got that through customs."

            Buffy wrinkled her nose.  "I'm not going to run away."

            "No but someone might try and nick you."

            "Nick me?  What's that supposed to mean?"

            Spike grinned.  "Steal you.  You know, to nick, nicking... It's a word."

            "Maybe, but that's not what it means where I come from."

            He tugged her along a bit further, then down into the deep pit of a Tube station.  Some of the lines were very deep under the ground and they had to travel down several steep escalators that made Buffy dizzy.

            "You have to tell me where we're going."

            "Back to Giles's."

            "Why?"

            "To get your stuff."

            "Why?"

            "You do like to ask questions.  Okay, Summers, we're going on the run."

            "What's that going to solve?"

            Spike looked surprised.

            "See, I can be practical," Buffy tossed her hair haughtily.

            "No doubt, love.  But so can I.  Best if the Angelus doesn't catch you.  We can hide out somewhere outside of London.  Giles has... associates who can deal with things in London."

            "What kind of-" Buffy began, but then the train lurched to a stop and Spike led her out onto the crowded platform.  They were back at Kings Cross, and it took only a few minutes to get to Giles's house.  Spike had a key - at least, he had something that opened the door, and he gave her a little shove towards the stairs.

            "Go and pack," he said.  "And be quick."

            Grumbling, Buffy went up the stairs and started throwing things into her suitcase.  This was ridiculous.  All she needed to do was get hold of someone from this Angelus group and show them her ring and they'd see it was nothing to do with them.  Just a silly trinket Riley had given her.

            The phone rang and a minute later Spike called up the stairs, "Summers?  Phone for you."

            Buffy frowned.  She went to the top of the stairs, spied an extension in Giles's room, and picked it up.  "Got it," she called down.

            "Buffy?" squeaked a familiar voice.  "Who was that?  He sounded really cute."

            Buffy smiled to hear her sister.  "Hey, Dawnie.  He's just a friend of Giles's.  What's up?"

            "Mom just bought this really ugly couch.  I'm not kidding.  It's brown and it has these studs... Ugh, it's like a Rottweiler collar."

            "You called to tell me about a couch?"

            "Well, no I called because Mom told me to.  She wants to know how you are."

            Buffy was hit with a sudden wave of homesickness.  "I'm okay.  Is she there?"

            "At the gallery.  Hey, Buffy, it's not too early there, is it?"

            "It's four in the afternoon.  What time is it where you are?"

            "Eight am.  I'm waiting for the school bus - wait, it's here!  Gotta run, Buff-"

            And the phone went dead.

            "That makes two of us," Buffy said, standing up and nearly walking into Spike.  "It's rude to eavesdrop."

            "You were talking kind of loud.  Who's Donnie?"

            Buffy frowned as she went back to her suitcase.  "I don't know a Donnie."

            "So you were talking to a complete stranger on the phone, then?"

            "What are you talking about?"

            "Who were you talking to?"

            He looked annoyed, and Buffy suddenly realised what he meant.  To an Englishman, Dawnie would sound like Donnie.  A guy's name.  But then, he'd heard Dawn's voice when she called up...

            "Her name's Dommie," she said wickedly.  "Short for Dominique.  She's French."

            "Friend of yours?"

            "She's my girlfriend," Buffy said solemnly, and Spike stared.  Buffy picked up a pair of lacy knickers and folded them ostentatiously.

            "Your girlfriend?"

            "Yeah.  We haven't been together long.  I haven't told Giles about her yet, so shh," she put her finger to her lips, laughing hard inside.

            "But - your ring, that's from an ex-boyfriend..."

            "Can't a girl change her mind?"

            Spike stood there, hands on hips, looking shell-shocked.  "You're _gay_?"

            "Well, that's what girls usually are when they have girlfriends," Buffy said, thinking, I'll go to hell for this.

            Spike was still a while longer, then he said, "_Jesus_," and walked out.

            Buffy fell on her bed, laughing.

            "Really?" Spike said, coming back in, and Buffy covered her eyes and pretended to cry.

            "Really," she said, sniffing, "and I'm kinda missing her now, so if you don't mind..."

            Spike retreated, and Buffy packed in guilty, half-laughing silence.

*

            Willow stood looking at the bloodstain on the floor and sniffed loudly.  "Giles, she's really hurt."

            Giles looked awkward.  He just wasn't given to physical displays of affection, but he managed a clumsy hug.  Willow clung to him.

            "I mean, what if she doesn't wake up?  Anya said the longer she's asleep the worse it is..."

            "Anya has too much free time and needs to watch less television," Giles said firmly, releasing her.  "We need to find out if there's anything missing here."

            "It's not exactly easy to figure out what's not here," Willow grumbled half an hour later.  "And it's all so messy."

            "Yes, thieves are not as considerate as they used to be," Giles remarked, piling papers on top of each other.  "Just... Just try and work out if there are any gaps.  I know you've catalogued a lot of the things down here."

            Willow nodded and went back to picking up small artefacts and looking for the boxes they belonged in.  It wasn't easy: she doubted if a lot of people could tell the difference between a four thousand year old Assyrian left shin bone and a right one.  She was afraid she was putting half of the things back in the wrong boxes.

            "Oh, good Lord," Giles said suddenly, and Willow made a face.

            "I know.  Why are we even keeping Assyrian shin bones anyway?"

            Giles didn't answer, and when Willow looked up at him he was staring at a piece of paper, looking white.

            "What?"

            He turned the paper to her, and on it was written in something red and splodgy that Willow realised was blood, '_We Will Find Her_.'

            "Oh God," Willow said.

            "My sentiments exactly."

*

            Buffy found the English motorways frightening.  Spike was throwing the car forward at about eight miles an hour, and grumbling because he was stuck in the middle lane.  Buffy wasn't sure why he didn't just go into the left lane and get past the cars there, but he would only overtake on the right.

            The right-hand lane, however, was hurtling along so fast it hurt Buffy's eyes to watch it.  If she thought Spike was going fast, it was nothing compared to the Schumachers on the right.

            "Does everyone in England drive like a maniac?"

            Spike grinned.  "As opposed to America, where you're all so civilised you undertake whenever you want."

            "Undertake?"

            "Going into the slow lane... We have a system where the further to the right you are, the faster you are," he explained.  "Crawlers stay on the left.  Old grannies and big lorries.  Easier to get on and off."

            He flicked an indicator and slipped into the fast lane, accelerating to ninety-five.  The car was old and manky, but it flew under Spike's foot.

            Buffy closed her eyes and tried to remember a prayer or two.

            "Where are we going?"

            "Somewhere big and empty.  A bit like your friend Xander's head."

            "Hey, don't make fun of my friends."

            "Or what?"

            "Or - well, I'd make fun of yours but you don't appear to have any."

            Spike scowled at me.  "It's lonely at the top, love."

            "Top of what?  Britain's Most Wanted list?"

            "Yeah, everyone wants me."  He paused, glancing back at her.  "Well, nearly everyone.  Listen, Buffy, if you're... Then why did you-"

            "Hey, look, my Mom has that car."

            "That's nice.  Buffy-"

            "Except hers is a sort of gold colour.  Mmm.  Maybe it's more platinum."

            "Buffy-"

            How thick was he?  "I really don't want to talk about it, Spike, if that's okay?"

            He glared at the road.  "That's _fine_."

            It seemed like hours and hours in the silent car (the radio didn't work), but finally he pulled off the dark motorway and onto a smaller road.  Then off that road onto a lane.  Then off the lane onto a rutted farm track.  The old car bounced over the mud and Buffy felt he spine jar.

            "Is it much further?"

            Spike nodded at something illuminated in a flash of the headlights.  "Right there."

            Buffy looked with dismay at a crumbling cottage.  There was a dead vine hanging off the front, and the shutters were broken.  Maybe it would look better by daylight.

            They got out of the car, and Buffy stretched gratefully.  Spike got her suitcase out and she pulled it after her without waiting for him to take it.  He looked surprised at first, then his expression settled.

            "Where are we?"

            "North Yorkshire.  Whole lot of nothing out here."

            Buffy peered through the darkness at the moor rolling around the cottage.  "Yeah, I see that."

            Despite the ramshackle look of the cottage, the door was heavily locked, and it took Spike quite a while to open up.  He walked in, flicked a switch, and a bare bulb glared at Buffy, assaulting her tired eyes.  When she could see again, she made out a table against the wall with a little camping stove on it, and a kettle, and stacks of tinned food.  There were a couple of chairs at the table, then some crates and boxes, a dirty fireplace, and that was it.

            "You have got to be kidding."

            Spike looked round at her.  "You'd prefer o stay in London so the Angelus group can cut your finger off for your ring?  'Cos they will."

            "They could just take it off-"

            "They won't," Spike said grimly.  "Believe me."

            Buffy sat down on her case.  "So how long do we have to stay here for?"

            "Oh, a while."

            "How long is that?"

            Spike shrugged.  "Until we have to move again."

            "Oh, gee, you're helpful."

            "All part of my job."

            Buffy looked around dispiritedly.  There was just this one room, quite large, but also pretty damn cold.  She had a feeling she'd want to cuddle up to Spike for warmth, and that couldn't end well.  Good job he thought she was gay.

            She stood up.  "So where's the bathroom around here?  Or do I need to find a bush?"

            "There's an outhouse," Spike said.  "By the barn."

            "This place has a barn, but it has no bathroom?  The English are insane."

            "As we're often told.  Here."  Spike chucked a toilet roll at her, and Buffy went out, blushing.

            It was very cold outside, and windy too, and Buffy had to keep pushing her hair out of her eyes as she stumbled across the rough earth to the hulking barn.  It looked pretty desolate, a crumbling stone structure, and she went all the way around twice before she found the little hut tacked on the side, like something out of Shrek.

            Inside was even worse, and Buffy did what she had to before rushing away from all the lacy cobwebs and scuttling nasties in the dark.  No light out here.  She made a mental note to drink nothing.

            Coming back out, Buffy picked her way across the dark ground by the barn, aiming for the little patch of light coming from the small back window of the cottage.  God, this place was primitive.  And there could be anything in these shadows-

            Quite suddenly, an anything grabbed her and shoved her inside the barn, hard against the wall.  Buffy was winded, unable to see or breathe.  She knew the Angelus had got her.  Bye bye fingers.

            "Who are you?  Where the hell is Buffy?" demanded a familiar voice, and Buffy dragged in a breath, his fingers tight at her throat.

            "I'm right here," she croaked, "Spike, you're choking me-"

            Instantly he moved his hand, and Buffy sucked in as much air as her lungs would hold.

            "Jesus, Buffy, you scared me.  You didn't come back and I thought," he kissed her forehead desperately, "I thought-"

            "I'm okay," she reassured, stroking his hair, which shone pale in the moonlight coming in through the big, open barn door.  Spike kissed her face, her neck, as if he was checking she was really there.

            "God, Buffy-"

            He moved his lips to her mouth, and it wasn't a gentle kiss.  It was angry, and hurt, and relieved, and a whole lot of other things that Buffy had no time to think about as his hands slid around her body, and his hard muscles pinned her against the stone wall.  She buried her fingers in his hair and held him to her.  He felt good, really good.

            His hands were all over her, pulling her jacket open so fast buttons popped all over the floor, unnoticed by either of them.  Buffy reached inside his leather coat and felt his hard, hot body under his T-shirt, and then his hands were under her clothes, feeling for her bra under her sweater, lifting her legs around his waist.

            Buffy needed no encouragement.  Wrapping herself around him, she reached down to his jeans and unsnapped the button at the top.  She hardly had to move the zipper.  Spike was big and hard enough to be doing that for her.

            He moaned against her mouth as she wrapped her hand around him, and he bit her lip, hard, 'til blood nearly came.  She didn't really notice his hands under her skirt until his fingers were inside her knickers, and then it wasn't just his fingers, he was inside her, and Buffy was so shocked she snapped her head back against the wall, staring at him.

            Spike looked shocked too.  And then Buffy rearranged her legs around him, and his face sharpened with pleasure, became almost ugly, before he brought his head down and nipped at her neck with his teeth.

            He was as brutal as she'd fantasised, Buffy knew later she should be ashamed for wanting to be ravished but to be fair, she was doing a bit of ravishing herself.  Spike was holding her up against the wall, but Buffy's hands were everywhere under his clothes, kneading and gripping, and it got faster and harder, 'til they were both gasping and crying out, neither making a coherent word, until Buffy came with a scream, "God, _Spike_..."

            He came too, losing his balance, both of them toppling to the ground, breathless and mindless, a tangle of legs and leather, neither able to move for the effort of getting oxygen, both wondering how the hell that had just happened.

            "Jesus," Spike gasped eventually, reaching for Buffy who was fighting for breath beside him.  He rolled onto his back and pulled her against him.  "What's your girlfriend gonna say to that?"

            Buffy started laughing.  Her body shook and she gasped for breath, tears running down her face.

            "That's funny?" Spike asked uncertainly, trying to figure out if she'd really shut his brain down, or if she was insane.

            Possibly it was a combination of both.

            "I don't have a girlfriend," Buffy hiccupped.

            "You don't?"

            "No.  I just said that to... to... to put you off."

            "Obviously you were successful," Spike said drily.  "So... you're not gay?"

            "I think we just proved that."

            "Well, you never know.  When Red came to England she had a boyfriend back home to write to."

            "Red?"

            "Willow."  Spike curled his arm around her shoulders, and Buffy snuggled against him.  "Well, there go my lesbian fantasies.  Guess it'll have to be Red and stutter-girl."

            "It's not fair to make fun of someone who's in a coma," Buffy said, but she didn't sound very convincing.  She yawned loudly.

            "Worn you out, love?"

            "Hey, I've had a hard day."

            "And you can have a hard night too, if you want."

            Buffy rolled her eyes.  Then she looked up at him, and the amusement faded from her face.

            "What?" Spike asked softly.

            "We just had sex."

            "Yep."  He stretched in a self-satisfied way.

            "I hardly know you."

            "You know me a lot better than most of the girls I have sex with."

            "Okay, I did not need to hear that," Buffy sat up, wriggling a little bit because her body felt so good.  "I think we should go back inside."

                "Fine by me."  Spike rearranged his clothing and pulled Buffy towards him for a long kiss, much softer than before.  "I've got plans for you."


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

            He met Giles at the museum, and it took ten minutes to get the information he needed and get to the hospital.  Anyone who knew the London transport system would have been amazed.

            "Tara McClay?"

            "The Benson Ward, sir, down here and to the left.  But I'm afraid you won't be able to-" the nurse looked at the ID in front of her.  "Oh.  Of course.  If you'll follow me."

            He found Tara barely conscious, her hand held by a pink-eyed redhead wearing a fluffy jumper.

            "Giles?" she said when she looked up, and then she took him in.  "Hey, I'm not sure you're..."

            He ID'd her, and Willow fell silent.

            "Is she awake?"

            Willow shook her head.  "She's - well, she's asleep, she woke up an hour ago but - what are you doing here?  Why is this-?"

            "I can't explain now."  He shook Tara by the shoulder.  "Ms McClay?  I need you to wake up."

            "But you can't-" Willow began, and he silenced her with a look.

            "Ms McClay?"

            An awful silent second, then Tara's eyes flickered.

            "Who was the last person you saw before you woke up?"

            Tara's head moved and she mumbled something incoherent.  He sighed impatiently.

            "Tara.  The last person you saw?"

            "I really don't think-" Willow began, about to push the button that would call the nurse.  But then Tara's lips moved, a tiny sound escaped.

            "What?  What was that, baby?"

            Tara's eyes moved again, with effort.  "Spike," she whispered.  "I saw... Spike."

*

            Buffy didn't sleep much that night.  Spike seemed endlessly fascinated with her, waking her when she got drowsy, promising impossible things to keep her awake, and then actually fulfilling those dreadful, embarrassing, kinky, erotic promises.  Buffy wasn't exactly innocent, but she had no idea there was so much to sex.  Spike seemed to want to see and touch and taste every little bit of her, some bits more than others, and he positively encouraged her to return the favour.

            Over and over he roused her in some ludicrous way: nibbling at her collarbone; licking her breasts; slipping his fingers between her legs and watching her orgasm before she was even fully awake.  For Buffy the night seemed to last forever, a twilight of impossible pleasure, but when Spike finally let her sleep, curled against his exhausted body, it was over far too soon.

            He had an incredible body, she thought drowsily as she drifted away, Spike's fingers sleepily stroking her shoulder.  Like a big cat, all lean muscle.  Not bulky, like Riley had been.  Not built up.  Every sinew here had a purpose, every muscle was used only when it was needed.

            Although Buffy figured she'd woken up a few muscles tonight.

            It was nearly dawn when her eyes finally properly closed, and not long after when she woke to lazy fingers counting up her ribs.

            "Don't you sleep?" she murmured, too exhausted to move.

            "Only when I don't have anything better to do."

            "And now you do?"

            "Yeah."  He licked her nipple.  "You."

            Buffy smiled, opening her eyes.  "So now I'm something to do?"

            "Mmm."  He moved his attention to her collarbone and Buffy felt her tired body arching under his tongue.  "Best hobby I've had in years."

            "Since when?"

            "Well, I seem to remember I had a big thing about hog racing a few years back."

            "Bikes?  Bike racing is better than me?"

            He ran his tongue over her lips, her sore, bitten, bruised lips, and gently brushed them with his teeth.  Buffy slid her nails down his back and flexed her fingers against his lovely tight buttocks.

            "Bikes never answered back," Spike said, and captured her mouth with his own.

            "I don't-" Buffy took his tongue between her teeth "answer back."

            "Bollocks," Spike said.

            "Well, if you insist..."  Buffy let her hands travel round over his hips, and she watched him suck in his breath.

            "Jesus, Buffy, don't-"

            "You don't like it?" she asked innocently.

            "You," he grabbed her hands and lifted them above her head, pressing them down against the blanket they were lying on, "are a bloody menace."

            Buffy pouted.

            "Did I mention how much I like dangerous women?"

            She wriggled her body against his and sank her teeth into his bony cheek.  Spike moaned-

            And then he gasped, and slumped against her, and Buffy was embarrassed for a split second, until she realised that someone had kicked the door open and had a gun pointing at them, and it occurred to her that half a second before Spike had gone dead and heavy against her, there had been a sharp punch in the air, like a gun being fired through a silencer...

            "Get the _fuck_ away from her," said the person with the gun, and Buffy froze, because although she couldn't see his face, she didn't need to.

            "_Riley_?"

*

            Anya sat back in her seat and sighed.

            "Xander, I'm _bored_."

            He gave a strained smile.  "Everyone's bored, honey.  Hearing about how bored you are isn't helping."

            "But they're not doing anything!  Just standing there, talking."

            "Three's nothing for them to do, sweetie.  There is no plane.  They can't board the plane until the plane arrives.  And the plane is stuck in France."

            Anya sighed again.  "Lousy French."

            "Hey, if it wasn't for the French we'd have no champagne."

            "Like we're going to get any on this stupid flight.  Damn low cost airline."

            "It's all we can afford, honey."

            "Then you should earn more."  Anya frowned.  "Why don't you have more money?"

            Xander gave her a very tired smile and was about to explain that he'd spent all his money on this trip in the first place, when a shadow fell over them.

            "Xander and Anya Harris?"

            Anya looked up hopefully.  "Yes?  That's us.  Are we getting money for our flight being late?"

            He hesitated.  "You'll be getting something."

            "Will it be money?" Anya persisted, and Xander pushed her back in her seat.  He looked over the man in front of him: tall, imposing, dark hair and eyes, a sort of hunted expression on his face.

            "If you'll come with me..."

            Anya leapt up, dragging Xander with her, and pulled him after the man in the black shirt.

            "Sweetie, I'm not sure-"

            "He's going to give us money," Anya said earnestly, as they followed him into the secluded bay of a jetbridge.  "You're giving us money, right?"

            "You'll get what you deserve," said the man, and Xander felt a chill run down his spine.  He pulled Anya a little closer, protectively behind him.

            "Did you say you were from the airline?" he asked uncertainly, but he never got an answer, for the man hit him in the eye and for Xander, everything went black.

*

            "But, Riley," Buffy said, when her powers of coherent speech had returned, "what are you doing here?"

            "Protecting you," he said, kicking Spike aside and hauling Buffy to her feet.  He noticed with apparent distaste that she was naked and hurriedly pulled up the thick blanket to cover her.

            "But - from what?" Buffy said, and Riley aimed another steel-capped kick at Spike's ribs.  Buffy looked down and saw that the man who'd been making love to her all night was slumped inelegantly on the rough floor of the cottage, his body rapidly turning purple where Riley had kicked him, an awful spreading red patch on his back.

            "You shot him," she whispered.

            "You're welcome."

            "But - but-"

            "I saw what he was doing to you, Buffy," Riley said, slipping an arm about her shoulders and pulling her close.  "My God - if he - if he _violated_ you-"

            Buffy stared at him in incomprehension.

            "Did he," Riley began, and it seemed hard for him to say.  "Did he rape you?"

            This concept was so ridiculous Buffy found herself laughing long and hard, holding onto Riley because nothing in her life had ever been so damn funny.  Vaguely, she was aware of other people coming into the small, low, dark room, and over her head Riley said, "She's in shock.  Hand me her clothes?  I'm taking her out to the car."

            "But," Buffy pulled on his arm as he tugged her away, "but, Spike, I-"

            "We'll take care of him," Riley said, closing his arm firmly around her and pulling her outside into the early morning dew.

            The air was very fresh and clean, Buffy noticed.  Later, it seemed that the air was all she could remember, that and wondering if, in Southern California, the air was this pure so early in the morning.  Maybe it was just in England.  Where had Spike said they were?  North Yorkshire?

            "They have good air here," she told Riley, who set her in the back seat of a car and pressed her clothes on her.

            "Get dressed.  I'll be back in a minute."

            Buffy pulled her clothes on, her body sore and aching, partly from the rough floor but mostly from Spike's brutal exploration of her.

            Had he raped her?  He'd certainly taken charge... and that time in the barn, she couldn't have stopped him... he'd raised her hands above her head and she'd been helpless... the first time she actually saw him naked she'd edged away because he was so big, he'd hurt her, he'd break her, surely he hadn't been that big when he... but Spike had laughed and said he was flattered, she wasn't getting off that easily...

            Riley came back out to the car and tapped on the window without looking in.  Ever the gentleman.

            "Are you dressed?"

            As if Riley had never seen her naked before.

            Buffy pushed the door open.  "I'm dressed," she said.  "I had a, a suitcase..."

            "It's in the trunk.  Are you ready to go?"

            Buffy looked at the little dark cottage, where she could just see Riley's friends moving around inside, and she nodded.

            "Take me far away," she said.

*

            For the first time since she'd known him, Giles looked shocked.  And Willow wasn't surprised: he'd entrusted Buffy to someone bad, someone very bad, someone who'd almost killed Tara...

            As it was, without immediate medical attention, Tara could have easily died.  She was damn lucky the cleaners had come in early and found her.  But Buffy... Buffy might not be so lucky.

            "She could be okay," Willow said bravely.  "Buffy seemed like a pretty smart girl, she's probably figured it out.  She could have escaped by now.  She could be in London, still."

            "Or Spike could have delivered her straight to the Angelus.  I knew he had ties to them, but I thought... I really thought..."

            "Or," Willow said as brightly as she could, "maybe Riley found her.  He seemed pretty determined."

            "He always was, when it came to Buffy," Giles said distantly.

            "Were they together long?"

            "A year, I think.  Yes, a year: he gave her the ring for their anniversary.  They broke up shortly after.  He was sent out to South America..."

            "Do you think he knew?" Willow asked.  "About the ring?"

            Giles lifted his shoulders and let them drop again.  "I didn't think he knew anything."

*

            Anya sat huddled in the corner of the cargo hold, her lip bleeding where Angel had hit her.  Xander lay unconscious five yards away.  She'd tried going to him but Angel had a gun and he didn't like her moving too much.

            "He needs help," she said.  "If you let him - if you let him die..."

            Angel shrugged.  "Do I look like I care?"

            "If you let him die I'll be widow," Anya sobbed quietly.  "I'm twenty-one and I'll be a widow.  I'll never have sex again."

            "Wouldn't count on that," Angel said, his eyes flicking over her body.

            "He won't be able to tell you anything," Anya said, her voice a little stronger.  "Let me help him, then he can talk to you."

            "Who says it's him I want to listen to?" Angel said, and Anya felt her whole body start to shake horribly.

*

            Buffy was aware she was in shock.  A little bit at the back of her brain kept asking, How did Riley know where you were?  But the rest of her thought, I've been raped, he kidnapped me, I'm so glad Riley rescued me, oh God, I can't believe he's back, Riley, my Riley...

            She reached out and grabbed his strong arm, clinging to him.  Riley stroked her hair and told her she'd be okay now, they were going far away.  Buffy wasn't sure where - she'd not been concentrating at the airport - but she knew that as long as she was with Riley, she'd be okay.

            Later, through passport control, after Riley had taken control at customs, he got a taxi to take them to a hotel.  Buffy looked around at street signs in a foreign alphabet, and managed to get her brain together enough to ask, "Where are we?"

            "Prague."

            Right now Buffy couldn't even remember which country that was.  "Why are we in Prague?"

            "Because it's far away and you don't need a visa."

            "Oh."

            He got them a room at an ornate hotel where everything was beautiful.  There was a pair of beds in the room and a large bathroom with an enormous white tub.  He filled it with hot water and added the bath foam the hotel had provided and told Buffy to get in.

            "I don't want a bath," she said.

            "You have mud on your back.  Buffy, it'll relax you.  Wash your hair, get clean.  Do you have pyjamas in your suitcase?"

            She nodded numbly and watched Riley try to find them, frustrated when he didn't know where they were, but not quite sure herself if she'd even put them in.

            "I might have left them at Giles's," she said in a little voice, some time later.

            Riley gave her a patient look and picked up the phone to Reception.  "Get in the bath," he told Buffy, "I'll get it sorted out."

            Buffy looked at the hot water with renewed interest.  How long had it been since she'd washed her hair?  Before... Before Spike, before the car journey, packing her things up, the hospital - God, was Tara okay?

            "Riley!" she yelled.

            "What?  Are you okay?"

            "What about Tara?"

            "Who?"

            She opened the door, and Riley blinked.  Buffy realised she was naked, and closed the door so only her head was peeping out.  "Tara," she repeated.  "She hadn't woken up."

            Riley frowned.  "She was the museum girl?  She's woken up.  She's fine."

            Buffy nodded, and her head wouldn't stop moving, like a nodding dog in a car.

            "Buffy?  You want to get in the bath?  The hotel have sent up a robe..." He passed it to her, soft and clean and white, and Buffy took it and closed the door.  She looked at the hot water again, feeling like Eliza Doolittle looking at the steaming tub, and dipped a foot in.  That didn't seem to be too bad, she wasn't dissolving or anything, so she followed it with the rest of her leg.  Okay.  Still good.

            It was when her back hit the water, her back which was more sore and bruised than she'd realised, that Buffy gasped and arched in pain.  The water stung more than it soothed, and she found herself huddling in a ball at one end of the bath, hugging her knees and crying.

            Eventually she must have fallen asleep, because she was woken by Riley shaking her shoulder.  She must have forgotten to lock the door.  He put a towel in her hands and left.

            Buffy washed her hair and lathered herself with body lotion.  Her face in the mirror looked reasonably normal: Spike hadn't hit her or anything, although her lip looked rather bitten.  There were bite marks on her neck and shoulders, her breasts and thighs, and she was bruised all over from his hard fingers and the rough walls and floor of the cottage.

            She wrapped herself in the hotel robe, feeling cleansed, and went out into the bedroom.  Riley was sitting there, looking faintly exhausted but solid and dependable, the Riley she'd fallen for a year and a half ago.

            "Hey," she said quietly, closing the bathroom door behind her.

            "Hey.  Feeling better?"

            Buffy nodded.

            "I saw - I was trying not to look - but you had bruises, a graze on your back..."

            Buffy nodded again, her eyes prickling.  "I'm okay."

            "If you want to talk-"

            Buffy closed her eyes, but immediately a zoetrope of images flashed across her mind: Spike's hands on her body, his lips on her skin, his face when he came, the hot, throbbing ache of the night filling her body.  She swayed and Riley caught her, sat her down beside him on the bed, and held her as she cried against his hard chest, cried because Spike was gone, because she'd been stupid and trusted him, because he'd raped her and she'd loved it.

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Author's note: Please don't kill me!  Repeat calmly, 'It will all be okay,' and wait for the next chapter…

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	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

            Tara awoke to see Willow crying softly.

            "Sweetie, what's wrong?"

            Willow looked up excitedly.  "You're awake!  I mean, properly awake.  How do you feel?"

            Tara thought about it.  "Okay," she said cautiously.  "To say I'm in a hospital bed with no recollection of how I got here."

            "You were attacked, baby.  At the museum.  They left a note and they hit you over the head.  You'll be okay," Willow reassured her girlfriend, holding her hand tightly.  "They said you'll be fine."

            Tara nodded, wincing at the pain in her head.

            "But you're on a lot of painkillers, so don't worry if things seem a little fuzzy," Willow added.

            "I don't remember anything," Tara said.

            "Apart from Spike."

            "Spike?"  Tara frowned.  "I don't - he came to the museum..."

            "You said he was the last thing you remembered."

            "I did?  When?"

            "This morning.  When Riley was here.  You don't remember?" Willow asked anxiously.

            Tara closed her eyes.  "He was... he was tall.  And... dark hair.  American."

            "Who?  Riley?"

            Tara nodded and opened her eyes.  "He's Buffy's boyfriend?"

            "Well, I think he used to be... He's in the army or something official.  He said he really needed to find the people who'd hurt you.  I didn't think - I didn't think it would be Spike..."

            Tara frowned, her brain too foggy to work it all out properly.  "Spike hurt me?"

            "That's what you said.  The last person you saw.  Spike, right?" Willow asked, gripping Tara's hand in panic.

            She nodded, confused.  "But I didn't think... I don't know... Willow, I don't remember..."

            Willow nodded and stroked Tara's hair.  "It's okay, baby.  You need to rest.  Don't worry about it.  Riley's gone after Buffy and she's safe now."

            "She's safe?"

            "Yeah.  He got his army buddies to call Giles.  He and Buffy are out of the country."

            "And Spike?"

            "He said you don't need to worry about Spike any more."

            *

            Spike opened one eye and found that the other was glued shut.  Wherever he was, it was too dark to see anything, so he closed his eye again, because it hurt like mad.

            He tried to figure some things out.  One, he was lying on a hard floor.  Cold, like cement.  Two, he was wearing nothing at all.  Three, he hurt.  Everywhere.  And four, there were chains on his wrists.  And ankles.

            He rolled onto his back and immediately wished he hadn't, because it hurt like someone was stabbing him.  Back on his side, he opened his eye again and looked around.

            "What are you doing here?" asked a very faintly familiar voice.  American, female, frightened.  And also slightly annoyed.

            "Anna?"

            "I thought you might be dead," she said, and sounded like she'd been crying.

            Spike tried to sit up.  He wasn't entirely sure Anna was the right name, but it would do for now.  Hauling on the chains on his wrists, he found they were attached to the breeze-blocked wall and he could just about gain enough leverage to sit up.  His vision adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out two bodies, one huddled in the corner, the other chained to a wall, hands outstretched, head down, either dead or unconscious.  Both were out of his reach.

            "I'm not dead," Spike said.  "Do you know where this is?"

            She - the figure in the corner - shook her head, and Spike heard a metallic clink.  She was chained too.

            "I think it's a - a basement or something, they come in over there," she flicked her dirty brown hair at a concrete staircase in the opposite corner.  Five steps, a metal railing, and a metal door at the top.  There were a couple of very small windows, too small for a person to get out of, high up above the girl's head.  They were dirty and Spike couldn't see the sky, just that it was dark outside, almost as dark as it was inside.

            "Who are they?"

            She sniffed.  "A man and a woman.  He brought us here.  I think.  He tricked us.  She came in with you.  She's very strong.  You're - you're Buffy's friend, right?  William?"

            "Call me Spike.  Look, Anna-"

            "It's Anya."

            "Right."  He nodded his head, painfully.  His neck felt like it had been broken and stuck back together with Pritt-stick.  "Did you see their faces?"

            She nodded.

            Damn.  That meant they weren't planning on letting them go.  At all.

            Not that this would have been a huge problem to Spike, usually.  He'd escaped from worse situations than this.  But not totally naked.  No weapons.  One working eye and what felt like a bullet wound to hamper him.

            "Can you describe them?"

            She sniffed again and lifted a manacled hand to push her hair from her face.  "He's tall.  Dark hair.  Good-looking in a Heathcliff sort of way."

            Angel.

            "And her?"

            Anya wrinkled her pretty nose.  "Odd-looking.  Black hair, pale eyes, like a cat."

            "Does she speak oddly?  London accent, sounds kind of crazy?"

            Anya nodded.  "You know her?"

            Drusilla.  

            Spike ground his teeth.  "Used to be in love with her.  Don't worry," he added as Anya shrank away, "I came to my senses.  Unlike her.  She's cracked.  Don't goad her."

            Anya sniffed again.  "Why did she bring you here?"

            He sighed.  "You know Buffy.  I know Buffy.  She has something the Angelus want."

            "They're the Angelus group?"

            "In charge of it."

            "Oh God," Anya whimpered, and Spike ignored her.

            "Who's he?"

            She looked up at the slumped, chained figure, and her voice cracked.  "My husband."

            Spike peered closer.  He did look slightly familiar.  Only last time Spike had seen him, Xander Harris hadn't had a broken jaw.

            "Why are you naked?" Anya asked suddenly, and Spike looked down at himself.

            "Left in a hurry."

            "Left where?"

            "Where I was hiding with Buffy.  Where is she?"

            Anya sniffed.  "I thought she was with you.  You were taking her to safety, right?"

            Panic flared in him.  "She was with me before I woke up here.  I think I was shot.  They didn't bring her here too?"

            Anya shook her head.  "Just you."

            She wasn't here.  Angel or Dru or whoever had shot Spike and brought him here and Buffy... Buffy was somewhere else, maybe being tortured on her own, maybe already dead, miles away, facedown in a river with her finger cut off...

            No.  He forced himself to think as straight as he could.  If they'd got Buffy's ring, then they wouldn't be keeping him and Anya and Xander alive - if indeed Xander was still alive.  They didn't know where Buffy was, and that at least was something.

*

            Buffy woke to the sound of bells, old church bells, lying between clean soft sheets in an unfamiliar bed.  Her body ached and her sinuses felt blocked, like she'd been crying for a long time.

            She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, slowly remembering the hotel and the flight and Riley rescuing her.  And then she remembered Spike - or rather, her body did - and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that came with the thought of what he'd done to her.

            Or had he?  She hadn't exactly protested.  She'd been willing.  And it had been good.  Could that classify as rape?  Riley seemed certain it was.  But Riley wasn't there...

            Except for when he shot Spike...

            She sat up and looked around his him.  His bed had been slept in and loosely remade, but he wasn't there.  The bathroom was dark beyond its open door.  But there was a note by her bed, she suddenly saw it, and she recognised Riley's writing with a slight wrench.

            'Gone out to see a contact.  It's best if you stay in the room.  Rest.  Order whatever you like from Room Service.  I'll be back later this morning."

            Buffy glanced at the clock.  Already nine am.  She must have slept fifteen hours last night.  She'd cried for ages, cradled against Riley's strong body, until he'd gently lifted her and put her into bed.  She'd nothing to wear but her hotel robe, so he took a t-shirt from his kitbag for her to sleep in.  She remembered this t-shirt.  He used to wear it all the time.

            She sat back and picked up the room service menu Riley had thoughtfully placed on top of the phone by her bed, and ordered cereal and orange juice.  When it came she sat and ate in bed while she thought about what to do next, then when she'd finished, got up and rummaged through her suitcase for her address book.

            "Giles," she said, feeling tearful when she heard his voice on the other end of the line.  "It's not really early there, is it?"

            "It's just after eight.  Buffy, where are you?  Are you all right?  We got a very cryptic message last night from one of Riley's friends..."

            "I'm okay, Giles," Buffy said, touched by the flustered concern in his voice.  "I'm in Prague.  I think.  Riley brought me here."

            "What happened?"

            She sighed and tried to put it all together.  "I was with Spike-"

            "Did he hurt you?  Where did he take you?  God, Buffy, I can't believe I trusted-"

            "He didn't hurt me," Buffy said, and amended to herself, Well, not on purpose.  "I'm fine.  He took me to somewhere in Yorkshire, I think.  A little old abandoned cottage-"

            "My shooting cottage," Giles said.

            "Oh.  Yeah.  Very, er, cosy.  And then Riley burst in when we, er, were sleeping, and shot Spike and took me to the airport and, uh, here I am.  How's Tara?"

            "Tara?  Well, yes, she's all right.  Getting better.  If it hadn't been for her, you might still be with Spike.  Buffy, I'm so sorry I let him take you..."

            Buffy pressed her hand to her forehead.  "I don't understand.  Why did Riley shoot Spike?  What does Tara have to do with it?  And why are you sorry?  Spike didn't do anything.  Did he?"

            "He attacked Tara," Giles said, and Buffy was glad she wasn't standing up.  "She said he was the last thing she saw.  Riley came to talk to her and then he set off after you and Spike.  I'd thought he might have taken you to Yorkshire."

            "He attacked her?" Buffy whispered.

            "Yes.  I called the police about him but they said the cottage was empty when they arrived.  You don't know where he might have gone?"

            Buffy felt tears spill down her face.  "We left him there.  Riley said they'd deal with him... I think he might be dead..."

            Silence, then Giles said, "Oh Buffy, I'm so sorry to have put you through all this."

            "You didn't know," Buffy hiccupped.

            "I should never have trusted him.  I knew what he was like.  Well, you're safe now.  And he didn't hurt you?"

            Buffy debated telling the truth.  "I'm okay," she said, as the door opened and Riley came in, wearing a fur hat and a long coat.  "Riley's back.  I'll speak to you later."

            She replaced the receiver and explained, "Giles," to Riley's enquiring glance.

            "I'm not sure that was a good idea."

            "Why not?"

            "They could trace the call."

            "Who could?  Riley, who are you hiding me from?"

            He sighed and sat down.  "I don't know if Mr Giles explained any of this to you..."

            "About the ring and the Angelus group, yeah, I got the Cliffnotes.  Why are you here?  How did you know..."

            "I've been thinking this might happen.  The Angelus have been looking for that ring for a long time, Buffy.  They want all five, together they're worth more than the president."

            "Doesn't say much," Buffy said under her breath.  "If you knew it would happen-?"

            "I didn't know.  I thought it'd be safe with you.  You'd be safe with it.  I didn't mean any of this..." Riley ran his hands over his face.  He was still handsome, Buffy noticed with detachment, but he looked older, more capable.  His hair was shorter and his face more serious.  He was a grown-up now, she realised.

            "Buffy, you could give up the ring and you'd be safe.  I've been talking to a jewellery dealer who would very much like to get his hands on an Angelus ring-"

            "That's what it's called?"

            "That's what it's called now.  No one really knows what they were called, if anything.  Made by an Italian jeweller in the sixteenth century, probably for one of the Medicis.  The Angelus have been looking for them for years, trashing museums and private collections, killing jewellers and historians... Your friend Giles could be in a lot of danger.  He sent Xander and Anya home."

            Thank God, Buffy thought.  Spike knew them now.  He knew they were close to Buffy.  He'd already attacked Tara and God knows what kind of trap he'd been setting for Buffy, seducing her and keeping her in that cottage until morning, when the Angelus group would come and cut off her finger...

            But just under her skin Buffy could remember his touch.  Remember how, out in the barn after the first time, he'd kissed her so sweetly.  How she'd fallen asleep with his arms tight around her, hid fingers stroking a lazy pattern on her ribs.  How he'd looked at her naked body like it was a jewel, how he'd exalted in her pleasure.  He couldn't be all bad.  He'd kissed her with his eyes closed.  Buffy had sneaked a look.

            "Buffy," Riley said, and she looked up.  He looked serious.

            "Riley."

            "When I found you.  Yesterday.  You were... He was..."

            "Both totally naked?"  Buffy felt like she should be more traumatised by this.  Surely she hadn't cried out all her tears already?  She even sounded a little light hearted...

            "He was trying to..." Riley seemed to be having trouble with the words.  "He was trying to rape you, wasn't he?"

            Buffy thought about it, and her mind felt detached.  So Spike had nearly killed Tara and possibly betrayed Buffy to the Angelus group.  He could have raped her, too.  And yet, and yet...

            And yet, surely that caress was not the caress of an evil man?

            Suddenly, Buffy realised what was going on.  For Riley it was much easier to imagine she had been raped by Spike, making her a victim he could take care of, than to think she had gone to him willingly.  If Buffy said she'd voluntarily slept with Spike, Riley would be crushed.  And whatever her other thoughts on the matter, the facts remained that Riley had rescued Buffy from someone who had nearly killed her friend, and that Buffy, try as she might, still had feelings for Riley.

            "He tried," she said quietly, "but I'm okay."

            Riley slumped in relief.  "You're sure?  You're covered in bruises-"

            "He knocked me around a bit," Buffy said, and she wasn't lying exactly.  She knew Spike would be in pretty bad shape too.  "But he didn't force me into anything.  Thank you, Riley."

            Riley pulled her into his arms, and Buffy knew it was her turn to comfort him.

*

            "Okay," Spike said, so bored he was actually considering crying for something else to do, "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with... W."

            Anya looked around.  "Is it walls?"

            "Nope."

            "Windows?"

            Spike shook his head.

            "W... W... W..." Anya repeated for a bit, while Spike nearly fell asleep.  "White."

            "What's white?"

            "Your teeth."  She peered closer.  "Mostly.  Some of them look a bit bloody..."

            "Yeah.  Thanks.  Can't see me own teeth, can I, love?"

            "Then what is it?"

            Spike flicked his head at Xander, still hanging off the wall.  "Wanker."

            "Don't call my husband that!  I'll have you know he no longer-"

            The door opened, and Spike thought he'd never again be so glad to see a kidnapper.

            "Dru," he greeted, stretching his shoulders.  "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

            She stood there, looking regal and bonkers, the light filtering through the dirty windows giving her dark hair a sort of halo.

            "Is he dead yet?"

            Spike looked at Xander.  "Give him an hour or so."

            "No!" Anya cried, but Spike glared at her.

            "If you kill him now, that'll be a release," he went on, looking steadily at Drusilla, who descended the steps slowly.

            "He needs to be awake," she said, and lifted a small bottle of water to splash in Xander's face.  "If he's not awake, then he can't see.  And if he can't see he won't speak."

            Anya looked at Spike in fear and confusion.  But Spike understood.

            "He'd have told you, if he knew," he said quietly.  "He doesn't know anything.  Neither of them do."

            "She doesn't," Drusilla shot a contemptuous glance at Anya, who, to her credit, managed to look straight back without cowering.  "Pretty boys scream and girls squeal.  But she said nothing."  She aimed a swift kick at Anya, and Spike winced, feeling it in his own bruised ribs.  "But he must know.  He knows the girl.  Besides," she trailed a long nail down Anya's wet face, "Angel wants to play with you."

            "He doesn't know anything," Spike repeated.  "He's as dumb as shit.  Torture her and he'll lie to you to make you stop."

            Drusilla pouted.  "Maybe I'll torture her anyway," she said.  "Or you, for being such a naughty boy.  You lost her, didn't you?"

            "I didn't lose her," Spike said through gritted teeth, "I got shot and now I'm here.  Why did you shoot me, Dru?"

            For a second she looked confused, a human, adult confusion.  Then, "Poor Spike," she said, and her childish voice was back.  "He's so hurt he can't remember."  She bobbed down in front of him.  "Would you like me to kiss it better?"

            Her breath was sweet and clean and Spike remembered her kisses, her soft body in his arms, her nails in his back.  The handcuffs and the whips and the guns.

            "Dru," he said, his face inches from hers, "I'd rather wear pink nylon."

            She pulled back, snarling.  "You know where she is."

            "I don't know," Spike said tiredly.  "I'm hurt and I'm knackered and I don't have any bloody clothes on, Dru, why would I know where she is?"

            "You smell of her.  Was she good, William?  As good as me?"

            "Well, she was better than fucking an ironing board, so yeah.  Better than you, Dru."

            Drusilla stood up and lifted one foot with a hefty heel on it, and stamped it into Spike's chest.  He cried out, doubling over, and when his head was down she smashed her foot into the side of his face.

            Then she stalked away, heels clipping up the steps, the door clanging shut behind heavy locks.  Then there was silence, as Spike tried to catch his breath and figure out if Drusilla had broken any ribs.  Maybe one or two.  He was having trouble breathing.

            "Spike?" Anya said, and she was holding something in her chained hands.  A black shawl.  Drusilla's shawl.  "Catch."

            It landed a foot from Spike's leg and he pulled it closer with his heel.  "What?" he mumbled, his mouth full of blood.

            "She dropped it.  You could wear it.  Like a, a sort of sarong.  Like David Beckham..."

            Spike tried to smile at her as he covered himself up, but his whole body ached and throbbed.  Dru had done quite a number on him before she dragged him into the cellar, and now she'd made it worse.  He concentrated on breathing.

            "And Spike?" Anya said, her smile brittle.  "Really like an ironing board?"

            "Worse," he croaked.  "Ironing boards warm up after a while."

*

            It took Buffy a week to work up the courage to escape, then a day to work out her plan.  Sergei, the lovely boy who brought up her room service meals, kept asking her if she was all right, why didn't she leave the room, she was always crying.  Buffy told him she was unwell, and having trouble sleeping.  Sergei brought her a whole box of sleeping pills.

            At least, she thought they were sleeping pills.  She hadn't a clue what the unfamiliar writing said.  But she was fairly certain that a couple of them would lay out a full grown man.  A man, say, Riley's size?

            It wasn't that he was mistreating her.  He was being perfectly lovely, but that made Buffy want to scream.  She wasn't made of glass, she was completely all right, if a little crazy from being locked in this hotel room all the time with only foreign TV for company.  Riley was out a lot, talking to 'contacts', occasionally sent on flimsy errands by Buffy for a certain kind of shampoo or some cream for her bruises or perhaps a new nightgown.  Because the truth was that, much as she'd missed him when they broke up, as grateful was she was for his rescuing, Buffy couldn't stand being around him.

            And she still wasn't sure she'd been rescued - that there had been anything to rescue her from.  She was pretty sure now that it was just Riley's paranoia that had convinced her Spike had raped her.  Buffy knew her own strength and her own boundaries, and she knew she'd never have let someone do something like that to her.  But Riley would have preferred to believe that Buffy hadn't gone willingly to this evil man, so she let Riley believe she'd been raped.  And part of her believed it sometimes, when she remembered that Spike had nearly killed Tara.  For all Buffy knew, Spike had been leading her into the arms of the Angelus.  He wasn't a good man.

            But he hadn't raped her.

            Buffy knew she had to get Riley to sleep so she could escape.  She'd gone on a tidying binge that day, packing her suitcase when Riley was out, and she'd called reception and asked them to book her a flight to London, any airline, any class, any airport.  Fifteen minutes later they called Buffy back with a reservation number and said they'd get a taxi for her when she was ready.

            She found herself shaking as she planned it.  She had to get back to London and talk to Tara - maybe Tara knew something about this Angelus group.  Maybe Spike had said something to her.  Or maybe Giles knew, but with his typical reticence just hadn't thought to tell her.  But she had to get away from Riley.  She needed his room key and the local currency he carried to pay the taxi driver, and she knew he kept them in a money belt while he slept.

            And Buffy new that Riley was a very light sleeper.

            So she had to knock him out.  She could hit him over the head, or she could... Buffy took a deep breath as she thought of it.  She could seduce him.  Riley slept like the dead after sex.  He'd never wake up, even if she hired a brass band to play America The Beautiful over his head.

            So she sweated and shook all day, trying to persuade herself that it was the best course of action.  She put on her prettiest, clingiest dress - she'd lost weight and it didn't suit her, but Buffy knew she'd just have to live with that - made herself up very carefully so that the cosmetics were invisible, washed her hair and sprayed a tiny bit of perfume down her cleavage.  And she waited for Riley.

            She ordered some champagne - partly for seduction purposes, but also to calm herself down - and when Sergei came, he was obviously impressed.

            "Miss Buffy, you look better zan all veek."

            "Well, I feel better, Sergei."  Buffy took the champagne.

            "I vos vorried you vere not sleeping..."

            Buffy stared at him.  Sergei, she thought, you're a bloody genius.

            "No," she said, "not sleeping at all.  I only wish..." she sighed.

            "Vish vot?"

            "That I had my sleeping pills.  They were prescription, quite powerful, but I left them in America... I don't suppose.. I don't suppose you'd have anything here like that, would you?"

            Sergei tripped over himself in his haste to fetch them for her, and Buffy could have kissed him in relief.  But instead she tipped him with American dollars, which impressed him greatly, and shut the door.  She took out several pills and mashed them into powder, sprinkling them into one of the champagne glasses.  Her heart was thumping.  She was about to change out of her seduction outfit, when the door opened again and Riley came in.

            He stopped, and stared at her.

            "Buffy?  You look - wow."

            She smiled.  Riley had always made her feel pretty.

            "I was tired of vegging around in my jammies," Buffy said.  "Riley, I want to go out.  Just down to the restaurant for dinner, maybe?  Not even very far.  I'm so bored up here..."

            Riley's sharp eyes swung to the ice bucket.  "Champagne?"

            "Well, I felt like celebrating," Buffy gave him a smile.  "The end of my depression."

            "Well, I..." He looked her over again, and Buffy all but fluttered her eyelashes at him.  "I guess one glass couldn't hurt.  I'll open it."

            Yeah, Buffy thought, because a girl who trains with fifteen pound weights couldn't possibly get the cork out of a champagne bottle, could she?  But she gave him a pretty smile and picked up the clean glass for herself.

            Riley poured her drink first, then his own, clinked her glass, and drank.  Buffy's heart was thumping like a rave beat and her hand was shaking.  The champagne bubbles were choking her.  She felt sick with nerves.  What if it didn't work?  Or she'd given him too much - what if the sleeping tablets reacted with the alcohol and killed him?  God, she didn't want Riley to die.

            "So where did you go today?" she asked, her smile aching.

            Riley sat down and started to take off his boots.  "I went to talk to the jeweller," he said.  "A collector.  He's really interested in the ring you have."

            Buffy closed her fingers into a protective fist.

            "The ring that people have nearly died for?  I can't imagine why."

            "If you sold it to him you'd have a lot of money," Riley went on earnestly.  "And then the Angelus group wouldn't be chasing you any more."

            When he put it like that it did make sense, but...

            "Then they'd come after him instead," Buffy said.  "And who's to say they'd even believe I didn't have it any more?  They might catch me and - Spike said they were vicious-"

            "And you believed what Spike said?" Riley snapped, but there wasn't a lot of anger in it.  He was already starting to look sleepy.

            "I don't want to give up my ring," Buffy said stubbornly.  "It's beautiful and I love it, and it reminds me of - of what we had..."

            Wrong thing to say.  Riley looked up at her, and Buffy caught her breath, because he had the look he used to give her when he was about to make love to her.

            "You still think about that?" he asked, taking her free hand and pulling her towards him.  Buffy considered throwing her champagne in his face, but she didn't want to wake him up too much.  She put the glass down on the table and sat beside him on his bed.

            "Well, of course I think about it," she said.  "It was a whole year, Riley, and what we had was special, but it's - it's over now..."

            "It doesn't have to be," Riley said, stroking her hand, turning his lovely hazel eyes on her.  He brought his hand up to her face and gently brushed away her clean hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.  "God, I've missed you, Buffy..."

            He brushed his lips against hers, and Buffy thought in panic, surely he should be passing out soon, surely...

            Riley kissed her, and Buffy felt like a wooden doll.  She kept her mouth closed, wondering when it was that she'd got over Riley.  His kisses used to melt her.  Now they did nothing, but make her feel vaguely grubby.  But if she wasn't responding, Riley barely seemed to notice.

            "Buffy," he mumbled, "I love you, Buffy..."

            And then he fell heavy against her, and Buffy knew he'd passed out.

            "You know, that's just not a turn on," she said, and he lay still.  "Riley?"

                She checked his pulse, rolled him on his side so he wouldn't swallow his tongue, and searched his pockets for the door key and his money.  She scribbled a note on hotel notepaper, left it by his bed, took her suitcase, and was free.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

            Xander had woken up some time on that second day, but he was in a sort of stupor all week.  Occasionally the door would open and a carrier bag was thrown in with some food - bits of bread, some cheese, a couple of small bottles of water - but no one else came to see them until the third day, when Drusilla came back, this time with Angel in her wake.

            "Oh, good, she brought her puppy," Spike said.  He noticed Anya curling herself up smaller and wondered what Angel had done to her.  They'd not spoken much since Drusilla's last visit.  Spike had tried to sleep, to rest his body which ached and throbbed all over.  He'd heard Anya crying quietly sometimes in the dark, and he knew she wouldn't want to talk to him about it.

            "Shut up, Spike," Angel kicked at him, landing a steel-toed boot in Spike's ribs.  Spike winced, but it was more of a reflex action than anything else.  One more pain hardly registered.

            Angel walked over to Xander and poked him in the ribs.  Xander's eyes fluttered open, but he made little reaction.

            "It's you lucky day," Angel said, reaching up and unlocking each of Xander's chains from the wall.  Xander fell to the ground, Anya crying out as he did.  Xander reached out to her, his arms stiff, but Angel trod on his fingers.  Spike heard a snap and knew Xander's fingers were broken.

            Then Drusilla came over to him and hauled him half upright.  "Spike has got some clothes to wear," she said, looking down at the shawl that Spike had made into a sort of loincloth.  "Shall we make a pretty picture of him?"

            He could hardly believe it when she unlocked his chains, dragging on them so he was tugged across the floor.  Angel, still standing on Xander's hand, took the links, and Spike realised they were only going to put him in Xander's place.  Chains clinking, Xander was manacled to the floor in Spike's old spot, where he curled up and cradled his mashed hand, and Angel and Drusilla pulled and pushed Spike up against the wall.  He considered fighting back, but he knew he'd have no chance against them.  He could barely stand as it was - although now he was being forced to.  Arms wide apart, he looked down at himself as Angel and Dru left, closing the heavy door behind them.  Loincloth, chains - he looked like a stained glass window.

            "Xander?" Anya said in a small voice.  He'd forgotten she was there.  "Xander, can you hear me?  Are you alright?"

            Xander mumbled something that might have been, "I'm okay," but it was impossible to tell.  He couldn't speak, he'd lost some teeth and his jaw was hanging loose.

            Spike wondered why they'd stopped trying to get information now.  Surely they'd want to know where Buffy was?  Why he wasn't with her.  Why had they shot him and let her escape?

            Unless Buffy had shot him.  That had to be the only answer.

            The rest of the week passed in a daze, a stupor, hope fading with every second.  Buffy had shot him, she hated him, and he was going to die in this cellar with two snivelling Yanks.

            Great.

*

            The way Buffy was feeling a gun might have helped her a bit.  She'd got on the train from the airport, but it was a different airport to the one she'd flown into before.  How many did London have?  Getting horribly lost on the Tube was one thing, but late at night with a giant suitcase was another, and Buffy felt like bursting into tears every few seconds.

            Finally she made it to Giles's street and when he answered his door she threw her arms around him.

            "Giles!  I am so glad to see you!"

            He looked thoroughly confused, but he hugged her back for a bit before asking what the hell she was doing here.

            "I thought you were safe with Riley."

            "I think Riley thought so too.  He was smothering me, Giles.  Wouldn't let me out.  Kept talking about selling my ring... I had to get out."  She brushed past him into the house.  "Seems empty without Xander and Anya."

            "Yes, and tidier, too."  Giles took off his glasses and wiped them, surreptitiously dabbing his eyes too.

            "They got home okay?"

            "I assume so, I haven't heard anything... Buffy, what happened?  We only heard the bones of the story from Riley's contacts.  Did Spike try to hurt you?"

            Buffy tried to block the memory but it still made her draw in her breath.  "No," she said, taking a seat on Giles's worn but deliciously comfortable sofa.  "I didn't know... Didn't know anything was wrong until Riley showed up..."

            "Then what happened?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "Then I went away with Riley and his friend stayed behind to - I don't know.  They said to 'take care' of Spike.  Giles, you don't think they killed him?"

            "Well, if they did, then that's all he deserves," Giles said harshly.  "Poor Tara had to be operated on.  She could have died."

            Buffy closed her eyes.  How had she trusted that man?

            Why did she still want to?

            "Buffy," Giles said, more quietly this time.  "You look worn out.  You upstairs and get some sleep, and we'll talk about this in the morning."

            Buffy was too tired to do anything but agree.

*

            In the morning she awoke with a very clear idea of what she wanted to do, already formed in her head, as if her brain had been working out the details as she slept.  First go and see Tara and find out exactly what had happened at the museum.  Then find out from Giles everything he knew about the Angelus group.  Then put the two together and see if she could work out if Spike was working for them.

            If he was, she'd find him and give him the arse-kicking of a lifetime.

            If he wasn't - and she truly hoped he wasn't - she'd find him and try to figure out hat had happened.  Riley had shot Spike - he could be hurt, or worse - Buffy didn't want to think about that.

            "Okay," she said to Giles at breakfast.  "Is Tara out of hospital yet?"

            He nodded.  "Willow's taking care of her.  She's not back at work yet, or taking classes, she's still a bit fragile.  But I think she might like to see you."

            Buffy was glad to hear this.  She wanted to see Tara too, and not just to get information out of her.  She'd grown to like the shy girl and her eager girlfriend since they'd met.  Buffy would liked to have cultivated a friendship with them, but she had more important things to do.

            She found her way to the girls' room and knocked gently.  Willow opened the door, looking pleased to see Buffy.

            "Giles said you were back.  Are you okay?"

            Buffy nodded for what felt like the millionth time.  "How's Tara?"

            "Okay.  Still sleepy.  On a lot of meds."  Willow opened the door and Buffy stepped into the bright room.  Tara was curled up in bed, there being nowhere else for her to sit, a book in her hands.  She looked up and smiled.

            "Buffy!  I'm s-so glad you're all right.  M-Mr Giles said you'd been kidnapped."

            "Well, not kidnapped exactly," Buffy said.  "More of an unwanted vacation.  I used my first outside toilet."

            The girls exchanged glances.

            "Okay, you didn't need to know that," Buffy said.  "Tara, I need to talk to you about Spike.  Riley said you told him the last thing you saw was Spike."

            Tara nodded.

            "Did he really hit you?  Are you sure it wasn't-" Buffy couldn't think of a way to end that without implying that Tara had clonked herself on the head.

            But Tara was shaking her head.  "I d-don't remember him hitting me," she said.  "I saw him that afternoon.  He came to ask about - well, about you.  I think he likes you," she added with a diffident smile.

            No kidding, Buffy thought.  "What did he want to know?"

            Tara frowned.  "About your ring.  Oh good, you still have it.  I told him Riley had given it to you... Where is Riley?  Is he here?"

            "No," Buffy said.  "He's - we parted ways.  That relationship is so over."

            "But what about your relationship with Spike?" Tara asked, her expression saucy.  There was no other word for it.  Just saucy.

            "Tara," Willow said, "he's an evil man.  He tried to kill you and he kidnapped Buffy-"

            "Okay first of all," Buffy said, "he didn't kidnap anyone.  I wasn't forced to do anything.  I mean, go anywhere.  And Tara, are you sure it was him who hit you?"

            Tara looked miserable.  "I don't remember," she said.  "I don't remember anything at all after Spike left..."

            "Wait," Buffy said, at the same time Willow said, "He left?"

            "We talked for a while - the museum was just closing, we were in the Victorian hall - and then he left.  I was there for hours in Mr Giles's office and then I..." She shrugged helplessly.  "I don't remember anything else.  Just working on a paper about tea sets."

            Willow stroked her shoulder reassuringly.  Buffy took a deep breath.

            "Spike left?  If he wanted to hit you then wouldn't he-"

            "I guess he would," Tara said.  "Buffy, I'm sorry, I told Riley - but that was the last thing I remembered - I didn't think-"

            "It's okay," Buffy said, although it couldn't have been further from okay if it had tried.

*

            They turned Giles's office into a sort of HQ.  Tara had decided she was tired of bed and insisted she came along too.  "After all," she said, "I need to face my fears some time.  Maybe it'll help me remember a few things."

            "You know," Giles said thoughtfully, "I should have realised when I saw the note."

            "There was a note?" Buffy asked.

            He looked through his drawers.  "The police took the original, but I made a copy.  Here."

            'We will find her.'  And you thought it was Spike?  He knew exactly where I was!"

            "Yes, well," Giles polished his glasses nervously.  "I thought that was a decoy."

            Buffy reached up and cuffed him around the head.  "Just for that you get the job of calling round all the hospitals in Yorkshire-"

            "Do you have any idea how big Yorkshire is?"

            Buffy narrowed her eyes.  "Ask them if Spike has come in."

            "I don't even know his last name..."

            "Are gunshot wounds common in North Yorkshire?"

            Giles hesitated.  "Well, it is game season..."

            "Just call them!"

            "I-is there anything I can do?" Tara asked diffidently.

            "Call the police and see if Spike's car has been found."

            She reached for a phone.  "Do you know the registration number?  The, uh, licence plate?"

            Buffy stamped her foot.  "No.  Damn.  It was blue," she said helpfully.

            "What model?"

            "Um," Buffy had never been good with cars.  And she didn't recognise any of the British makes.  "It was quite small."

            "A hatchback?"

            Buffy gave her a hopeful expression.

            "Bigger than Giles's car?" Willow asked.

            "Smaller."

            "Supermini," the girls decided, and Tara started dialling.

            "What do you want me to do?" Willow asked, and Buffy thought about it.

            "You know Xander pretty well, right?"

            Willow nodded.  "Well, we haven't been in touch since junior high, but yeah, I know him."

            "Do you have his home phone number?"

            "Yeah, he told me his address when he and Anya left."

            "I need you to find out if they got home okay."

            Buffy stood back while they all made calls.  This felt good.  This was doing something.

            She picked up a phone from the bank on Giles's desk (had he never heard of networking?) and got the number for the airline she'd used to get back to London.

            "Had a Riley Finn booked a flight out of Prague recently?"

            He had not.

            "Can you do me a favour?  If he calls up and asks about my reservation, tell him you've never heard of me.  It's a US government thing," she added, and the clerk agreed hastily.

            Then she sat down at the computer and went online to find all the other airlines that flew from Prague to London.  There were loads, and she was just writing down phone numbers when Willow tapped her on the arm.

            "Buffy?  I can't get through to Xander.  His machine keeps picking up and his parents say they haven't heard from him since before he left."

            Buffy shoved a phone number at her.  "See if they took the flight okay."

            But that was bad news too.  "They checked in, but they never got on the plane.  Their luggage is still at Heathrow."  Willow's face crumpled.  "They say if it's not claimed soon, they'll blow it up."

            Buffy ran her hands over her face.  So Xander and Anya had disappeared too?  God, this could not be good.

            "Okay, Giles?"  She tapped him on the shoulder, and he covered the mouthpiece of his phone with one hand.  "Anything?"

            "Nothing so far," he said.  "It's very hard going, trying to investigate someone whose name you don't even know."

            "Try under William," Buffy said with the ghost of a smile.  "Can you - and Tara, if she's okay - check out these airlines for me?  I need to know if Riley's left Prague yet.  The dose I gave him will probably have worn off by now."

            Giles nodded distractedly.  "Where are you going?"

            "Airport.  I need to know if anyone saw Xander and Anya."  She paused.  "Do you have any pictures of this Angelus gang?"

            On the Tube on the way to the airport, Willow and Buffy sat looking through the meagre file Giles had given them.  There was a blurry photo of a tall, dark-haired man, as if taken from a CCTV capture.  There was also a file photo of a woman with black hair and evil eyes, along with a police report on suspected arson.  She had been cleared.

            "Drusilla deVille," Willow read.  "More like Cruella."

            "And this guy... No name, he's just known as Angel.  The head of the gang."

            They peered closer at the picture.  "He's kinda cute," Willow said.  2If you like that sort of thing."

            "Nah, not my type," Buffy said.

            "Mine either," Willow said.  "But then I guess you knew that."

            They got to the airport and found the check-in desks for the airline Xander had booked with.  Buffy showed them a photo of Xander and Anya and asked if they'd been seen.

            "Well, I don't know," said the check-in assistant.  "We have thousands of people through here every day, and there are half a dozen shift rotations."

            "What about this guy?" Buffy showed them the Angel picture.

            "I'm sorry," the girl said, shaking her head.

            "Can we talk to the staff at the gate?  Can we go through?"

            "You have to be a passenger to go through.  Security regulations," the girl explained.

            "Can you found out who was on their flight?  It's really important," Buffy added desperately.  "They've gone missing and we need to find out where they might have been."

            She sighed and got up from her seat.  "Hold on, I'll go and check."

            Buffy and Willow were left waiting there as she disappeared towards the back of the desks, and came back five minutes later with a woman in a suit.

            "Do you have any ID?"

            Buffy blinked.  "ID?"

            "I have my drivers licence," Willow offered.

            "Official ID.  You're not with the police?"

            Buffy exchanged a stricken glance with Willow, who immediately began crying.  I'm not that desperate, Buffy thought in annoyance.

            But Willow sniffed, "I just want to find my baby brother!  The police are useless!  I just want to find him, he's deaf and he has all these problems, his carer's only young and I want him to be safe, please help us..."

            The woman in the suit looked torn.  Eventually she gave a distracted nod and picked up the phone on the desk.

            "Is Carrie there?  Can you send her back here?  No, it's not a problem, I just need to talk to her.  Not in trouble, no!  But quickly, please."

            Buffy and Willow were taken to a room behind the desks and Willow, who was still sobbing authentically, prompted an offer of tea or coffee.  Biscuits?  There was a Starbucks just around the corner...

            They said no and waited politely while the supervisor explained that by luck, she'd found the gate report (Buffy wondered what sort of filing system they had if they needed luck to find a gate report) and the gate agent who had boarded Xander and Anya's flight was on shift today.

            "But I don't know if she'll be able to help you.  We see so many passengers, they rarely stand out..."

            Carrie, who looked as if she'd been up since last night, appeared and took one look at the Angel picture.

            "I saw him."

            "You're sure?"  Buffy and Willow looked at each other with excitement.

            "Yeah.  Don't forget someone as cute as that."

            "Did he get on the plane?" Buffy asked, hoping he had and they'd be able to trace his name.

            "No.  He was in a hi-vis - I thought he was from baggage or something... Anyway he went over to talk to this couple-" Buffy showed her the photo of Anya and Xander.  "Yeah, that's them.  They went off down one of the jetbridges to talk.  Figured they were friends of his or something."

            "Did you see them come back?"

            Carrie frowned.  "I don't think so.  But then we were busy: people are always complaining about delays."

            "Can't imagine why," Willow muttered.

            "We don't delay things on purpose," the supervisor said from her desk, and Willow shrank a little.

            "Where would the jetbridge have led?" Buffy asked.  She'd never been in an airport before she left for this trip to England.

            "Well, down to the tarmac.  Or maybe a plane..." Carrie turned to a computer.  "I think it was Gate Twelve, so the stand would have been... A week ago today?"

            Willow and Buffy nodded.

            "There was a private plane on that stand.  It was going to... Ireland."

            Jesus, another country?  "Where exactly?" Buffy asked.

            "Galway."

            "West coast," the supervisor supplied.

            "Do you fly there?" Buffy asked hopefully.

            "No," she said, but told them an airline that did.

            Willow thought Buffy was insane for booking a flight there immediately, no luggage or anything.  Just a credit card, passport, and a cell phone she bought in a box at the airport.

            She gave the number to Willow and prayed to the God of Bank Managers not to be struck down for all this spending.  She was only a student, after all.

            "How can you afford this?" Willow asked in amazement.  "Did the US government bring in a new law that you get paid to study now?  'Cos I think I might go back..."

            Buffy laughed.  "It helps that I didn't have to pay for the Prague flights.  Riley paid for the hotel with his credit card," she explained.  "So I, uh, told Reception to book the flight on the same account..."

            "Buffy, you are so bad," Willow giggled.

            "Well, he deserved it."

            "He probably did."

            "Only probably?  Aren't you supposed to be all man-hating?"

            Willow smiled.  "No, just woman-loving."

            They said goodbye and Buffy suddenly felt very alone.  She called Giles on her new phone and asked if there was any information on Spike.  But he hadn't turned up in any Yorkshire hospitals, and the police hadn't found any cars that matched even Buffy's hazy description.  He asked her what she wanted him to do now and Buffy wondered when she'd become the leader.

            When someone started tracking her with the possible intention of killing her.  Oh yeah.

            "Well," she said, "it would help if I could find out who that private plane belongs to.  And if they hired a car or anything at the other end."

            "I'm not sure the Angelus group would need to hire a car.  Besides, Angel himself is Irish.  It's possible he has a home there."

            "Then it's possible we could find it.  Giles.  You're old-school British.  Don't you have some friends at, I don't know, Scotland Yard or something?"

            "This is not an Agatha Christie-"

            "Can you find out anything at all?"

            Giles sighed.  "I know someone in the Civil Aviation Authority," he said.  "I don't suppose you got the registration number of the plane?"

            Buffy hadn't, but she got it quickly off Carrie from the airline and text it to Giles.  He replied that he'd tell her what he could.

            For the second time in as many days, Buffy boarded a plane alone and when she landed, looked about her in confusion.  Another airport to try and navigate, another country to figure out.

            She bought a load of Euros on her poor abused credit card and wondered what the hell her mother would say when the bill arrived.

            Like that was her worst problem.

            Keeping her mother fresh in her mind helped Buffy get some perspective.  She missed her family horribly, but she told herself that she'd be going home to them soon.

            Her new phone rang almost as soon as she switched it on.  She answered with a "Hello?" but all she got in reply was a computerised voice telling her, "You have one new message.  Message one..."

            And then Giles came on the line.  "Buffy.  I thought you might like to know.  I've managed to find out who owns the plane.  An Angel Services Ltd.  I don't think I need to tell you the name is not a coincidence.  I got an address also but Buffy, listen, you shouldn't go off there on your own.  Call the police - the Garda - and tell them what you suspect."

            Police? Buffy thought.  If they're as useless over here as they are in America we'll get nowhere.  They don't even carry guns, do they?

            She didn't call Giles, but Willow instead, and the redhead gave her the address.  "I looked on the Internet," she said, "and it's only about ten miles outside of Galway.  A taxi should be able to take you there.  It's out in, uh, Connacht.  Buffy, please be careful.  Giles has already told me not to give you the address."

            "I'll be careful," Buffy promised.  "Super careful.  I promise.  Thanks, Willow."

            "You can call me Will," the other girl said shyly, and Buffy smiled.

            "Thanks, Will."

            She went outside to the taxi rank and got in a car.  It took twenty minutes to get to the address, a lonely house on the edge of a cliff, high above monstrous crashing waves.  Buffy paid the driver and watched him go, the number of the taxi firm and the emergency services at the ready in her mobile.

            She looked at the house, suddenly afraid.  What the hell was she going to find there?

            There was no car outside, and nothing proclaiming Angel Services.  Buffy had the feeling the address was probably just something Angel had put on paper to get his plane registered.  She knew now strict airline security was nowadays.  Even supervillains had to register their aircraft.

            Even so, the house could easily be empty.  Buffy hoped sincerely that it was.  She had nothing to defend herself with.  Not even Mace, which Spike had been right about customs confiscating.

            She crept up to the back window and peeked in.  A kitchen, looking empty, unused.  The next window was a bare room with no furniture in it, but indentations on the carpet from a heavy table.  A dining room.  Then a living room with some cushions on the floor and a TV and VCR.  Buffy glanced at the upstairs windows but they were empty too.  Not even curtains to flutter in the breeze.

            It was starting to get dark, and Buffy wished she'd got a flashlight.  Or a scarf.  The wind up here was really fierce.

            She was just about to go when she spotted a small window at ground level.  A cellar.

            Of course, if she was an evil mastermind, then she might hide out in a cellar.

            Buffy cautiously peered through the filthy window.

            Then without thinking for another second she smashed her elbow at the dining room window, vaulted in and rushed to the kitchen.  There was a door there that opened into a huge larder, and at the back of that was a metal door.  Buffy slammed her weight against it but it wouldn't open.

            Almost crying with sudden desperation, she looked around.  There was a fire axe by the kitchen door.  She grabbed it and hacked at the wall by the door.  The plaster cracked and crumbled, bits flew in Buffy's eyes and eventually the wall fell away from the lock.

            Buffy stumbled straight down the concrete steps and tripped over to the body hanging from the wall.

            "Spike!  God, Spike..."

            She threw her arms around him, then recoiled in horror as she realised what a state he was in.  Half naked, covered in bruises that were swollen up in places, his face a mess of purple skin and black crusts of dried blood.

            "Oh, Spike..."

            He raised his head and opened one eye a crack.  "Buffy," he mumbled, and Buffy started hacking at the chains holding him to the wall.

            He collapsed in her arms and she held him, feeling his spine through his skin, he was so thin, so hurt, poor Spike, they'd kept him here, chained up, left him to die...

            "When you have a moment," came a voice from behind Buffy, and she looked around in alarm to see Anya huddled in a corner, "a little medical attention might help."

*

            Later, Buffy wondered how she'd held up so well.  She called the Irish emergency services and got an ambulance to come and take Spike, Anya and Xander to the nearest hospital, then she called Giles to tell him she'd found them, but Angel and Drusilla were nowhere to be seen.  She told the police she'd been looking for Angel Services on business and was horrified to find her friends chained in the basement.  Would she suspect that Angel Services had had a hand in this?  Yes, she would.

            Anya was mostly unharmed, but her body was cut and bruised and her mind fragile.  Xander had broken fingers and his jaw needed wiring, and one of his shoulders had nearly been dislocated by the wall chains.

            Spike had broken ribs and horrific bruising all over his lovely face.  There were what looked like cigarette burns on his chest, and his wrists and ankles, like Anya and Xander's, had been chafed raw by the manacles.  He's been shot in the back and the bullet had exited from his side.  Buffy'd looked for an inch of unbroken skin and found one, right behind his left knee.  But that was it.

            She curled herself on a chair by his hospital bed and waited for him to wake up.

*

            Spike opened one eye, confused that he appeared to be lying down.  On a bed.  A soft, clean bed.  He looked fuzzily at himself.  There were wires and tubes across his body, which was heavily bandaged all over.  He could barely lift his hands for all the bandaging on his wrists and his ribcage felt constricted, but considerably less painful than before.

            He turned his head, which hurt a lot, and saw Buffy curled asleep in a horribly uncomfortable-looking chair, her hair and clothes dirty, smudged with his blood.  Her feet were bare and her eyes looked pink around the edges.  She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

            "Hey, Summers," he said thickly, and Buffy started.

            "Spike."  She blinked and yawned, stretching like a cat.  Spike admired the movement.  "How do you feel?"

            He considered this.  "Am I on a lot of drugs?"

            "Well, no-"

            "Can I be?"

            She smiled.  "Does it really hurt that much?"

            He sighed.  "Are my ribs broken?"

            "Two of them, yes."

            "But my face is okay?"

            She laughed.  "You're so vain!"

            "Hey, my face is my fortune, love.  What about the others?  Did you get them out?  I - I don't remember..."

            "They're out.  Xander's in pretty bad shape, but he'll be okay."

            "Anya still trying to play I Spy?"

            "What?"

            "Never mind."  He closed his eyes.  "What day is it?"

            "Thursday.  It's been a week."

            "Where did you go?"

            Buffy sighed.  "Riley took me away.  He convinced me you were evil, that you'd tried to kill Tara, that you were-"

            "That I was what?"

            "Nothing."

            "Buffy, don't lie to a man who has two broken ribs."

            "Or what, you'll hit me?  Spike, can you even lift your hand?"

            Spike couldn't, but he lifted a finger in her direction and Buffy found herself laughing.

            "Did you hit Tara?"

            "No!  Why would I do that?  She's a sweet kid."

            "She said you were the last person she saw.  What she meant was, several hours before she was attacked.  But no one realised that and Tara was in a kind of bad state so..."

            "Everyone thought I'd had a go at her and was taking you for my next victim."  Spike opened his eyes.  "Even you?"

            "Well," Buffy played anxiously with her hair, "you were being pretty brutal with me-"

            "Hey, you know a lot of these bruises came from you, Summers."

            "I know.  I was in shock.  Riley told me you were trying to hurt me so I believed him and... Well I figured it out, obviously, but for a while there I..."

            Spike was looking at her steadily.

            "What?" Buffy asked nervously.

            "Still think I'm evil?"

            She paused, then shook her head.

            "What clinched it?"

            "The fact that you were chained up like a crucifixion in the cellar of a house belonging to one Liam Donnelly."

            Spike blinked tiredly at her.

            "Angel," Buffy explained.  "Don't tell me you didn't know that?"

            He made a face - at least, Buffy thought it was a face.  Under all that bruising it was hard to tell.

            "I've been chained in a cellar for a bloody week, my cognitive functions are not at their best, okay?"

            "You still managed to use the word 'cognitive'," Buffy said, impressed.  "I didn't even know that word."

            Spike smiled tiredly.  "They weren't there, then?"

            "No.  No one was there.  I don't know how long they'd been gone."

            "A day," Spike said.  "I think.  Can't have been much longer or we'd have dehydrated.  You," he looked up at her with slight awe, "you saved us, Buffy."

            "Well, really I was just... Okay," she grinned, "I saved your butt."  And what a fine butt it was, too.  "And weren't you supposed to be protecting me?"

            "I'm working on it."

            "How?  I'm the one who found out what Angel's real name is.  And found his house.  In a foreign country."

            "I'm very impressed."

            "I had a little help from my friends," Buffy said modestly.  She yawned.  "God, I'm tired."

            "My heart bleeds for you," Spike said.  "Possibly literally."

            Buffy climbed off her chair and went over to his bed.  "I'm sorry," she said, running her hand over his bruised face.  God, he was still really, really hot, even as wrecked as he looked now.  "So," she walked her fingers down his bare chest, covered with tubes and bandages, "exactly how fragile are you?"

            Spike caught her eye and the corner of his mouth turned up a little bit.

            "I'm sure a kiss will make me better," he suggested, and Buffy complied, tasting his cracked lips with her tongue, slipping her hand up to cradle his dishevelled hair, dark roots and white highlights tangling around her fingers.

            Someone cleared her throat in the doorway, and Buffy looked up guiltily to see the ward Sister standing there, clipboard in hand, not looking very amused.

            "He needs rest, Miss Summers," she said, "not stimulation."

            Buffy slithered inelegantly away, trying not to look at Spike in case she burst out laughing.

            "I'll go and see how Anya and Xander are doing," she said, and the nurse watched her go.

            "Your girlfriend?" she asked Spike.

            "Uh - well, not exactly," he said.  "She's my, um... we're... she's just Buffy."

            "Is that a new slang word, now?"

            "What?"

            "Buffy.  Does that mean you think she's pretty?"

            "No," Spike laughed, "that's her name.  But yeah, she is pretty damn Buffy, I guess.  Pretty damn Buffy."


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

            Dawn Summers opened the apartment door and let herself in.  Then she screamed.

            "Jesus," Anya yelled, "don't do that!"

            She and Dawn stared at each other.

            "I thought you were in Britain for the next couple weeks," Dawn said gingerly.

            "Yes," Anya said, brushing down the sofa ostentatiously, "well, we had a change of plan."

            "What kind of change of plan?"

            "We came home and we're never going back."

            Dawn blinked.  "Okay... Didn't you like England?"

            "Oh, it was very nice," Anya said dismissively, "but it rained too much."

            "You're home because of the weather?"

            "Well, of course."

            The two girls looked at each other for a while.

            "You're still here," Anya said.

            "I came to water your plants," Dawn explained.

            "Oh.  Yes."  Then, "Thank you," Anya added, with a bright smile.  "You run along now."

            Dawn turned to the door.  Then she turned back: "How's Xander?"

            Momentary panic flickered across Anya's face.  "He's fine," she said, her smile plastic.  "Why wouldn't he be fine?  How dare you suggest he's anything but fine?"

            Dawn, by now used to Anya's odd outbreaks, nodded slowly.  "Good.  Glad he's fine.  Is he here?"

            "Sleeping."

            Another long pause.  Dawn felt like she was in one of those plays they had to read in English.

            "Great," she said brightly, "well, I'll go now..."

            Anya smiled encouragingly.

            "I'll be off," Dawn said, and went to the door.

            Outside in the corridor, she frowned to herself.  Anya was always weird, of course, but today she'd seemed extra odd.  Was that what jetlag was like?

            Dawn left the building and looked up at Xander's apartment.  There was a wall outside and if she climbed on it, she could see inside his bedroom...

            It took her five minutes to get up there and she peered inside.  And then she nearly fell off the wall, because she saw Xander lying there with bandages around his head and a Hannibal Lecter thing in his mouth.

            Dawn raced home and met her mother in the kitchen.

            "Dawn, what's wrong?"

            She could hardly breathe from running so fast.  "Xander," she panted.  "He's - Anya - face - jaw - can't breathe..."

            Holding onto the work surface for support, Dawn got her breath back, and told her mother, "Anya and Xander are back early."

            "I know, sweetie, Giles called."

            "Why didn't you tell me?"

            "He only called a couple of hours ago," Joyce Summers said, pouring some water for her younger daughter.  "You were at school.  I thought about calling to tell you not to go round there, but I knew you'd already be on your way.  What's this about Xander?"

            "He's in big trouble," Dawn gulped.  "She has him locked up in his room, he's got his jaw wired shut, Mom, she's gonna kill him?"

            Joyce regarded her daughter strangely.  "Have you been watching late night TV again?"

            "He looks really bad, Mom.  And Anya was being all weird."

            "Anya's always weird, honey," Joyce laughed.

            "Mom, I'm serious."

            Joyce sighed as her smile faded.  "I know you are.  And I'm glad you're worried about him.  But Anya hasn't hurt him."

            "How do you know-"

            "Because Giles warned me," Joyce said.  "He called and told me."

            "Told you what?" Dawn said.  "I don't understand."

            "There's a lot to tell," Joyce said.  "Sit down, honey.  This could take a while."

            They'd told Spike he should rest for six weeks and take no strenuous exercise while his ribs healed and the tissue damage caused by Riley's bullet sealed itself over.  But he was not a resting sort of person, especially with someone like Buffy around.

            Giles had a friend with a cottage in the Scottish Highlands, by a loch, miles from anywhere.  Buffy had a car to take her to the village for supplies, and a big hat and sunglasses to hide her face when she left the cottage, but this wasn't often.  She and Spike had a stack of videos, a crackling fire, and a big soft bed to amuse them.

            And amuse them it did.

            They'd picked the car up at the airport, registered in Spike's name since Buffy didn't have a driving licence (she'd sneaked a peek at Spike's and it was in the name of one William Henry Dashwood.  She also saw he was ten years older than her.  Eek!), but despite his protestations, he was totally unable to drive.  Sometimes he had trouble breathing, which scared the hell out of Buffy, but he said it was just that deep breaths hurt his ribs.  Buffy figured a few weeks of the unbelievably clean Highland air would cure him of that.

            The cottage was small, just two rooms, but thankfully there was also a modern bathroom attached.

            "Thank God for that," Buffy said, "I am never using an outhouse again."

            "Worked out okay for you last time though, didn't it, pet?" Spike said as he followed her into the cottage.  He was walking okay now, although his first steps had been shaky.  His only severe injuries were the broken ribs and the bullet wound, but both, astonishingly, considering the state of the cellar, were reasonably clean and would heal without complications.  He still had bruises all over his face, but they were fading now and just made him look sexy and shadowed.

            Buffy glanced over at him and shivered.  She'd be lucky if she lasted six minutes alone with him, let alone six weeks.  But the doctors had been firm: Spike had to abstain from any kind of exercise while he was recuperating.  And this meant no sex.

            She looked around the cottage.  Small, but cosy, with tartan throws everywhere and amazingly welcome secondary glazing to keep out the cold breeze from the loch.  The view was incredible, Buffy thought as she stood by the window and looked out.  She'd never imagined anything as beautiful as this really existed in nature.

            She felt a hand on her shoulder, a hot body pressed up behind hers, and Spike's soft kiss on her ear.

            "Great view," she said, looking out at the loch as the sun came down.

            Spike looked at Buffy's reflection in the glass.  "Fantastic view," he said, and kissed her neck.  Buffy bit her lip and drew in a sharp breath as he nipped the soft skin of her neck with his teeth.  His hands slid up her body to cup her breasts through her sweater, then, frustrated with the heavy fabric, dipped down and skimmed up underneath, over her skin to finger her lacy bra.

            "God, Spike," Buffy tried to turn in his arms, but he held her steady, only letting her turn her head so he could kiss her, a long deep kiss.  She'd spent a lot of time sitting with him in the hospital, arranged for this cottage, driven him all the way up here, although she didn't have a full licence and was terrified of the English roads, but she'd only kissed him the once, when they'd been interrupted by the nurse.

            Now Spike held her against him, her tight curvy body fitting against his hard, lean muscles, and drove his tongue into her mouth as he slipped one of her breasts out of its lacy cup and fingered the nipple.

            "No," Buffy gasped, "we can't, you have to rest-"

            "Fuck that," Spike growled, and while he rolled her nipple between his hard fingers, his other hand slipped down to her jeans and expertly undid the fastening.  The denim was tight, and there wasn't a lot of room for his fingers, but he found her wet already and stroked her briefly through her damp knickers, before working his fingers inside the fabric and touching her clitoris.

            Buffy let out a sharp gasp and Spike, excited, sank his teeth gently into her earlobe.

            "Oh God," Buffy moaned, one arm back around his neck, the other on his backside, holding him to her.  He was hard under his jeans, she could feel it against her back.  More than anything in the world, she wanted him inside her.

            She reached between them to unzip his fly and free his erection, which sprang into her hand and hardened even more as she stroked it.

            "Jesus, Buffy-" Spike abandoned her breast and used both hands to push down her jeans, his fingers quickly finding her again under her knickers, by now soaked through.  Buffy pushed herself against his hand, squeezing her thighs together to keep him there.  But he lifted one of her legs and held it up, slipping his finger deep inside her before she realised what he was doing, and hitting something so good Buffy nearly came there and then.

            "I want you inside me," she panted, rubbing her thumb over the little slit at the top of his erection.

            "That makes two of us," Spike said, and moved her raised leg wider, feeling her guiding him into her.  But Buffy got excited and moved her hand up his back, pushing him into her, and Spike cried out as she pressed against his broken rib.

            "Oh God," Buffy sprang away from him, "Spike, I'm so sorry..."

            His arm around his waist, Spike nodded, his face pale.  "It's okay," he gasped.

            "Really?"

            A pause, then he shook his head.  "Maybe not." 

            He fell back onto the bed and lay there, pulling in deep breaths.  Buffy watched anxiously, part of her concerned that he was hurt and the rest of her desperate to finish what they'd started.

            "Spike?"

            "Yes, love?" He opened his eyes and she was standing there in just an Aran sweater and knickers, leaning over him, her hand gentle on his ribs.

            "Does it still hurt?"

            He shook his head, although it did.  Christ, if he didn't have her soon he'd go mad.

            "It's just that I," Buffy lifted the sweater over her head and dropped it on the floor, and Spike drew in his breath at the sight of her half-naked, her breasts spilling out of her bra, "I was sort of on my way somewhere with that, you know?"

            "Uh-huh," Spike said, unable to think of anything more complex to say.

            "But if you shouldn't be doing anything strenuous-"

            "Doesn't have to be strenuous," Spike said very quickly.

            "Well, yes," Buffy smiled nostalgically, "I think, if you remember-"

            Spike reached out and ran a finger up her thigh, slipped it inside her knickers, and Buffy stopped talking.

            "We could be slow," Spike said, watching her face, suiting his actions to his words, "really slow."

            Buffy gulped and closed her eyes.  "How - how might that work, then?"

            Spike smiled slowly.  "Well, we could just do this for a while," he said, teasing her labia with his finger.

            "This is good," Buffy squeaked.

            "And, maybe, you could return the favour?"

            Buffy slid her hand down his arm, over his t-shirt, down his stomach, and wrapped her fingers around him, her eyes still closed

            "Like that?"

            "Yeah, like that," Spike breathed as she stroked him and he fought to keep some control.

            "Then what?" Buffy was asking, her fingers tracing delicious patterns on the most sensitive skin he had.

            "Then-" Spike tried to clear his mind, but if he thought about it too much more he might just come.  "Then you come and sit on the bed, maybe, kneel over me?"

            Buffy, her eyes opening, climbed easily onto him and straddled him, all without losing her grip on him.  She knelt over his thighs, legs wide, and placed his hand back where it had been.

            "How's that?"

            Spike's eyes were dark blue now, his pupils huge.  "Take your bra off," he husked, and Buffy unhooked it one handed and threw it across the room.  Spike reached up and stroked her breasts, one then the other, running his thumb over her nipples, watching her eyes close as she let out little gasps of pleasure.  For a while they stayed like that, stroking each other, Spike watching in fascination as Buffy arched her back and threw her hair back, her breasts standing out lush and proud.

            "And then," he faltered, his fingers inside her, "and then..."

            "And then?" Buffy gasped, writhing against his hands.

            "Fuck me," Spike breathed, pulling her hips towards him, lifting her as she pushed aside her knickers and guided him into her, so slippery he glided right in, and then she closed around him and Spike let out a cry.

            "God, you feel so good!"  Buffy's hands were under his t-shirt, her fingers tweaking his nipples.  "Buffy, I can't stand this, I'm going to-"

            "No," she pleaded, "not yet."

            "You feel so-"

            "Shh," she laid a finger over his lips.  "Close your eyes."

            She sat very still on him, only her hands moving as she traced her fingers down his arms, past the bandaged skin where the manacles had rubbed his wrists raw, right to his bare hands.  She pressed her fingers against his palms, then squeezed him very slowly with her internal muscles.

            Spike let out a ragged breath.

            "And then?" Buffy asked teasingly.

            "Can I touch you?" Spike asked desperately, eyes still closed, and Buffy laughed and said, "Of course."

            "Thank fuck for that."  He opened his eyes and slid his hands up her thighs, letting one continue to her breasts while the other found her clitoris and stroked it.

            "You can do anything," Buffy breathed, "so long as you stay still," she touched his ribs lightly, and Spike very gently pinched her clitoris, making Buffy cry out.

            He stroked her, slowly at first, then faster and faster, as Buffy started to rock her hips and Spike bit his lip, determined not to come before she did.  He wanted to thrust into her, wanted it so much his eyes clouded over as he stared at her, willing her to come.

            And then she did, tightening around him, crying, "God, Spike-" a flood of wetness over him, and then her body relaxed against his hands, and she was still.

            He looked up at her for a while, her eyes closed, her hair mussed, her nipples swollen and red, still wearing her little lacy white knickers, pushed aside where he was inside her.

            And then he started to move, holding her tight to him, and Buffy opened her eyes and smiled and started to move on top of him, and Spike forgot about his ribs, forgot about the bullet wound, forgot about everything as his mind went blank of everything but a consuming pleasure, something he'd waited for and wanted for weeks, since Riley took her away from him, wanting and dreaming about it, he wanted it so much and it was so good, so fucking good...

            When Spike's mind returned he was lying back on the bed and Buffy was climbing off him, taking off her sodden knickers, and curling up beside him, her arm over his bruised ribs.

            "Jesus," he said.

            "No, just me."

            He turned his head.  "I'd almost forgotten."

            "What?"

            "How good it was."  He kissed her.  "We're going to be doing that again, right?"

            "Hell, yeah," Buffy said.

            Forty-five days later Spike sat by the deserted shore of the loch, Buffy on his lap, bringing herself to climax as he held on and rode out his own orgasm.  They'd spent the last few weeks doing little but have sex and sleep, taking occasional trips into the village for food and wood for the fire, often pulling over on the way back because Spike got so turned on by Buffy in her driving glasses that he wormed his hand between her legs and Buffy couldn't concentrate.  They had fast, furious sex in the back seat of the little car, on the grass outside, against the car, or on a stone wall with heavy bearded cattle looking on.

            In the cottage, they exhausted every possible location within a week, and as Spike's ribs healed, moved from different places to different positions, making love in front of the fire, in the bath, while watching a video.  Buffy could hardly believe she'd ever thought sex with Riley was amazing.  Sure, he'd had stamina, but nothing compared to Spike, who could go on for hour after hour, until Buffy could hardly move, her entire body one throbbing mass of pleasure.

            Sometimes she thought of Riley, wondered if he'd read the note she left him, if he'd gone after her, if he'd spoken to her mother or to Giles.  Her little mobile had no signal at all in the cottage, and she was reduced to using the village payphone every now and then to reassure Giles she was still alive, and to lie to her mother that she was off travelling with a couple of student friends she'd made, good kids, very sensible, friends of Giles's.

            The fifth or sixth time she called, Dawn picked up the phone, and she was very taciturn with Buffy.

            Eventually, having run out of lies to tell her sister, Buffy asked, "So what's up?"

            "Nothing," Dawn said.

            "Come on, Dawnie, you've been really quiet.  Something must be happening in Sunnydale."

            Even as she said the name, Buffy looked out at the cold landscape, breathtaking in the mist, and she wondered if she could ever go back to living in the middle of the desert.

            "Nothing," Dawn said again.

            "Did I talk about Ireland too much?"

            "No," Dawn said.  "Tell me again about the Blarney Stone?"

            "Oh, um, it was very stony."

            "Did you lick it?"

            "What?"

            "The legend.  You have to lick it for luck."

            "Oh.  Oh, yeah, I did that.  It was gross.  Really unhygienic.  I don't know what they're-"

            "Buffy," Dawn broke in coldly, "you're supposed to _kiss_ the Blarney Stone.  And it's not for luck, it's for eloquence.  But then you seem to have lots of that, 'cos you've been lying about everywhere you've been ever since you started calling.  And it's always from the same number.  You're not moving around at all."

            Damn, Buffy thought, when did my sister get so smart?

            "What are you trying to say, Dawn?"

            "Why are you lying to me?  I know what's going on."

            "Oh, do you?" Buffy asked, thinking Giles had probably let slip that she was with a male companion.

            "Yeah.  Someone's trying to catch you for that ring Riley gave you, because it's a mega antique and it's worth millions, and you're on the run with this guy Mom hired to look after you."

  



	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

            Since that phone call, Buffy hadn't been able to look at Spike properly.  He'd asked if they could go out to the lake and packed some food for a cold picnic, but quickly got tired of that and applied his clever mouth to her instead.  And Buffy, angry with him but unable to deny herself that sort of pleasure, had let him, and after she came let him hold her as the world stopped spinning and Spike planted gentle kisses on the back of her neck.

            "Bloody hell, Summers," he said.  "You'd think we'd get tired of that after a while, huh?"

            Buffy moved herself off him and started doing up her clothes.

            "You okay?" Spike asked as he fastened his fly.

            "I'm cold."

            "You're... quiet."

            "Did I have to scream out my orgasm?"

            "No, love, but you're - Buffy," he caught her arm, "what's wrong?"       

            He looked so earnest, Buffy could almost believe he was being sincere.  But then he'd been lying to her all this time, using her, he wasn't interested in her at all, he just wanted to have sex and as he was stuck with her-

            "Woah, that's a scary look," Spike said, backing off, pulling his coat around him.  The wind was freezing, chilling away every last drop of warm pleasure.  "Did I do something wrong?"

            "No," Buffy snapped.

            "Well, then did I say something?"

            "No," she said through gritted teeth, throwing bits of food back into the bag.

            "Then-"

            "You didn't say anything," Buffy said, telling herself her eyes were stinging with the wind, not because she was crying.  "That's the point."

            Spike looked confused.  "What?"

            "Why are you here, Spike?"

            He spread his hands.  "I thought a bit of beach sex might be-"

            "I mean here in Scotland!"

            "Because the Angelus are after you and me," he said.  "Buffy, what's this about?"

            "Why are they after you?" Buffy asked, her voice dangerously quiet.

            "Because I escaped?  You were there."

            "But why did they have you?"

            Spike narrowed it.  "Just ask me what you want to know," he said levelly.

            "And will you tell me the truth?"

            "Unless it's about taxes, yeah, I will," he said, trying to joke but Buffy didn't look amused.  She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

            "Why didn't you tell me my mom hired you to look after me?"

            "Oh," Spike said, and stared at her for a while.  "Yeah, that."

            "Yes," Buffy snapped, and started walking back towards the car, "that."

            She put the bag of food on the back seat, then got in and started the engine.  Spike ran over and got in just before she let off the handbrake and stalled.

            "Were you going to leave me here?"

            "A girl can try."

            "What did I _do_?"

            Buffy turned to look at him, her face stony.  "You didn't tell me."

            "What, that your mum hired me?  I didn't think I needed to.  You knew someone hired me."

            "I thought it was Giles!"

            "Giles?"  Spike made to scoff, looked at her face, then amended, "Well, yeah, good guess."

            "How do you even know my mom?"

            "Well, she has her gallery, doesn't she?"

            "I don't know," Buffy restarted the car and made the engine growl, "maybe she doesn't.  It's not like she's been honest with me, is it?"

            "Isn't it?"

            "All this time I've been inventing places I've been and people I've been with and she _knew_, she knew I was lying, and she was laughing at me," Buffy rolled her head back, trying not to cry, but it didn't help and horrible, treacherous tears started falling down her face.  Spike reached out an arm to out around her, but she pushed him away like he was an insect, put the car in gear, and spun the wheels leaving the little beach.

            She was silent all the way home, and when they got in aimed straight for the bathroom.

            "Where are you going?" Spike asked.

            "Bath," Buffy mumbled, not looking at him.

            "Can it wait?"

            "No."

            "Buffy," Spike went over and put himself in the doorway so Buffy couldn't get past, "we need to talk about this."

            "No, we don't.  Let me past."

            "Let me put this another way: no.  Sit down," he took her arm and tried to push her onto the bed, "and we'll-"

            But Buffy was still pretty strong, and she twisted against him, grabbing his wrist where the bandage had recently come off and the skin was sore.

            "Ow," Spike yelled, and Buffy glared at him.  "Let me past!"

            "Not until we've talk about this!"

            "I don't want to talk!"

            "Well I _do_," Spike said, prising her fingers from his wrist and rubbing the tender flesh there.  He glared at Buffy.  "You're such a little madam."

            "I'm a _what_?"

            "You heard me.  You only do things when it suits you, talk to me, take a bath, tell me you're angry, get into a bloody sulk-"

            "I am not sulking!" Buffy cried.

            "Yeah _right_, you're not sulking!  All you ever do is sulk."

            "I do not.  When have I-"

            "When you had to drive the car-"

            "You try driving in a foreign country when you don't have a full licence!"

            "You're twenty-one," Spike said in amazement, "how can you not have a full licence?"

            Buffy glared at him.  "That is so not the point!"

            "No, you're right," Spike shot back, "you're changing the subject."

            "_I'm_ changing the-?"

            "You know full well," Spike said furiously, "that the only reason I never told you about your mum was because you never asked me.  Two months, Buffy, two whole bloody months since this whole stupid thing started, and you never once asked me who was behind it.  You think I just protect little girls for the fun of it?"

            "No," Buffy said, "just when you get paid.  Do you have sex with everyone you're protecting?"

            For that Spike slapped her, and Buffy stared at him in amazement, her hand to her stinging cheek.  No one had ever hit her before.  No one ever.  Tears came to her eyes, but as she saw Spike's angry face start to soften, she slugged her fist into his ribs.

            His howl of pain filled the cottage.

            "Don't you ever hit me again!" Buffy sobbed, kicking his shins and bringing her knee up to his crotch.

            But Spike saw that coming and grabbed her leg, swinging it wide, tripping her up.  Buffy landed hard on the bed.

            "You bastard!" she gasped, as Spike stood over her, massaging his ribs.

            "You bloody deserved it."

            "For what?"

            He grabbed her wrists, his hands hard, his grip tight.

            "Does that hurt?"

            "Let go."

            "Now imagine you have no new skin there.  That fucking hurts," he said twisting her wrists viciously, and Buffy kicked out, aiming for his ribs again, but he stepped out of her way.

            "You never _told_ me," she cried, "you let me think... you let me..."

            "Why are you so angry?" Spike snapped.

            "You lied to me."

            "You never asked!  You just trusted me, blindly, which is very sweet but so unbelievably stupid-"

            "I am not stupid!"

            "So you just ran away with me to that cottage in Yorkshire because you wanted my body?"

            "Giles trusted you!"

            "Giles," Spike said furiously, "spends all day talking to fossils.  You can't-"

            "And my mother?  Did she trust you, or did you extort money from her?"

            Spike raised his hand like he was going to slap her again, but Buffy deflected it, grabbing his sore wrist again and flipping him facedown on the bed.  She straddled him, his arm twisted behind his back.

            "Did you?" she hissed into his ear.

            "Don't be so bloody - ow!  She asked me if I did personal protection and I said I'd think about it and she told me about the ring and she was worried about you so I said I'd do it."

            No need to mention he'd seen the picture of Buffy on Joyce's desk and that had clinched it.

            "How much is she paying you?"

            "I don't-"

            "How much?"

            "Didn't she ever tell you it's rude to talk about money?"

            Buffy twisted Spike's arm higher.

            "All right!  Bloody hell, woman, you could work for the Angelus.  She's paying me in art, okay?"

            "Art?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

            "Yeah, you know, paintings?"

            She twisted his arm again.

            "How did she know about the ring?"

            "I don't know!  I seriously do not know."

            "How do you know her?"

            "I brought in some stuff for the gallery."

            "What kind of stuff?"  Buffy refused to believe he was a painter.

            "Stuff I found!"

            "Found?"

            Spike sighed.  "Will you get off me and I'll tell you?"

            "Tell me and I'll get off you."

            He made a growling sound.  "You know Lara Croft?"

            "Not personally."

            "She looks for relics, right?  Artefacts and shit.  Well, so do I."

            "You're a tomb raider?" Buffy asked doubtfully, relaxing her grip.

            "Well, not tombs specifically, but yeah, I've been in a few."

            "Seriously?"

            But instead of answering, Spike took advantage of her lapse in attention and grabbed her leg, flipping her off him, pinning her down with his body.  Buffy struggled, but Spike had healed fast and he was very strong.

            "Happy now?"

            "Get off me."

            "You tell a soul about this-"

            "Who am I gonna tell?  The sheep?"

            "I'm serious, Buffy, if it gets back that your mum's involved in this-"

            "Are you threatening my mom?"

            "No," Spike sad, exasperated, "I'm bloody warning you.  Your mum is exposed, vulnerable, she's got your sister to take care of and no man to look after her-"

            Buffy narrowed her eyes.  "Summers women did not need a man to take care of them."

            "I think we've proved that blatantly false so far, don't you?"

            Buffy scrabbled with her nails at his sore wrist.  "In case you hadn't noticed, it was me who came to rescue you-"

            "Not that I'd have been in danger if it hadn't been for you-"

            "I can look after myself," Buffy said furiously, struggling against him.

            "Well, your mother doesn't seem to think so-"

            "Leave my mother out of this-"

            "She's the one who got me in it!"

            Buffy wriggled and squirmed, trying to get free, but Spike had her hands over her head, just like he had when Riley'd shot him, and his body was pressed along the length of hers, and Buffy could still remember how he'd felt inside her not half an hour ago on the beach-

            Stop it! she told herself.  Aren't you really angry with this man?

            "And also-" she began, but Spike stopped her with a kiss, hard and desperate, and Buffy found her legs curling themselves around his waist, kicking away his duster and trying to flip him onto his back.  But he was stronger, and held her there, both wrists in one hand while he trailed a hand from her fingers to her hip, making her shiver.

            "You still gonna fight me, Summers?"

            She looked up at him mutinously.  "Depends on what you're going to do."

            "Oh," he bit her earlobe, "what aren't I going to do?"

            He sat back and pulled his coat off, then his shirt, and then his t-shirt.  Buffy, knowing something else was coming and not knowing what, lay tensed beneath him.

            Spike traced two fingers down her face.  "No lies," he said.  "Do you trust me?"

            Buffy hesitated.

            "Either trust me," Spike said, "or fight me.  I'm gonna have fun either way."

            Buffy considered snapping her foot up and kicking him, but deep down she knew she did trust him.  What's more, her mother did, and Buffy respected no one in the world like her mother.

            "What did you have in mind?" she asked, and Spike grinned as wide as the Cheshire cat.

            "Close your eyes," he said, and Buffy did.  "Lift your head," and she felt him drape something over her face.  His t-shirt.  It smelled of him, the hot, musky, spicy scent of Spike, and Buffy breathed in deeply.  He tied it in a sort of knot at the back of her head, then pulled the fabric away from her nose and mouth.

            "That okay?  Can you see?"

            The fabric was draped thickly over her eyes.  "No-"

            "Good."

            His mouth descended on hers, and Buffy felt his hair under her fingers as she held him to her.  Spike's hands slipped up under her clothes to caress her ribcage, then further up to rub her nipples through her bra.  She moaned against his mouth, and he pulled back, hands and all.  Buffy was about to ask him what was going on when he lifted her to sit up against him, then removed her sweater and t-shirt, kissing her mouth and stroking her back for a while, before adding her bra to the pile.

            Half naked, she waited for his hands or mouth to touch her again, but all he did was lay her back down and take her hands in his.  He lifted them up above her head again and wound something around them.  Buffy thought it might have been his shirt, twisted into a rope, tying her wrists to the brass bedstead.

            "Kinky," she said, and heard Spike laugh.

            "Just you wait."

            And indeed he did make her wait, walking his fingers up her legs under her skirt, making Buffy shiver and writhe, desperate for him to touch her properly.  He unzipped her boots and pulled them off, then her rather unbecoming socks, then he slowly pulled her long skirt down and left her lying there in just her knickers.

            And then she felt him leave the bed and walk away.

            "Spike?" Buffy said, slightly panicked.  "Spike?"  She started tugging at the bindings on her wrists.  Wow, William must have been a boy scout, because these knots were not coming undone.

            "Stay there," he said, and he sounded like he was laughing, "I am coming back."

            So Buffy waited, and a draft blew across her, making her nipples harden.  Then she realised it was Spike, blowing on her, and she arched towards him.

            And then she gasped, a high-pitched shriek, as something horribly cold touched her left nipple.

            "Is that ice?" Buffy panted, as cold trickles ran down her breast.

            "Now I remember why I filled the ice tray up," Spike said, applying his tongue to the nipple he'd just chilled.  His mouth was warm - hot even, like he'd been drinking something hot.  Buffy sniffed.

            "Coffee?"

            "Helps me work, rest and play," Spike said, icing her nipple again, then licking it.

            The torture was exquisite.  Spike spent ages on each breast, occasionally getting new ice cubes, sometimes running them up her arms or her neck, catching the drips with his tongue.  Buffy writhed and panted and wriggled her legs together, desperate for him to move lower.

            And he did, although it was only to start on her feet.  Buffy, who was ticklish, nearly kicked him when he put ice unexpectedly between her toes, but he held her foot firm, just like he had so long ago in that warehouse when she'd cut her foot.  He took her big toe into his mouth and sucked it, and Buffy nearly had an orgasm there and then.

            The ice and hot mouth travelled very, very slowly up her legs, sometimes going back down for a while, sometimes stopping altogether as he came back to her breasts, her stomach, her arms, her mouth, kissing her with icy lips then a coffee mouth.

            The ice cube slithered up her inner thigh, and Buffy tried to remember how to breathe as Spike moved her legs wide apart and ran the ice cube very lightly over the dark blonde hair between her legs.

            Buffy bit her tongue.

            And then the ice disappeared, and reappeared by her ear.

            "Spike," Buffy cried desperately, and he licked her lips with his hot tongue.

            "Mmm?"

            "Please - just-"

            She could feel the weight of his body on hers.  He'd taken off the rest of his clothes at some point, she could feel his bare hip against hers.  She wriggled, trying to locate that big, hard magical thing to slip inside her and make it all better, but he wasn't letting it near her.

            "Please what?" Spike asked in her ear.

            "Fuck me," Buffy panted, and Spike moved off her.

            Uh-oh, was that too crude?  But no, he was always imploring her to do the same if she teased him too long.  What was he doing?  Was that it?  Was he going to leave her here like this?  In this, this _state_?

            And then, just as Buffy was working herself up to yell at him, Spike brought the ice cube down on her clitoris, dead centre, and she cried out incoherently.  It was so good, almost painful, exquisite, amazing...

            He moved the ice down over her wet, swollen labia and rubbed it against her entrance.  Buffy writhed against it desperately.

            Then the ice was gone and Spike's mouth, hotter than before - more coffee? - descended, and Buffy thought she might lose her mind.  She bucked and kicked at him, whimpering and gasping, not caring how much damage she was doing to his back or his ribs as she held him to her with her thighs as he licked at her, ran the ice over her slick, wet folds, nipped her with his teeth, and finally slipped two fingers up inside her, two icy cold fingers, and flicked that sweet spot inside her while his tongue and the ice tortured her from the outside.

            Buffy's orgasm was loud, screaming like a dispossessed thing, and long, shockwaves shooting through her for minute after minute.

            But Spike still wasn't done.  She was barely aware of anything, her body still tingling all over, when he flipped her onto her stomach and lifted her up on her knees and entered her, hard and deep, his fingers on her clitoris, his arm supporting her as she hung there, impaled on him, her wrists still tied to the brass post.  He bit into the back of her neck with sharp teeth and thrust into her, and Buffy found herself gasping for him to do it harder and faster, to fuck her, Spike, _please_...

            Her second orgasm wasn't as spectacular as the first, but it was still amazing, and Spike clung to her as he came at exactly the same time, gasping her name, losing strength and falling down onto the bed with her, both of them facedown and breathing hard.

            Eventually Spike plucked at the knots on Buffy's wrists and freed her, then pulled his t-shirt off her face and rolled her onto her back.  She lay there, too exhausted to move, completely wiped out.

            After a long while she managed to turn her head and look at Spike, still facedown beside her, breathing into the pillow.

            "Wow," she gasped.

            He shrugged.  "Welcome."

            "That was..." Buffy began, and realised that the human vocabulary hadn't evolved to take that amount of pleasure into account.  "Jesus, it was..."

            "Really?"

            "I think I saw God," Buffy told him, and Spike turned his head to her, grinning.

            "What did he look like?"

            Buffy wriggled closer, as if their bodies hadn't been touching enough before, and very softly kissed his lips.

                "You," she said.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

            Dawn got home from late cheerleading practice and found a note from her mother: 'Client meeting, late back.  This money is for the store, NOT for pizza.  Mom x'

            Well, if she hadn't mentioned pizza, I wouldn't want it, Dawn thought.  So she dialled a number she and Buffy had memorised a long time ago and ordered an extra-large with anchovies.  Then she sat down to watch MTV.

            The pizza guy was quick, knocking on the door five minutes after Dawn had ordered.  She took the bills her mother had left and went to the front door, and then she nearly had a heart attack.

            A large figure stood there, broad-shouldered and tall and dressed all in black.  Dawn took a step back.

            Then the figure spoke her name, and moved into the light, and Dawn had to clutch the stair rail for support.

            "_Riley_?"

            "Yeah."  He came into the house.  "Is your mom here?"

            She shook her head.

            "Buffy?"

            "She's on vacation."

            Riley's face darkened.  "Do you know where she is?"

            Dawn hesitated.  "Yes," she said cautiously.

            "Where?"

            "I think it was a place called Westport."

            "Where's that?"

            "Somewhere in Britain."

            "You don't know where?"

            Dawn shook her head.  She was crap at geography anyway.

            Riley strode into the living room and Muted the TV.  "I need to know where she is."

            "Why?"

            "Because she's in danger."

            "What do you mean?  What kind of danger?"

            Riley looked Dawn over and realised she wasn't the little girl he'd known before he left.  Dawn was a young woman.

            "She has something that's very valuable," he said.  "And there's someone who wants it from her and he - well, he won't stop at anything."

            "But Buffy's okay," Dawn said.  "I've talked to her.  She's safe."

            "She was," Riley said.  "She's been kidnapped."

            Dawn stared at him for a minute.  "Kidnapped?  When?  How do you know?"

            "He took her from me," Riley said, looking very pissed off.  "I rescued her from him once but he came and found her.  It was about six weeks ago.  I wanted to go on looking for her but I got recalled and this is the first chance for leave I've had."

            "She was kidnapped six weeks ago and you did nothing?" Dawn shrieked.

            "I've had people out looking for her," Riley said.  "Friends.  People I trust."

            Dawn was not impressed.  "But who kidnapped her?"

            "I don't know his real name," Riley said, "but he's known as Spike.  He's a mercenary.  Thinks he's Indiana Jones.  He'll do anything for money - theft and murder being his favourites.  The worst part is that Giles trusts him.  He thinks Spike's protecting Buffy."

            "But he is," Dawn said, then stamped her foot and bit her lip.

            "You know about this?" Riley asked.

            "Mom hired Spike to take care of Buffy.  She knew some insane guy was after something Buffy has so she hired Spike to take care of her in England."

            Riley collapsed on the sofa.  "You are kidding, right?"

            Dawn shook her head.

            "Dawn, he's a killer.  The FBI are after him, Interpol, Scotland Yard, you name it.  A lot of Middle Eastern dictators have him on their wanted lists.  If he has Buffy - well, he's already raped her, I don't know-"

            "He did what?" Dawn said in a low voice, and Riley passed his hands over his face.

            "He took her by force.  I saw it - well, I saw him trying it again.  She won't say what he did to her but she was in shock when I found her.  And now he has her back... Jesus, Dawn, I don't even want to think about what she's going through."

            But Dawn was already thinking about it.  She'd been to see Xander and Anya and, while Anya remained tight-lipped about the whole thing and tried to maintain that they'd been in a car accident, Xander had told Dawn a little bit of the story.

            She'd had to wait a while, because Xander's broken jaw had taken time to heal, and Anya was very protective of him.  But eventually Xander had told them that he and Anya had been ambushed by the man who wanted Buffy, been chained in a cellar and beaten for information they didn't have.  Then they'd been abandoned.

            He didn't remember a huge amount of what had gone on, but he remembered Anya's cries as their attacker set about her.  Xander had told all sorts of ridiculous lies to make him stop, so Anya wasn't really hurt, not badly violated, but she still cried every night in Xander's arms.

            "What about Xander and Anya?" Dawn asked Riley.  "They were kidnapped too."

            "Jesus, when?"

            "Weeks ago.  They've been back here for about a month and a half."

            "Spike kidnapped them?"

            Dawn opened her mouth.  Xander had said it was the guy who was after Buffy, but he hadn't been able to tell her much.  He hadn't suspected Spike, he thought Buffy was safe with Spike.  But what if it had been Spike who tortured Xander and Anya?

            And now he had Buffy.

            "Riley, you have to help her," Dawn said.

            "Just tell me where she is."

            Buffy was sleeping, totally exhausted.  Spike lay watching her breathe, her breasts rising and falling, her hair tangled about her shoulders.  God, she was beautiful.  He couldn't believe how much he wanted her.  How much she'd given him.

            He'd keep her safe, keep her warm, keep her happy.  And he'd do it forever, if she'd let him.

            Spike was in love.

            He'd once thought he was in love with Drusilla.  No - he had been in love with her.  Infatuated with her.  Crazy about her.  Made crazier by her.

            Dru was totally insane.  She heard voices and saw stars through the roof.  And eventually she'd left him, because Spike's adoration wasn't enough.  She wanted someone more exciting.

            More exciting than Spike?  He was horribly offended.  But he knew what a psycho her now boyfriend was.  He knew that you had to be completely mad to take on Angel.  And Spike wasn't completely mad.  Just mostly.  And he'd been getting a bit tired of Drusilla's dreamy ranting.

            He ran his fingers over the soft skin of Buffy's stomach, felt the fine downy hairs there.  Buffy wasn't insane.  Well, she was a little bit loopy, but then to Spike all women were a little bit loopy.

            He traced a fingertip down her leg and she sighed in her sleep.  Another finger, and her leg moved a little, a reflex action, opening herself to him.

            To Spike, it was irresistible.

            The curls between her legs were a much darker shade than the rest of her hair, something he teased her about mercilessly.  Buffy had pouted that she was mostly a genuine blonde, but that the Californian sun had made the hair on her head blonder.  The rest of her hadn't got the message yet.

            Spike twirled a hair around his fingers.  He made little patterns, sweeping the hair this way, then that.  Then he got bored, and let one finger sink a little bit lower.  Her folds were pink and soft and easily parted, as if he was opening up a flower.  Spike dipped inside her and found a well of wetness there, then he drew his finger back up and pressed it against her clitoris.

            All the while, watching her face.

            Buffy's eyelids flickered, but she didn't seem quite aware of him properly.  He wondered if she was faking sleep, but a faker wouldn't have moved so much.

            Spike moved her clitoris in a little circle, and Buffy came awake with a sucked-in breath.

            "Don't stop," she whispered, her eyes still closed.

            Spike didn't intend to.  He invited another finger in to play, then he slipped both fingers inside her and rubbed her with his thumb, making slow circles, watching Buffy's back arch, her nipples harden.  His own breath was coming faster now.  He was getting really hard and he hadn't even been touched.  She was close, he could feel it.  Tight and hot and so wet, she was going to come soon.  And the second she did, he was going to-

            "Riley," Buffy whispered, and Spike froze.

            Her eyes opened, and she pouted.

            "You stopped."

            "You said Riley."

            She laughed.  "I was joking!"

            Spike removed his hand and wiped it on the duvet, his face turned away from Buffy.

            "Come on, Spike," she sat up, but he lay down and turned his back to her.  "It was a joke.  I thought you had a sense of humour."

            "Not when it comes to the woman I'm fucking thinking about someone else while I'm fucking her."

            "I'm sorry."  Buffy kissed his shoulder.  She peeked over him and saw that he'd wilted a bit, but he was still pretty hard.  And Buffy was feeling pretty excited herself.

            She spooned herself behind him and ran her hand over his hip, feeling the slope of his jutting hipbone.  She'd never seen a body so beautiful.  Not in pictures and certainly not in real life.  Riley was nothing compared with Spike.

            Her hand slid down to the dark curls between his legs, then up the smooth skin of his erection.

            Spike grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand away.

            "Spike," Buffy said, exasperated and hurt, "come on.  I've said I'm sorry.  I wasn't thinking about him at all.  I haven't thought about him for weeks."

            "Not since you ran away with him to Prague."

            "He took me away, and I was in shock.  And he told me you'd been raping me and I - well, what was I supposed to do?  Believe a man I'd been with for a year, or defend a man I'd known for a week?"

            "I didn't rape you," Spike said tightly, his back still to her.  "I don't rape."

            "I know that," Buffy said, wondering if there was a woman alive who'd ever resist him anyway.  "That's why I came back."

            "How did he know where we were?"

            "I think he talked to Giles."

            "Giles trusts him more than me?"

            "Giles knows Riley loved me, Spike."

            "Did you love him?"

            "Of course I did.  I wouldn't stay with someone I didn't love."

            "Do you still love him?" Spike asked after a paused.

            Buffy thought about it.  She didn't want to lie.

            "I'm not in love with him," she said carefully.

            "You went away with him."

            "I was in shock!"

            "He told you I'd raped you."

            "He wanted to believe that."

            "Then he's a bloody idiot."

            "Why?"

            "Anyone who's in love with you has to be a bloody idiot."

            Buffy got off the bed and dressed herself silently and was out of the cottage before Spike could think of a way to explain that.  When he turned over, he was alone.

            "You stupid bloody bint," he yelled, although he could hear the car moving away already.  "Sodding Buffy."

            He pulled on his clothes, grabbed his duster and strode out just in time to see the little car ricocheting out of sight.

            "Giles?" Buffy said as soon as the dial tone ended.

            "No, it's Willow Rosenberg.  Giles is at lunch.  Can I take a message?"

            "Will?  It's Buffy.  I need a favour.  Can you find me the number for the airline that flew me into Edinburgh?"

            "You're leaving Scotland?"

            "I'm going back home."

            "Is that safe?"

            "Well, nothing's happened out here.  I'm sick of the cold.  It rains all the time-"

            "Yes, but it's so beautiful..."

            "I want to go home."

            "Is Spike going with you?"

            "Spike?"  Buffy kicked the wall of the phone booth.  "Spike can rot in hell.  He's a bastard."

            "What did he do?"

            "He's just an idiot," Buffy said, and ignored the little logic train that comment sparked off.  If Spike thought only an idiot could love her...  "Can you get me that number?

            Dawn replaced the receiver and looked up at her mother.  "He says he might be able to send a telegram.  I didn't even know people still did that."

            "Well, parts of Scotland are very remote," Joyce said randomly, twisting her hands.  "How long will that take?"

            Dawn shrugged.  "I don't know, mom.  She'll be okay.  She seemed happy enough last time I spoke to her.  I think she and Spike are, you know..."

            "I can't believe I trusted him with my baby!"

            "Well, maybe Riley was exaggerating.  He just wants to get Buffy back safe."  Dawn chose not to tell her mother about the reported rape.

            "Did Giles say he'd call back?" Joyce asked, and Dawn nodded.

            Spike heard the car pull up and was at the door before anyone knocked.  But it was the Royal Mail van, and the postman was holding out an envelope.

            "Telegram for Miss Summers," he said, his accent so strong Spike could hardly understand him.

            "She's gone out," Spike said.  "I'll give it her later."

            The postie nodded and retreated to his van, picking up a clipboard and consulting it as Spike closed the door, ripped open the telegram, and read it.

            BUFFY YOU ARE IN DANGER STOP SPIKE MAY HURT YOU STOP LEAVE ASAP DO NOT LET HIM SEE THIS STOP ALL LOVE GILES

            Spike re-read it.  Then he slammed out of the cottage and wrenched open the post van's door.

                "I need a lift to the village," he said, and withdrew a shiny pistol from inside his coat.  "Now."


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

            Giles replaced the phone.  "She's left," he said.  "A flight to Manchester.  Said she didn't want to wait for the direct flight.  I told her she could be in danger from Spike..."

            "Do you really think he's that dangerous?" Willow bit her lip.

            "H-he seemed-" Tara began, but shrank when they both looked at her.

            "What?" Giles said.

            "He seemed okay to me," she mumbled.

            "He's good at gaining people's confidence," Giles said.

            "He had yours," Willow observed.

            "Yes, well, I was just pretending," Giles said, turning away and looking at some files.  The two girls glanced at each other and smiled.

            "I really don't think he'll hurt her," Tara volunteered.

            "I thought he liked her," Willow agreed.

            "William Dashwood likes one thing, and that's money," Giles snapped, turning back to them.  "He enjoys the thrill of stealing and selling and cheating and lying, and when it comes to women he is incorrigible."

            Tara and Willow were silent.

            "She said he was an idiot," Willow said eventually.

            "Who, Spike?"  Giles laughed.  "He's anything but an idiot."

            "Buffy," Spike whispered.  "I want to make love to you."

            Buffy shifted in her seat.  "Tell me how."

            "I want to kiss you until your lips are bruised.  Taste your mouth.  Lick your teeth.  Feel your tongue against mine."

            "Just kiss me?"

            "We're naked."

            "Uh-huh..."

            "I kiss your mouth and my hands move down your back, holding you to me, feeling your soft skin under my fingers.  Right down your back to your buttocks, so I can cup them in my hands, pulling you closer."

            "Are you naked too?"

            "Nearly.  Your hands are under my clothes, pushing my shirt away, unfastening my fly while I trail kisses down your throat.  God, Buffy, your throat..."

            "What about it?"

            "It's so soft.  Pale gold, like treasure.  That little dip above your collarbone..."

            "Yes...?"

            "It fits my tongue.  Perfectly.  I could just lick you there forever.  Taste your skin.  Do you know how good you taste?"

            "As good as you?"

            "Your fingers in my hair... I move lower, my fingers touching that sensitive skin on the insides of your arms, while my mouth brushes your breast..."

            Buffy closed her eyes.  "And what does it do there?"

            "Feels all the hairs on your skin stand upright.  Your nipple hardens as I breathe against it."

            Buffy was breathing pretty hard herself.  "And-?"

            "I lick your nipple."

            Buffy shuddered.

            "Take it in my mouth and suck it.  Between my teeth and bite it gently."

            "Harder," Buffy breathed.

            "My hands are moving down your body, down your luscious legs, wrapping them around my waist.  The rough denim against your smooth thighs."

            "_Yes_," Buffy said.

            "And you're pulling down my jeans, skin against skin, your legs against my hips, and I'm hard against you Buffy, so hard for you."

            "_And_?"

            "Fingers," Spike gasped.  "Fingers between your legs.  Feeling how wet you are.  How hot.  Like a bloody hot spring, Buffy, bubbling against me.  I can feel your clit, hard and swollen-"

            "Like you?"

            "And I'm rubbing it, two fingers, licking and kissing your breast, slipping a finger inside you-"

            "_God_, yes-"

            "And you're so tight, God, I want to fuck you so hard-"

            "Fuck me, Spike."

            "Not yet.  I want to taste you first."

            "Taste me?"

            "You taste so bloody good.  My mouth is moving down your ribs, your hard stomach, Jesus, you're sexy.  Right down to those curls between your legs, damp and springy, and I move your legs further apart..."

            "And then?" Buffy asked desperately.

            "...Remain in your seats until the seatbelt sign is off, on behalf of British Airways we do hope you had a pleasant flight..."

            Buffy's eyes opened.  Around her, people were fastening seatbelts and gathering possessions around them.  Buffy was alone.

            She did hope she hadn't been panting.

            She gathered her things and shuffled out of the aeroplane with the other passengers.  Outside it was dark, and Buffy realised she'd been travelling a whole day.  Driving to the nearest airport.  Getting a flight to Manchester, the closest to London she could get.  Then another flight to Stansted.  Hours and hours of waiting.  Delays.  Baggage problems.  Buffy didn't even have any luggage, but she was still delayed.

            She sleepwalked down to the train station and tried to make sense of the terminal.  Eventually she said to the guard, "I want to get to Kings Cross.  What do I do?"

            He muttered, "All day travelcard," and pointed her at a machine.

            Buffy bought her card and dozed on the train, changing at Liverpool Street and getting off at the now familiar Kings Cross.  I could get used to London, she thought, looking about her as she set her feet into the purposeful London walk of the crowd around her.  I like it here.

            Most of it.

            There were no lights on at Giles's house, and when Buffy knocked there was no answer, either.  She sat down on the step to wait, figuring if she went to the museum she'd probably miss him going out another exit.  Stay where you are, her mother had told her when she was little.  If you and I ever get separated, stay where you are.  I can find you better if I know where you were last.

            So Buffy stayed where she was, and leaned against the lintel, watching people go past.  No one looked at her.  Londoners never did.  No one made eye contact, not even in shops or restaurants.  English people were so private, she thought drowsily.  Even when you know them, they never give anything away.  Giles never does.  Spike-

            I must be dreaming, she thought.  I could swear that's Spike walking towards me.

            Oh, Jesus.  It is Spike.  And he looks really mad.

            God, I'm in bad trouble.

            Buffy cowered into the doorway, hoping Spike would think she was one of the million London homeless, but he came straight towards her, grabbed her wrist and hauled her to her feet.

            "What the fuck did you think you were doing?" he snarled.

            "What?"

            "Sodding off and leaving like that?  Leaving the country?  Jesus, Buffy - do you have any idea - any idea-"

            He looked slightly terrified, Buffy realised.  He thought he'd lost his grip on her.  Thought he'd never be able to take her to Angel and his psycho group.

            "Get off me," Buffy said firmly.

            "The hell I-"

            "Spike, I have mace.  And I have heels.  Get off me right now or I'll scream so loud your eardrums will break."

            "And you think anyone will listen?" Spike said nastily.

            Buffy opened her mouth and Spike slammed his hand over it.

            "Okay, shut up.  Why did you run?"

            "Because you were a bastard."

            "What did I do?  You were the one who said someone else's name-"

            "You said-" Buffy began, but she was too hurt to continue.  "Just go away."

            "No," Spike said, still gripping her wrist, fishing in his pocket with his other hand.  "No."

            Buffy watched as he got a key and fit it into Giles's door.

            "Since when did Giles give you-"

            "Who says he gave it me?"

            Spike pushed the door open, hollered, "Oi!  Giles?  Anyone?"  then hauled Buffy after him into the kitchen where, without even switching on any lights, he opened the fridge and rummaged through until he found some vodka.

            He drank straight from the bottle.

            "You," he said to Buffy, shuddering slightly as the cold alcohol shot through him, "are the biggest bloody trouble I have ever met."

            "Oh yeah?  You're not exactly an easy ride either," Buffy said, and regretted her choice of phrasing the second she saw Spike's amused, enquiring face.

            "You always seemed to find it easy," he said, taking a step toward her, bottle in hand.

            "That's not what I..." Buffy faltered.  Damn, why did he have to look so hot when he was mad?  This would be a lot easier if she didn't fancy him much.

            Spike stepped closer again.  Giles's kitchen wasn't large, and Buffy was backed up against the table.  Spike was a foot away from her.  She could smell his hot skin.

            "Why did you go?"

            "I-" Buffy's mind wasn't working.  This was really bad.  Why did he fry her brain like this?  She was like a dog on heat.  One sight, one smell, one taste of him...

            God, what she'd give for a taste of him...

            Spike lifted the bottle and took a deep drink, watching Buffy the whole time.  "Drink?" he offered.

            Buffy felt like she needed it.  She grabbed the freezing bottle and tipped a lot down her throat.

            "Careful-" Spike said, but Buffy wasn't listening.  The alcohol, so cold, burned through her and she shuddered deliciously, gripping the table with her free hand for support.

            "It's strong," Spike finished, looking at her with something indefinable in his eyes.

            "Blegh," Buffy said, and he smiled slowly.

            "Yeah," he said, taking the bottle back and putting his lips where hers had been.  He regarded her thoughtfully.  "Not a big vodka drinker?"

            She shook her head, making a face.  "No," she gasped.

            "More?"

            "God, yes."

            She took two more swigs, drinking hard and deep.  It was sharp and horrible, like drinking paint stripper, but it made her feel calmer and sort of heavier.  Buffy wasn't a big drinker, she'd never gone out and drunk while she was underage, and it always amazed her how much and how casually the Brits drank.  Giles had wine with dinner every day, and sometimes with lunch, too.  Willow and Tara met up in the student bar most evenings and their friends got totally off their heads several nights a week.  As students, they'd been drinking for years anyway.

            Buffy was a lightweight, and the vodka went straight to her head, numbing her nerve endings, heating her veins, dulling her senses.  It was a while before she realised Spike was even closer than she'd thought.

            "You could have got into trouble, running off like that," he said, as Buffy hefted herself up onto the table so she wasn't so close to him.

            "Giles says I'm in trouble anyway," Buffy said.  Spike reached for the bottle and she held it away from him, feeling as if the alcohol was her only friend, something to defend her against Spike and the weariness of the day.  She drank some more.

            "Easy, love, it's not lemonade," Spike said, and Buffy glared at him.  "You'll get drunk."

            "Maybe I want to."

            "You do?"

            "I don't want to have to think," she slugged some more, "about the Angelus," glug, "and Riley," glug, "and this stupid ring," another glug, as she waved the ring at him, "and you, and, and..."

            "And?"

            "And what Giles is gonna say when he finds you here..."

            "What if he doesn't find me here?"

            Buffy looked up at him in drunken incomprehension.  "Wha'?"

            "What if we go somewhere else?"

            She shook her head.  "You can.  I wanna stay here."

            Spike raised his eyebrows.  "Buffy?"

            "Yeah?"

            "Are you drunk already?"

            She scowled at him, and Spike laughed.  He took the bottle from her and drank a little more, before placing it carefully on the floor.

            "Okay," he said, putting his arms around her, "I think you need to go to bed."

            But Buffy, feeling her body held against Spike's as he tried to pull her to her feet, shook her head and grabbed his face and stuck her tongue down his throat.

            Spike had always been told that a gentleman didn't take advantage of a woman, but he wasn't feeling much like a gentleman and anyway, it was hardly like she was a stranger.  So he kissed her back, tasting the alcohol on her cold mouth as Buffy pressed her hands into his face, feeling his cheekbones, hurting him with her strong fingers.

            "Bloody hell, girl, are you trying to brand me?"

            Buffy looked up at him with big eyes and licked her wet lips.  Spike let out a groan and went back for more.

            He lifted her up on the table and she wrapped her legs around him, fitting him perfectly, her small breasts pressing against his chest.  She still had her coat on, but Spike made short work of the buttons, feeling her nipples spring to life under the fabric of her top.  Buffy made little effort to touch him more than she already was.  She hugged him closer and used her legs to push his pelvis against hers.

            "Buffy," Spike gasped with his last ounce of sense, "you're really drunk."

            "Uh-huh."

            "We don't have to do this."

            She looked hurt.

            "Don't you want to?"

            "Well - yes, of course I do, but-"

            "Good."  Buffy kissed his mouth, licked his cheekbones and his ear, nipped his neck with her teeth, while Spike struggled for breath.  He pushed her coat over her shoulders, but she wouldn't move her arms for him to remove it completely.  Instead he reached up under her top to feel her ribs, her breasts, heaving in their lacy bra, and Buffy moaned against his neck.

            Spike shoved her top up, pulled down one lacy cup and took her nipple in his mouth.

            "Spike," Buffy moaned.  "Oh, Spike..."

            His hands were on her jeans, unfastening the belt, the button, the zip.  It was tight, but he slid one finger inside and pressed it against her damp gusset.

            Buffy writhed against him and her hands slid over his body, under his t-shirt to play with the little line of hair that led down his stomach to his jeans, then followed it further, unzipping and finding him hard in her hand.

            Spike closed his eyes as her fingers closed around him, then he pulled away and yanked Buffy's jeans down to her ankles, throwing her boots across the room when they got in the way, making her giggle.

            But she soon stopped giggling when Spike moved her naked legs apart, laid her back on the table and parted her folds with his fingers.  He slid into her, hot and hard, and Buffy moaned loudly.

            She was too drunk to come, but Spike knew he'd only last a few minutes before he exploded into her.  Moaning, wriggling and writhing, Buffy lay there as he thrust hard into her, her hands on his hips, her eyes closed, whispering his name.

            Spike came, and Buffy threw her arms around him as he fell heavily down on her.

            "You didn't come," he said to her.

            "That's okay."

            "Did we just have sex on the kitchen table?"

            Buffy giggled.  "Quite a cliché."

            "Yeah."  Spike kissed her softly.  "Do you have a bed we can go to?"

            She nodded and pushed him off her.  Spike pulled out and stood up, fastening his jeans, and caught Buffy as she swayed.

            "Oh, God."

            "Buffy?"

            She looked up at him.  "I think I had too much to drink."  She blinked and swayed nauseously.  "Definitely too much."

            "Bed, then."

            "I don't think-"

            "Not that kind of bed."  Spike out his arm around Buffy, picked up her clothes, and led her up the stairs.  He took off the rest of her clothes and tucked her into the single bed she'd occupied so many weeks ago when she first came to London.  Where she'd had that first dream about Spike.

            "Don't leave," she cried as he opened the door.

            "I was going for a drink," he said.

            "Come back."

            She was drunk, Spike told himself as he went to the bathroom and rinsed out a tooth mug.  Really drunk.  Amazing, really.  Still, that was what abstaining until you were twenty-one did.  Spike had been drinking since he was about thirteen, until he could sink a whole bottle of something potent and still walk in a straight line.  Buffy was going to be smackered tomorrow.  Hangover city.

            She was asleep when he went back in, but when he took off his clothes and slipped in beside her she held him like a teddy bear, nestled her head into his shoulder, and sighed sleepily.

                Then she threw up.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

            It was late when Spike had finished getting Buffy and himself cleaned up, found some clean bedding and dumped the old stuff in Giles's washing machine, got Buffy something to drink and assured her he didn't mind looking after her.  He dressed her in his t-shirt and tucked her into the clean bed and she reached out to him.

            "Spike..."

            "I wasn't going to leave, pet, I'm just going to the bathroom.  Give me five minutes."

            She watched him go and Spike felt like he was abandoning a helpless puppy.

            He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.  So Giles thought he was a danger to Buffy, but Buffy didn't know yet.  Or they wouldn't be here in Giles's house.  And sooner or later Giles was going to walk in and probably call the police on Spike.  Not that he was particularly worried about that: Spike had been giving coppers the slip since his teens.  He'd outrun a babble of sheikh's henchmen on more than one occasion.  A London bobby wasn't going to bother him.

            Although it would mean leaving Buffy behind.

            Spike ran his hands over his face.  What the hell was it with this girl?  She yelled at him and hit him and tricked him and ran away from him, but he still followed.  It wasn't just that she was a bloody miracle in bed.  It wasn't just that she had a beautiful, lithe body, hair like silk, eyes he could drown in.  All those things were contributing factors, yes, but...

            It was that she trusted him, even when she said she didn't.  Spike thought she was bloody stupid to trust him, because who'd trust Spike?  But he was incredibly touched that Buffy did.  He'd meant it when he said that only an idiot could love her.  You'd have to be insane to spend any amount of time with someone as difficult as Buffy.

            But God, it was rewarding.

            He went back into the bedroom and Buffy opened her eyes sleepily.  She reached out to him.  "World's spinning," she mumbled.  "Make it stop."

            "I can't," Spike said with a smile.  "Too much vodka."

            Buffy's face crumpled and he swooped down, terrified she was going to start crying.  "Okay, all right, look, close your eyes and go to sleep, and that'll help."

            "Sleep with me."

            Spike stood up and took off his jeans and lifted Buffy out of the way as he got into the little bed with her.  She curled up immediately against his chest, her fist up by her face, sleeping like a child.

            Spike stroked her hair and wondered what the hell he was going to tell Giles.

            Giles walked into his house some time after midnight.  He hadn't meant to stay so late at the museum, but he'd had so much work to do.  His desk was buried under a sea of paperwork.  His eyes were blurry behind his glasses and all Giles could think of was a cold vodka tonic and sleep.

            But the vodka wasn't in the fridge where he'd left it, it was lying on the floor, spilling all over the tiles.  Giles frowned.  He'd have remembered leaving it there, or knocking it over.  He'd have thought it was the cat, apart from one thing.

            He didn't have a cat.

            Even weirder, the washing machine was running.  Who the hell had started that in the middle of the night?

            He picked up the nearly empty bottle and held it by the neck as he checked the living room and then crept up the dark stairs, avoiding the one in the middle that creaked.  His own bedroom was empty, the larger spare room was too.  The bathroom door was swinging in the breeze from the open window-

            Shit.  He hadn't left the window open.

            There was only one room left to check, and Giles pushed open the door to the box room, bottle raised.

            In the moonlight, Spike and Buffy presented a perfect tableau.  She small and fragile, dwarfed by the black t-shirt she wore, her head nestled against Spike's neck.  He dozed with his head against hers, leaning back against the headboard, barechested, looking like the protector he was paid to be.

            The protector Giles knew he wasn't.

            As if he knew he was being watched, Spike opened one eye.  He looked over at Giles and let out a small sigh.

            "She drank it," he said, and closed his eye.

            "I don't care about the vodka," Giles hissed, "what are you doing here?"

            "Trying to sleep."

            "I could call the police."

            Spike opened his eyes again.  "Do you really think that's a threat to me?  A handful of unfit bobbies panting down the street when I'm already long gone?"

            "So if I call them, you'll go?"

            Spike hesitated.  "I'll take her with me," he said, altering his grip on Buffy.  She sighed in her sleep and snuggled closer, and Giles narrowed his eyes.

            "Do you have any idea how much danger she's in?  And how much you're suspected?"

            "Have you been talking to Captain Courage again?" Spike asked wearily.

            "If by that you mean Riley, then yes.  He thinks you're involved with the Angelus group."

            "Well, I'm not.  And if you don't shut up you'll wake up Buffy and she'll probably be sick all over everywhere.  Again."

            Giles realised what the washing machine was about.  Strange, you'd never think of Spike as being remotely domesticated.  Giles would lay money Spike wouldn't know a dishwasher if it did the dance of the seven veils in front of him.

            "Is she ill?"

            Spike smiled.  "The sickness of the vodka bottle."

            "You've been giving her alcohol?"

            "No, Mr Rochester, I have not been plying your underage ward with the demon drink.  She's old enough to drink even in Yankland.  She can decide for herself how much she wants to drink."

            Buffy stirred, nuzzling Spike's neck and mumbling incoherently.  Spike stroked her hair and shh'd her.

            "Spike," she mumbled.

            "Yes, love?"

            "It's the middle one."

            Wondering what the hell she was dreaming about, Spike replied, "Is it now?"

            "Wanna save it."

            "We'll save it."

            Buffy mumbled a bit more and wrapped her arm around his waist.  Giles cleared his throat, embarrassed, and said, "I'll speak to you in the morning, then."

            He shut the door, and Spike smiled to himself as he closed his eyes.  Giles wouldn't throw them out.  He'd be too embarrassed.

            The highlands of Scotland are known for being an inhospitable climate, but Riley had no idea that the people were so prickly too.  Weren't the Scots supposed to be welcoming? Or was that the Irish?

            The truth was that, after a day's whole travelling from Sunnydale to LA International, to London Heathrow, to Glasgow, and then on a train to the nearest big town, then a bus to the nearest small town, then a taxi out to the village near where Buffy and Spike had been staying, Riley was exhausted and in a very bad mood.  He snapped at the villagers, who, having just got over one American in their midst, and a polite, pretty American too, were not disposed to take on another one.  They snapped back at him and thickened their already incomprehensible accents so that Riley didn't understand a single word.  It was like trying to speak ancient Greek when you didn't even have a modern dictionary.

            "Are they still here?" he repeated to the whiskery landlord of the pub, which was the only place in the village that showed any life.  "A London man and an American girl.  He has bleached blond hair and she's very small and pretty.  Blonde, too, but naturally."

            Sure, the landlord thought, and if you believe that I can take you out to see Nessie.

            "Ach," he said, rubbing his chin, "I dinna ken."

            Riley gave up.

            "Do you have a room?" he asked.  "You know, a room?  Where I can sleep?"

            Just because you don't understand me, doesn't mean I don't understand you, the landlord thought in mixed disgust and amusement.

            "Aye," he said, more clearly this time, "thirty pounds."

            "I have American dollars," Riley offered a wad of greenbacks.

            "Pounds," the landlord said firmly.  Where the hell was he going to change American dollars?

            "And I don't suppose you'd take AmEx, either?"

            The landlord grinned and gestured to a credit card machine.  "Now will ye be wantin' a room with a bath, or a shower?"

            In the morning, Spike left Buffy sleeping and padded into the bathroom.  The shower was hot and he stayed under until the room was thick with steam and the scent of Giles's expensive shampoo.  Note to self, Spike thought as he replaced the bottle, rip the piss out of Giles for this.

            He dressed in yesterday's black jeans and shirt, leaving Buffy curled up in his t-shirt.  She slept with her hands by her face, like a baby, fist curled around a lock of golden hair.  He stroked her cheek and she rubbed her face against his hand, catlike, dead asleep.

            "Buffy," Spike said quietly, and she didn't stir.  "I think I love you."  Buffy sighed in her sleep.  "I hope that's okay with you.  Not that I'd stop if it wasn't."

            Buffy slept on.  Spike kissed her hair and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

            Downstairs, he found Giles reading The Times while Tara and Willow giggled over the coffeepot.

            "Excellent," he said, as the toaster popped.  "I do like to come down to lesbians at breakfast."

            Giles rolled his eyes.  Willow gave him a fingerwave and Tara, getting up to fetch the toast, gave a diffident smile.

            "Where's Buffy?" Giles asked.

            "Oh, I handed her over to Angel last night," Spike said, helping himself to Tara's coffee.

            "William," Giles said warningly.

            "She's still asleep," Spike protested.  "Go and see if you like but don't bloody wake her up.  If she sleeps all day she might not feel so bad when she wakes up."

            "Buffy's here?" Willow asked, wide-eyed.

            "Is she sick?" Tara said.

            "Yes, she's here, and no, she's not sick.  Had too much to drink."

            "I thought she was going home," Willow said, confused.

            "Yes, well, maybe she thinks of this as home," Giles said with a fond smile.

            All of them looked at him.

            "Or maybe I called her mobile and persuaded her to come here instead," he admitted.  "Anyway, William, how did you get in?"

            Pissed off at being called William for the second time in one morning, Spike sucked in his cheeks and said, "Magic.  What's for breakfast?"

            "For you, nothing but a big explanation," Willow said.  "And you're serving."

            Spike made a face at her, but he consoled himself with the thought that they all had no idea he and Buffy had been having sex on that table twelve hours before.

            "I think you need to explain to me, Rupert," he said, snagging an apple from the bowl on the table and wiping it on his shirt.  "What was that telegram about?"

            "That was for Buffy-"

            "Who had already left."

            "So you read it?" Willow said.

            "Is - is that legal?" Tara asked.

            "Do I look like I'd even know?" Spike said.  "From whom is she in danger?"

            "You, by all accounts."

            "Yes, you can see how badly I've been treating her."

            "You got her drunk," Giles protested.

            "So shoot me."

            "You've had worse ideas."

            "Was it Riley?" Spike asked, taking a bite of the apple and making a face.  "It's gone soft."

            "Oh, I do apologise," Giles rolled his eyes.  "And what business is it of yours if-"

            The phone rang.

            "I'll get it," Willow offered, and left the room.

            "He thinks you're endangering Buffy," Giles told Spike.

            "Bollocks.  He was the one who kidnapped her.  Why does he have it in for me?  What did I do to him?"

            "Took Buffy," Tara said quietly, and Spike turned his gaze on her, thoughtfully, as Willow came back in.

            "Giles, do you know anyone called Dawn?"

            Giles stood up.  "Dawn?  Yes, I-" he left the room, picked up the phone.  "Dawn?  What is it?  Have you seen Riley again?"

            "Well, no," Dawn said, hesitantly, "but that might be because I'm pretty sure he's in another country."

            "Do you know where?"

            "Well, it might not be another country.  I'm not sure if it's, like, a state or something."

            "Hawaii and Alaska are states, Canada and Mexico are not," Giles said patiently, recalling a geography project he'd helped her with years ago.

            "No, I don't mean that," Dawn said.  "I mean, is Scotland like a state of Britain, or is it a country?  Or is the United Kingdom?  I can never remember."

            "It's a separate country within both the United Kingdom and Great Britain, it has its own parliament and mint but it's still under the rule of the Queen.  Dawn, why are we having a discussion about British sovereignty?"

            "Because I wanted to know if I was in the same country as Riley."

            Giles stared at the Hockney print on the wall.  "You're in Scotland?"

            "No."

            "Thank God-"

            "I'm in England.  Heathrow Airport.  I was calling to ask how do I get to London, and is the Underground really underground?  Giles?  Giles?"

            Riley called the number for the local taxi firm but could hardly understand what the man on the other end said.  Consequently he had to wait in the pub for an hour before anyone turned up to drive him.  And then he spent another half hour, while the meter was running, explaining where he wanted to go.  This was interesting primarily because Riley had no idea where the cottage was.  Thank God Buffy had been warned.

            But when he got there the cottage was empty.  The door was unlocked and there were signs of recent habitation - dirty dishes, scattered clothes, crumpled sheets... It was the sheets that really pissed Riley off.  He wanted to know what the hell Spike had been doing to Buffy.  And then he wanted to kill him for it.

            Back in the village, he was just about to collect his things from his room, ready for the long trip back to civilisation, when he overheard a man in a postie's uniform talking to the barman.

            "Och, I've nivver been so shaken!  All the way to the airport, he wanted, and the gun at me the whole time."

            Riley strode over and grabbed the man by the shoulder.  "Who had a gun?"

            The postman stared at him.

            "Who was it?  Did he have bleached blond hair, wore lots of leather, London accent?"

            Terrified, the postie nodded.

            Riley swore creatively under his breath.  "You took him to the airport?  Which airport?"

            "Glasgow."

            "Do you know where he was going?"

            The postman shook his head.

            "Fuck," said Riley, succinctly.  He turned to the barman.  "Get me that cab driver back here and tell him to take me to the airport and if he says he's busy, tell him I have a gun too."

            "If you or Buffy go anywhere-" Giles warned Spike as he grabbed his jacket, "I'll-"

            "I know," Spike said.  "We'll be right here.  I'm sure Buffy'll love to see her sis."

            "If I haven't killed her yet for being such an idiot," Giles muttered, letting the door swing shut behind him.

            Spike turned into the living room and switched on the TV.  Thank God Giles had digital.  He flipped to a news channel and looked over the local and national headlines.  No killings.  That had to be a good thing.  Meant Angel was quiet.

            He switched off the TV and went back into the kitchen, where he found Buffy, looking tired and lost in her jeans and his t-shirt, gingerly drinking orange juice under Willow's supervision.

            "Didn't think I'd see you this side of midday," Spike said, and Buffy looked up at him.  Her face was pale and her eyes looked bleary.  Buffy's first hangover.

            "I heard the phone and someone went out and I was awake," she said.  "Thought I'd get up.  Spike, how much did I drink last night?"

            "Enough," he said.  "You should eat something.  Nice greasy fry-up.  That'll make you feel better."

            Buffy went paler.  Her skin turned slightly green.  "I think I'm gonna be sick," she mumbled, and Spike grabbed a cereal bowl from the table and held it out to her.  "Can you make it to the bathroom?"

            Buffy shook her head and threw up into the bowl.

            "Or maybe the fry-up won't help," Willow ventured.  "Come on, Buffy."  She handed the bowl to Tara, who emptied it into the sink without a word and reached out an arm to stop Spike from following Buffy upstairs with Willow.

            "Let her have some dignity," she said.

            "She didn't last night."

            "All the more reason to let her have some this morning."

            Upstairs, Buffy sat miserably by the toilet, drinking the water Willow had given her.

            "I didn't drink that much," she said.

            "Well, uh, it's having quite an effect on you."

            "Not a big drinker."

            "Well, you're only twenty-one."

            Buffy nodded.  "All the bars in Sunnydale are really strict about ID."

            "Some of then are around here," Willow said, "but don't forget you can drink at eighteen in England."

            "So you passed this stage years ago?"

            Willow nodded.  "Fraid so."

            Buffy groaned and rested her head against the bath.  "He got me drunk," she said.

            "That seems like a Spike thing to do."

            "How long have you known him?"

            "Well," Willow shrugged, "not really that long.  Only when he comes to bring stuff for the museum."

            "Like what?"

            "I don't know... artefacts.  This one time, he brought us an Inca foot!"

            Buffy put her hand to her chest and tried to take deep breaths, nausea rising again.  "Really?  A foot?"

            "Yeah.  He said the rest was crushed when he stole it from these Colombian guys."

            "He gets around, huh?"

            "Yeah.  He's brought us stuff from America and Asia and Africa..."

            "Real stuff?" Buffy asked, and Willow smiled.

            "Yes, we checked.  He did try once with a fake, Giles says.  Years ago.  But Giles figured it out."

            "He's smart like that."

            "So what was the whole thing with your sister getting all scared about you and-"

            "Wait, what's that about my sister?"

            "She called here and said she'd been talking to that Riley guy, and he said Spike was really bad news so she called here and Giles got scared and sent a telegram to you in Scotland... Did you get it?"

            "No."

            "No, Spike said he read it.  He said you'd already gone.  But I thought... if you hadn't read it..."

            "We had a fight," Buffy said.

            "But you made up now?"

            Buffy shrugged.  She closed her eyes and rolled her head back against the top of the bath.  "I think so.  I don't know.  He's infuriating.  He teases me all the time but he can't take it at all.  And sometimes he's really sweet and sometimes..."

            "What?"

            "Most of the time he's a bastard."

            "Well, if he's a bastard," Willow began.  "Then why do you... I mean, why did you...?"

            "Why am I still sleeping with him?"

            Willow nodded uncertainly.

            "Because it's really good.  And because he... I don't know.  He's good to me.  God, I sound like a battered Mafia wife."

            Willow smiled.  "Giles said he cleared up yesterday."

            "Yesterday?"

            "You were sick or something.  Don't you remember?"

            Buffy pressed her hand to her clammy forehead.  "Uh, not really."  All she remembered was having drunken sex with Spike on the table that people were now eating off.  Was that what Will meant?  Cleaning the table?

            "He changed your bedding and put it in the wash.  Giles said when he came in you were asleep in Spike's arms.  That's what stopped him calling the police."

            "Because I was asleep?"

            "Because Spike was holding you.  Like he loves you."

            "He doesn't love me."  Buffy hauled herself to her feet.

            "How do you know?"

            "He just... doesn't.  I'm going to go back to sleep."

            She closed the bedroom door behind her and Willow frowned at it a while before she went back downstairs.  Spike was reading the paper and Tara was tidying away some of the breakfast things.

            "She okay?" Spike looked up when Willow came in.

            "Gone back to sleep."

            "I'm just going to go check on her-"

            "No," Willow said firmly, and Spike looked at her in surprise.

            "Don't you tell me-"

            "She needs to rest and all you'll do is disturb her.  You can take her up something to eat later.  Soup or, or something.  Chicken soup."

            Spike looked at her a while longer, then he sat down, frowning, and went back to Giles's paper.

                Tara looked at Willow over Spike's head and winked.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

            Giles found Dawn in the airport Starbucks, talking animatedly to two Australian backpackers who were both clearly smitten.

            "I can see that being alone in a foreign country is deeply traumatising for today's sixteen-year-old," Giles said drily, and the two backpackers looked up in surprise.

            "Sixteen?"

            "It's just an age," Dawn protested, as they got up and moved away.  "Thanks a lot, Giles.  One of them was really cute."

            "And he could have been working for the Angelus group."

            "Apparently everyone's working for the Angelus group.  Where's Buffy?  She didn't come with?"

            "She's not feeling too well."

            "She's sick?" Dawn's face tuned to instant concern.  "Did she drink the water?  'Cos Janice told me about this time when she was in Mexico-"

            "British water is perfectly safe to drink," Giles cut her off.  "Unlike the vodka Buffy was mainlining last night."

            "She got drunk?"  Dawn whistled.  "Buffy so can't handle her drink."

            "No, and she's feeling rather worse for wear this morning.  She's at home with Willow and Tara and Spike."

            "She's with Spike?  Do you trust him?"

            Giles sighed as he picked up her case and made his way back to the train station.  "I've never quite trusted him-"

            "But you'll leave Buffy with him?"

            Giles looked down at Dawn and saw the same stubborn face Buffy often wore.  Marvellous, he thought, there are two of them now.

            "I don't think he'll harm her," Giles said.  "I don't know exactly how honourable his intentions are, but I don't think he'll do anything to hurt her.  I think our William has a soft spot for Buffy."

            "You think he's in love with her?" Dawn asked incredulously.

            "I - well, maybe not love, but there's a lot of affection there.  I don't think he's following her out of malicious intent."

            Dawn shook her head.  "Riley said he raped her."

            "Yes, well, you'll have to ask Buffy about that," Giles said uncomfortably.  "Personally I think that was Riley seeing what he wanted to.  He doesn't want to think that Buffy could be in love with someone else, so he chooses to think that Spike forced himself on her.  But from what I've seen..."

            Dawn's eyes widened.  "You've been watching?"

            "No, Dawn, don't be ridiculous.  I just mean that when I've seen them together - _platonically_ - it looks perfectly easy and, and natural to me.  Now, do you want to travel facing the front of the train, or the back?"

            "Buffy?" Willow said, peeking around the bedroom door.  "Are you awake?"

            Buffy opened her eyes.  "Kinda."

            "Do you want something to eat?  Tara made some soup."

            Buffy wrinkled her nose.  "What kind of soup?"

            "Leek and potato.  We were going to make chicken, but we didn't have any chicken, so..."

            Buffy smiled.  "Sounds good.  Do I have to get up?"

            "'Fraid so.  Giles won't let me bring it up here."

            Buffy got out of bed and pulled her jeans back on.  She'd been sleeping in Spike's t-shirt and it felt soft and comforting.  It smelled of him, and as he wasn't there in person, that had to be good enough.

            She followed Willow downstairs, feeling a bit better.  It was late afternoon and the sky was dark with rainclouds.  The kitchen smelled of delicious creamy soup, the scent of woodsmoke drifted in from the living room and there was the sound of chatter coming from behind the door.  It was all very cosy.  Buffy took her bowl of soup from Tara and was just about to start eating when a familiar sound caught her ear.

            "Does Giles have company?" she asked.

            Willow and Tara looked at each other.  "Well - I - sort of-" Willow fudged.

            "She, erm, a f-friend-" Tara stammered, and Buffy stood up.  She went to the living room door and pushed it open and saw Giles and Spike laughing with her little sister.

            For a few seconds Buffy simply stared, and it was a while before anyone noticed her.  Then Spike looked around and his face changed.

            "Pet!  You're up.  Red made some soup, I don't know if you want-"

            But Buffy ignored him.  "Dawn?"

            Dawn smiled hopefully.  "Surprise!  I was gonna come up and see you but Spike threatened me with evisceration if I woke you up-"

            Buffy glared at Spike, who winked at her.

            "-so I thought I'd wait down here until you woke up.  How are you feeling?  Still all hangovery?"

            "I'm fine," Buffy lied.  "What are you doing here?"

            "I came to see you.  Giles said you were coming down here, and I wanted to know what was going on 'cos all we've heard has been from Riley and I'm not sure if maybe something might have exploded near his head when he was in South America 'cos he's being all floopy and not making a whole lot of sense and he seems to think you're in some kind of terrible danger but to me you just look like Mom did after that Christmas party."

            They all stared at her.

            "Okay, first of all," Buffy said, "breathe.  Second of all, does Mom know you're here?"

            "Well," Dawn squirmed, "she does now."

            "Meaning?"

            "I sort of called from the airport and left a message on the machine..."

            Buffy glared at her and opened her mouth to speak, but Spike cut in.

            "It's okay," he said, "Joyce called here and Rupert talked her down.  The little bit's perfectly safe - if a little bit stupid..." he rolled his eyes at Dawn, and she blushed.

            "Little bit?" Buffy enunciated, and Spike grinned.

            "Yeah, she's a little bit like you.  Not as stroppy," he said, standing up and pulling Buffy down into the chair with him.

            "Oh yeah?  You get a new Barbie and see if she's still not stroppy after that."

            Spike blinked at her.  "I think it's fairly safe to say there will be no Barbies in my possession until the end of time," he said.  His voice softening, he asked, "So how're you feeling?"

            Buffy sighed.  She was so horribly tired and her skin ached.  "Crappy.  Don't ever let me drink again."

            "But you're so much fun when you're drunk," Spike said, nuzzling her neck.

            "Spike, stop that.  Dawn, I'm still mad at you for coming all this way without telling Mom.  She'll be worried sick."

            "She's fine now, pet," Spike stroked her hair.  "I talked to her."

            "I thought she thought you were evil?" Buffy said in confusion, and Spike grinned.

            "Common misconception.  Now, are you going to have anything to eat?  Soak up the vodka?"

            Buffy groaned at the mention of alcohol.  "Soup only.  I don't feel up to chewing."

            Willow brought her food in and Spike had to resist the temptation to feed it to Buffy, especially when she spilled some down her chin and he wanted to lick it off.

            "This is good, Will," she said.

            "Tara made it."

            "Oh.  Tara, right."  Buffy sometimes forgot the other girl was there.  "You should be a chef."

            Tara blushed and looked away.  "Willow, we should probably be going.  I have that essay to finish and you-"

            Willow groaned.  "I know, I promised to write finish that chapter tonight.  Giles, was there this much reading when you were at school?"

            "More," Giles said.  "And we were whipped if we hadn't done it."

            They all stared.

            "British humour," Spike shook his head.  "Can't beat it."

            Tara and Willow left and Dawn, yawning, said she should get some sleep.  "It's really late in America," she said.

            "What?  No, it isn't.  It's eight hours earlier."

            "Oh."  Dawn looked confused.  "Then it must be jetlagged.  Giles, how many beds do you have?  I am not sharing with those too."

            "Too bloody right," Spike muttered, as Giles got up to show Dawn to his other guest room.

            "Not that you're getting anything tonight," Buffy told him.  "I feel like crap."

            "You didn't drink that much."

            "Yeah, but I'm really tiny," Buffy curled herself up smaller on his lap and looked up at him with big green eyes.

            "Puppy eyes won't work on me, love," Spike said sternly, but when Buffy stuck out her lower lip his eyes darkened and he bit down on her lip with sharp teeth.  "Maybe they'll work just a bit," he conceded, and cupped her head as he kissed her.

            "Oh, Lord, do you have to?" Giles groaned, coming back in.  "I'm going down the pub," he added in disgust.  "Don't drink my vodka."

            "There's none left," Spike said, stretching out his arms.

            "Well, don't drink any of anything.  I'll take a key, don't forget to lock up.  And remember Dawn is in the house."

            He left, and Buffy snuggled up to Spike.

            "I think that was intended as a warning against any kind of sex," she said.

            "Rupert Giles, human birth control," Spike mused.  "So, your sister-"

            "I hope those two subjects are not linked in your mind."

            He grinned.  "'Course not.  She said Captain Cardboard had been over to your house, spreading bad rumours about me."

            Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "Captain Cardboard?"

            "Well, he's hardly three-dimensional, is he?"

            "From what I remember, there are bits of him that are very three-dimensional," Buffy grinned, and shrieked in protest as Spike stood up, tipping her on the floor.  "Ow!  Spike, that hurt!"

            In an instant Spike was on the floor with her, pulling her hands away from her face, looking horrified.

            "Buffy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you-"

            "You never mean to, Spike."

            "Well," he gave her a little smile, "sometimes I do, but that's when you ask for it."  He touched the side of her face.  "Here?"

            Buffy reached up and touched his face in the same place.  "That's where you hit me," she said, and Spike closed his eyes.

            "Look, I'm sorry about that.  Didn't I make it up to you?"

            "You've got to stop being so jealous," Buffy said, and Spike took a deep breath, about to confess, but right then the door came open and Dawn, armed with a wooden ruler, came dashing in.

            "_Buffy_?"

            She stopped when she saw Spike kneeling over her, holding her gently.

            "Oh," she said, lowering her weapon.  "That kind of screaming."

            "Uh, Dawn, go back to bed," Buffy said, pushing Spike away and standing up.  "It's okay.  We were just, uh, just-"

            Dawn rolled her eyes.  "I get it.  Just keep it down, huh?  Some of us are trying to sleep."

            She left, closing the door firmly, and Buffy met Spike's eyes.

            She burst out laughing.

            "God, she's worse than Giles!"

            "God save us from little sisters," Spike agreed, grinning

            "Why, do you have one?"

            "One older, one younger," he said, unexpectedly.  "Harmony and Darla.  Both of them damn irritating."

            Buffy shook her head in amazement and laid her head against his chest.  Spike put his arms around her as she said, "I never really thought of you as having a family."

            "Well, where'd you think I came from?  Just hatched out on a street corner?"

            "Um, well, yeah."

            "Cheers.  I'm sure the parentals'd love to hear that."

            "You close to them?"

            "Nah, not really.  Sometimes pop back around Christmas but we don't really get on.  Not like you and your mum."

            "Well, you know, for a while it was just me and mom.  I mean, when Dawn was smaller it was kind of like we were both her parents."

            "What about your dad?"

            "He left when Dawn was a baby.  Haven't seen him since, God, since I was about fifteen."

            "You miss him?"

            Buffy shrugged.  "Not really.  He was never around that much anyway."  She lifted her head.  "Why are we talking about parents?"

            "You brought it up."

            "Oh yeah.  Spike?"

            "Hmm?"

            "Why'd you get so jealous of Riley?"

            Spike looked like she'd just punched him in the gut.  He reeled away from her, looking shocked.

            "Why'd you think?" he stammered eventually.

            Buffy flapped her hands in exasperation.  "Because of his superior height?"

            Spike ran a hand through his hair, looking tortured.  "Because you keep bloody mentioning him and - I know you still have sodding feelings for him and... he's an arsehole and it's not funny that you keep talking about - you know - it's not - he's a wanker," he finished, looking like a stubborn child.

            "Well, thank you," Buffy said.  "That cleared things up a lot."

            "I need a fag," Spike muttered, and stomped out to the back out the house, slamming the back door open and lighting up just as Buffy came after him and stood there rubbing her arms.  It was clear and dark, the sort of very clean air that brings winter with it.  Spike breathed out a grateful cloud of smoke and Buffy's own breath fogged in front of her face.

            "If it helps," she offered, "I am flattered."

            "By...?"

            "You getting jealous of my ex."

            "I'm not jealous.  I just can't imagine what you ever saw in him."

            "He's a good man," Buffy protested.  "He's kind and gentlemanly and he wants to do good things.  I don't see you signing up for any charity gigs."

            "He's as thick as shit, Buffy.  Doesn't have one intelligent cell in his whole body."

            "Well, maybe he's not the smartest guy there ever was-"

            "Damn right."

            "But then as least he's not insane."

            Spike nearly chocked on his cigarette.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

            "Drusilla?"

            Spike took a deep drag on his cigarette.  "What do you know about Drusilla?"

            "You two had a thing together, right?"

            He glanced over at her.  She didn't look mad, but even so...

            "Long time ago," he said.  "Totally over now."

            "It'd better be," Buffy said.  "Spike, she's insane.  She nearly killed you, and Xander and Anya too."

            "Yeah, well, I must have a thing for dangerous women then, eh?"  Spike glared out at the small dark garden.

            "I'm not dangerous!"

            Spike turned his beautiful head to look at her.  "Summers, since I met you I've been shot at and kidnapped and chained up and tortured and burned and chased all over three sodding countries.  No one woman has ever caused me this much damage.  Not even Dru."

            Buffy blinked.  "Then why do you - I mean, if I'm hurting you that much..."

            Spike sighed and flicked the cigarette out into the darkness.  "It's not your fault."

            "But you just said-"

            "Look," Spike caught her arms and pulled her against him.  "God, you're freezing!"  He wrapped his coat around both of them and kissed her forehead.  "I don't mind the shooting and broken bones so much if they keep me close to you," he said.  "If me getting hurt means you're safe then I'd do it all over again."

            For a long while, Buffy stared up at him with those words swirling around her head.  She had a feeling she'd never forget them.

            Then she kissed him, and if Spike was surprised then he didn't show it for long and kissed her back, and Buffy pushed his coat from his shoulders and shivered in his arms.

            "We should go inside," he said, and Buffy shook her head.

            "Dawn..."

            Spike sighed.  "Right.  Bollocks.  Look, love, it's too cold out here..."

            "Then you'll have to keep me warm."

            "And I thought you felt like crap," he reminded her.

            "Suddenly I'm feeling a lot better," Buffy said, and went up on tippy toes to nibble on his ear.

            "Giles could be back at any moment..."

            "I'm starting to think you don't want to have sex after all."

            In answer, Spike lifted up her t-shirt and ran his tongue around her nipple.  Buffy moaned and pulled him down to the ground, spread out his coat and lay back on it as Spike pulled off her clothes and she helped him off with his own.

            "God," she shivered, "it really is cold!"

            "Yep," Spike agreed, running his tongue over her hipbone.  "Is this better?" he asked, slipping his head between her legs.

            "Jesus," Buffy gasped, holding him there.  She came very quickly, surprising them both, and then Spike slid up into her warmth and they moved together, hot and pale in the darkness.  Buffy lifted her legs up around Spike's waist and felt him spill into her, crying her name as he came.

                Neither of them heard Drusilla pick the front door lock and creep upstairs into Dawn's room, stifle the sleeping teenager with ether, and carry her out of the house into a waiting cab.  It was morning before anyone realised she was missing.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

            Buffy woke up and looked at the man sleeping beside her.  He was just incredibly beautiful: cheekbones and mouth and shoulders and chest and - well, basically all of him.  Even his feet were beautiful.

            She closed her eyes a second and tried to figure out exactly what was going on with him.  So the sex was amazing, she couldn't keep her hands off him.  Best hangover cure she'd ever found.  And he could be really sweet if he thought no one was watching.  And he'd followed her all over the country... she was sure by now that he meant her no harm.  She trusted him.

            She was pretty sure she trusted him.

            So why did she still feel uneasy about him?

            Oh, yes, the fact that he'd once been madly in love with someone who possibly wanted to kill Buffy.  He'd told her about Dru last night, told her the whole story.  How this girl was totally insane, and even while she was with him she'd been messing around with Angel.  He'd have bloody killed her, but he didn't fancy getting on the wrong side of Angel.  Who was also insane.

            Great, Buffy thought, two complete wackos are after me and the only guy on my side is more interested in sex than actually doing anything useful about the situation.

            She got up, carefully replacing the duvet over Spike's luscious body, and pulled on his shirt.  Willow said her clothes had all been washed yesterday, they should be dry by now.  Buffy found them on an airer in the back passage and pulled them on, shivering.  She really needed to get her clothes sent back down from Scotland.  Maybe Dawn had some spare things she could borrow.

            She made some coffee - white for herself and strong and black for Spike, just how he liked it - and carried the two mugs carefully upstairs.  She paused outside Dawn's room, but then remembered how much her sister liked to sleep and how cranky she got if she was woken up, and went back into her own room.

            Spike was still asleep, but he'd thrashed the covers off and was lying there naked, magnificent and on display.  Buffy raised her eyebrows.  What had he been dreaming about to wake up like that?

            She carefully set the coffee cups down and ran her finger up his erection.  Spike shifted and swallowed.  Buffy wrapped her hand around him.

            His eyes opened.

            "Hell of a wakeup call, pet."

            Buffy smiled and climbed up the bed to kiss him.  "I made you coffee."

            "So are you really the perfect woman, or what?"

            "Boy, do you know how to flatter a girl."

            Spike ran his eyes over her.  He wasn't flattering.  "What time is it?"

            Buffy leaned over for the watch she'd left by the bed.  "Ten after ten."

            "Late."

            "Not surprised after how late we got in.  Giles and Dawn are still asleep.  Hey, do you know what I'd really like to do today?"

            Spike looked hopeful, and Buffy laughed.  "You'll wear me out.  I want to go sightseeing."

            "I've got plenty of sights right here..."

            "I know you do.  Come on, Spike, I want to see London and you know the city... Show me around."

            He sighed.  "Whatever you want."

            They ate a quick breakfast and left a note for Giles, who came down and read it and assumed Dawn had gone with them, since there'd been no sound from her room when he'd knocked.  Odd, really, to see someone like Spike getting on so well with little Dawn.  Although she wasn't so little any more.  Dawn was showing signs of growing up into as much of a difficult woman as Buffy.

            He tidied up downstairs and found a pair of shoes that were either Dawn's or Buffy's.  No; Buffy had only what she stood up in.  They must be Dawn's.  He took them up to her room, knocked out of habit, and went in.

            The bed was unmade - typical teenager, he thought, and was about to leave when he noticed something rather odd.

            A note on the wall.  Impaled on a Swiss army knife - the modern equivalent of a dagger, Giles thought with curious detachment as he stepped closer and read it.

            Then he went pale.

            Rushing downstairs, he almost broke his neck trying to get to the phone to call Buffy's mobile.

            "Where are you?" he demanded.

            "We're on the London Eye.  Man, this thing is high!  But oh, my God, Giles, the view is so fant-"

            "Is Dawn with you?"

            "Dawn?  No, she was still asleep when we left.  I hate waking her, she's always so cranky-"

            "She's not here.  Her bed is unmade and there's a note..."

            Panic sounded in Buffy's voice.  "She ran away?"

            "No, I rather think she was kidnapped...  Buffy?  _Buffy_?"

            Willow and Tara were summoned for their peace-keeping abilities, but there was little to be done.  Buffy was catatonic, sitting on the sofa clutching the note Drusilla had left.  '_I found a pretty jewel, but it was the wrong one.  If you bring me mine I won't hurt yours... much_...'

            Giles called the police, but Spike slammed the phone down and told him not to be such an arse.  The police wouldn't be able to find Drusilla - they hadn't succeeded so far.  And besides, Spike had no wish to run into the law.

            He paced up and down the little room, trying to figure out where they might have taken Dawn.  He couldn't look at Buffy, who was sitting there with tears rolling down her face, not seeing or hearing anyone.  He'd let her down.  He was supposed to be protecting her - but what sort of protection was it if he'd let her get hurt like this?  He had to find Dawn, just to make Buffy feel better.

            "I'm going out," he said to Tara, who was offering an oblivious Buffy a box of tissues.

            "W-where?  I think B-Buffy needs you..."

            Spike looked damaged.  He bobbed down in front of Buffy and took her by the shoulders.

            "Buffy, listen to me.  I know I said I'd protect you and right now that extends to your sister as well.  I'm gonna find the little bit, I promise I will.  I'll bring her back safe and sound."

            More tears flowed down Buffy's face.  It broke Spike's heart to look at her.  "Buffy," he pulled her to him, but she didn't seem to notice, "can you even hear me?"

            "I th-think she's in shock," Tara offered.

            "Tell her," Spike said, standing up.  "Tell her where I've gone.  I won't be back until I have her."

            Tara nodded.  "Good luck."

            Spike gave Buffy one last look and strode out, knocking past Giles in the hallway.

            "Where are you going?"

            "To see a man about a girl."

            "You're going after Dawn?" Willow asked from the kitchen.

            Spike nodded, and was gone.

            "Giles, what should we do with Buffy?" Willow said.

            "I... I don't know.  She - I suppose she should rest... She's going to need some help and support when she... I can't believe no one noticed Dawn was gone!  None of us realised she wasn't there!  How could we have been so stupid?"

            "You weren't stupid," Tara said, coming back out.  "You left Dawn here with Buffy and Spike.  It must have been while everyone was sleeping.  It's not anybody's fault."

            "We should get Buffy to bed," Willow said.  "Come on, Tara.  Giles, make some tea or something."

            "You think that's all I bloody do?  Drink tea?" Giles yelled.

            Willow blinked.  "No, I just thought it might calm you down.  Having something to do.  Plus you must be thirsty, all that yelling...?"

            Giles looked at her for a while, then he took his glasses off and polished them.  "Yes.  Of course.  I'm sorry.  A little on edge."

            Willow smiled.  "No biggie.  We're all feeling kinda _eeeee_ right now."  She edged past him and went into the living room to where Buffy still sat, still and silent, tears soaking her clothes.  "Come on, Buffy.  Back to bed."

            Between them Willow and Tara managed to push and pull Buffy back up the stairs, take her shoes off and pull the covers over her.  Buffy lay there with her eyes open.

            "Do you think we should, maybe give her something?" Tara asked uncertainly.  "Or call a doctor?"

            "Maybe we should," Willow agreed, and left the room.  But a cry from inside called her back.

            "Willow!"

            A knock sounded on the door downstairs and the girls exchanged looks.  "I'll get it," Tara said, and went don the steps as Willow pushed Buffy's door back open.  Buffy was sitting up, looking at her.

            "I have to tell you something," she whispered, looking distraught.

            "Okay," Willow came over and sat on the edge of the bed.  "What is it?"

            "About Spike," Buffy said, "and me.  We weren't asleep."

            "Oh," Willow said, realising Buffy had heard everything they'd been saying.

            "We were outside.  We were - I mean, we were..."

            "Oh," Willow said again, realising.  "Oh.  Well - look, Buffy, you still couldn't've helped at all.  Even if you'd been asleep... I mean, she could have come in here and shot you so she could take Dawn.  At least you're okay..."

            Buffy was shaking her head rapidly.  "But I'm not," she said.  "I feel - I let - and there's something else.  I think I-"

            And then she broke off, because Tara had come back, and behind her, filling the doorway, stood Riley in full black ops mode, looking very serious and pissed off.

            "Riley?" Willow said, because no one else was saying anything.  "What are you - I mean, hey, how are you?"

            He glanced at her, then focused his attention back on Buffy.

            "What happened?"

            Buffy said nothing, staring up at him, looking stricken.  Inwardly cursing Riley for turning up at such a moment, Willow said, "It's Dawn."

            "Your sister?" Riley said to Buffy, who nodded as fresh tears spilled down over her cheeks.  "What-?"

            "She's, uh," Willow looked at Tara, not certain what to tell him.  Riley seemed okay, but she wasn't sure how Buffy would feel about him knowing everything.  Exes were tricky.

            "She's gone," Buffy said.  "The Angelus kidnapped her.  Last night.  Right from under our noses."  She wiped her eyes and face and started to look more capable.

            "I didn't even know she was here," Riley said in despair.

            "She came yesterday.  I guess they must have followed her here or something."

            "Did Spike know you were here?"

            Buffy nodded.  "I think he told them."

            "But, Buffy-" Willow began, and Buffy waved at her to shut up.

            "I need to talk to Riley alone," she said.  "Could you just give us a minute?"

            Willow looked torn, but she left the room with Tara following, and shut the door.

            "He brought me here and when Dawn turned up I think he told them.  He had me distracted last night when she was taken," Buffy said, "and now he's gone.  I need your help.  I think he might have taken her to that cottage, remember, where you found me that time?  In Yorkshire.  We need to go-"

            "Wait, hold on," Riley held out an arm, "we?  You're not going anywhere-"

            "She's my sister-"

            "They want to kill you!  Buffy, this is really dangerous.  They know where you are-"

            "All the better reason for me to leave-"

            "I'll take you to a safe house, then."

            Buffy's eyes glittered.  "Fine."

            She shoved her feet back into her shoes and stomped down the stairs.  "Will, can I borrow your coat?"

            "Oh, Buffy, you're feeling better," Giles said.

            "You're going out?" Willow said, clearly disgusted.

            "Riley's taking me somewhere safe," Buffy said, and mimed behind Riley's back, "_I have my cell_."

            "But-" Willow began.

            Giles cottoned on immediately.  "I see," he said.  "Well, Riley, I hope you'll be taking care of Buffy.  She's been feeling a little under the weather recently."

            "Don't worry, Mr. Giles, she'll be safe with me," Riley said.  "And I'll find Dawn, I promise."

            He hustled Buffy out of the door and into the cool afternoon.  Buffy huddled into Willow's funky red coat and said to Riley, "So, where's this safe house?"

            "We'll need a cab.  Come on, there'll be one on the main road."

            As they walked, Buffy hurrying to keep up with Riley's long strides, he told her, "I went looking for you in Scotland.  Giles told me you were with Spike.  Were you - I mean, did he-?"

            "No," Buffy said.  "No.  He was injured.  He kept trying," she added, "but he wasn't strong enough to hurt me."

            "But why did you come back down here?  The postman I spoke to in Scotland said Spike had threatened him with a gun but you weren't there..."

            "Oh," Buffy said, "yeah, well, I escaped.  And Spike followed me.  And caught me.  And brought me here.  Um.  I don't know why.  So Drusilla could come get me, I suppose.  Or Dawn.  Um..."

            "You know about Drusilla?"

            "I, er, got some stuff out of Spike," Buffy said.  "Oh, look, is that a cab?  I've never been in a black cab."

            Riley flagged down a minicab, much to Buffy's disappointment, and they got in.  "Liverpool Street Station," he told the driver, who took off as Buffy perched nervously on the big back seat and looked over at Riley.

            "So, er, how far is this safe house?"

            "I can't say," Riley said.

            "Right.  People might be listening.  Do you, er, if someone is listening, can you, um, deal with them?"

            Riley frowned at her.  "You mean am I armed?  Don't be silly, Buffy, that's illegal," he said, and smiled at the driver.  Then he flicked open his jacket and showed her the gun hiding there.

            "Oh," Buffy said.  "Oh.  Good."  She moved a little closer.  "You know, that's actually really sexy.  The whole, you know, secret commando guy get-up."  Closer still.  "If we weren't in the back of a cab I'd - no, I can't say it."

            "You'd what?" Riley looked interested.  The car pulled up at a red light.

            Buffy leaned closer as if to whisper in his ear.  The taxi driver looked back at them and saw Buffy press something against Riley's leg.  He jerked and then went really still.

            Buffy turned to the driver, who pretended to be watching the lights.        

            "Hi, excuse me," she said, and he turned around to look at her.  "Which one of those levers is the handbrake?"

            He stared at her.  "You what?"

            "The handbrake.  That stops the car from moving when you take your foot off the brake.  I don't really drive," she smiled prettily.

            "Right," the cabbie said doubtfully.  "It's this one."

            "Ah," Buffy said.  "I see."  Then she pressed the prongs of Willow's rather illegal stun-gun against the driver's shoulder, reached over and yanked up the handbrake, then borrowed Riley's weaponry and got out of the car and left it there in traffic, as the lights turned to green and people started beeping furiously at the static cab.  It stayed where it was, both driver and passenger unconscious.

            Spike stood outside the old theatre and looked up at the boarded over windows, high above the pavement.  He couldn't believe it hadn't been torn down yet - but then, if the Angelus still owned it, who was going to go out on a limb to clean it up?

            He remembered the first time Dru had brought him here, high on something, giggling and lolling against him as he kissed her.  God, Dru.  He'd loved her so much.

            Now he wanted to kill her.

            He strode around the back of the theatre to the stage door and settled down to wait for nightfall.

            "Did he say where he was going?" Buffy demanded as she wove through the busy crowds, trying to hear Giles through the interference on her mobile.

            "No, just that he was going to look for Dawn."

            "And he didn't say where?  Damn," Buffy yelled, quite loudly.  No one paid her any attention.  Someone yelling into a phone was not unusual in any part of London.  "Giles, I need to know.  I really have to find him."

            "Buffy, this could be very dangerous.  In fact, I'm quite sure it will be very dangerous-"

            "I don't care, Giles," Buffy said, pushing past a crowd of American tourists in Tower of London t-shirts.  "She's my sister.  _I have to find her_."

            "Look, come back here and we'll try to work it out."

            "I can't.  I can't sit still and -  I have to be out here.  I have to, Giles."

            "All right.  Look, I'll call you if we think of anything."

            "Originally," Angel said, "it was used in a production of King Lear, some time around the turn of the century.  Which is coincidentally when this theatre was last used - see, it's so old there's not even any electricity.  At night it's pitch black...  Audiences were so disgusted by the violence of the play that they abandoned the theatre and it became derelict.  It passed into my hands on the death of my father."

            "How did he die?" Dawn asked in a tiny, terrified voice.

            "Massive blood loss.  Due mostly to the bullet I put in his heart."

            Dawn shrank back against the hard wood of the high-backed chair.  Her hands and feet had been chained to the arms and legs of the chair, pinned down by tight cuffs, and there was a metal brace around her neck.  At the back of the chair was a screw that tightened the brace.  Dawn had to breath in little gasps or her windpipe got pressed shut.

            "Do you like the theatre, Dawnie?  Can I call you Dawnie?"

            Dawn gave the tiniest of nods.

            "Excellent.  I love the theatre.  You know there's been a theatre on this site since Shakespeare's day?  'Tis Pity She's A Whore premiered here.  Have you ever seen it?"

            Dawn shook her head.

            "It's a great play.  The main character impregnates his sister then cuts her heart out when she marries another man."

            Dawn started to feel sick.  She'd woken up in this torture chair a few hours ago and Angel had spent the whole time wandering around her in circles, all over the stage, tossing what looked like a real human skull from hand to hand, talking to her about revolting plays he'd seen.  Titus Andronicus, where a girl was raped and mutilated, the Duchess of Malfi, Hamlet (hence the skull), and now some horrible incestuous Jacobean tragedy where people cut each other's hearts out.

            "You see," Angel leaned over Dawn, his face close to hers, "it's always about blood.  Not love, not politics, no matter what modern playwrights try to tell us.  It's blood.  Blood that flows, blood that leaks."  He produced a small knife and Dawn shrank away from him, but not before he'd run the blade along her arm and a thin line of red blood appeared.  "Blood that binds.  Like it binds you to your sister.  Now, Dawnie, she has something I want.  Something I need."

            "That ring?"

            "Yes.  I knew you were a smart girl, Dawnie."

            "Why do you want it?"

            "Why?  Do you know what is in that ring?"

            Dawn shrugged fearfully.  "Um, diamonds?"

            "No.  Not diamonds.  Well, yes," he smiled charmingly, "diamonds, but not just that.  Something I really, really need."

            "What's that?"

            He smiled.  "I'll show you when I get it.  How long do you think it will take your sister and her boyfriend to find us?"

            "She doesn't know London."

            "Oh, but _he_ does," Angel's eyes were dark and frightening, "he does."

            Riley woke up in the back of the cab, a policeman looking down at him.  "Sir?  Do you remember what happened?"

            He blinked, feeling sick and dizzy.  "Where is she?"

            "Where is who, sir?"

            "Buffy.  The - the girl..." Riley felt as if he was drunk.  His words were slurring and everything was blurred.

            "There's no girl, sir.  It looks like you were attacked."

            "They took her?"

            "There's that possibility, sir.  Sir?  You really must stay still, there's an ambulance on the way..."

            "No," Riley shoved the other man out of the way and fought his way out of the car.  "Gotta find Buffy."

            Giles was slightly surprised to find Riley on his doorstep again, looking rather the worse for wear.

            "Is she here?"

            "You mean Buffy?  No, I - I haven't heard from her."

            "They took her.  Ambushed the cab and took her.  Shit, Giles, I don't know where she is.  They could have taken her anywhere - they have bases all over..."

            "Wait," Giles grabbed his arm, "you know where their bases are?"

            "I-" Riley looked torn.  "I've been trying to deal with them.  Get them the ring so they'd leave Buffy alone.  That's why I kept her in Prague."

            Giles was furious.  "You knew?  All this time, you knew where they were and you wanted to take her to them?"

            "No, not her - just the ring.  She should never have had it... I didn't think they'd ever come looking for it..."

            "Why is it so special?" Willow asked, emerging from the kitchen and eyeing him coldly.

            Riley sighed, looking defeated, and went into the living room where he threw himself at the sofa and put his face in his hands.

            "There are five little stones, right?"

            "Right," Willow said.  "All diamonds, I think.  Aren't they diamonds?  Wait, can they be used to power like an invisibility ray or something?"

            Giles gave her a weary look.

            "No," Riley said humourlessly.  "Nothing like that.  But there is something very powerful in there.  A computer chip."

            "In the ring?"

            "The base of the centre diamond.  It was put in there to be kept safe.  It's part of a weapon, something very powerful.  This thing'd make the A-bomb look like an air rifle."

            "And Buffy has that on her finger?"

            Riley nodded miserably.  "It was put there by a base in South America... Entrusted to a commander who was shot down by the Angelus.  The ring was retrieved and came to me.  I gave it to Buffy for safekeeping - she'd never lose something like that and never be suspected.  Or so I thought..."

            There was silence for a while as Willow and Giles stared at him.  Then Giles said, "You bloody idiot."

            Riley looked shocked.

            "You didn't think they'd find out?  You put an innocent girl in danger - and not just her, her family and friends - have you seen what happened to Xander and Anya?  God only knows what's happening to Dawn right now.  And all because of some stupid little chip that should have been destroyed instead of protected.  You're all bloody stupid."

            With that, he stomped out of the room, and Willow was left feeling awkward.

            "So," she said, "these bases the Angelus have...?"

            Buffy felt as if her feet were going to fall off.  She'd been walking for hours, just looking for Dawn with no real sense of direction.  London was so damn big.  Something like a hundred square miles, and that wasn't including outer London.  Tens of millions of people.  Street after crooked street.  Thousands of black cabs, hundreds of small alleys.. It was impossible.

            She leaned against a shop window and tried not to cry.

            Right then her phone chirruped, and Buffy yanked it out eagerly.  "Willow?"

            "I have some addresses for you.  Where are you?"

            "Uh..." Buffy looked up at a street sign.  "Uh, WC1."

            "Great!  There's an abandoned theatre near you that's apparently a sort of Angelus gang hangout-"

            "Wait, how do you know all this?"

            Willow giggled.  "Riley.  He - well, okay, it's not funny, but he has contacts in the Angelus and-"

            "_What_?"

            "He's the reason you have the ring.  I mean - he knows why they want it and he was going to give it to them but - anyway.  We got him to tell us where we could find them.  And then Tara knocked him out."

            "She did what?" Buffy said, trying to picture shy little Tara clonking big, burly Riley.

            "With a frying pan.  And then tied him up.  It was kinda mad," Willow laughed.  "Anyway.  What street are you on?"

            "Uh, St Giles High Street, weirdly enough."

            "Okay.  You're really close.  You need to go to the end of the street and turn onto Tottenham Court Road..."

            Spike looked up at the sky.  It'd be dark enough now.  He knew what a pit that theatre was.  With any luck he'd be able to get in there and get a shot at at least one of them before they realised he was there.  Too risky in the daylight.

            He checked the bullets in his gun and got out his lock-picking kit.

            Buffy found the theatre and went around the back, like Willow had told her to.  It overhung the river and the dark water sloshed unappetisingly below her.  Buffy was frightened - it was pitch dark around here and, despite the overwhelming crowds of the West End in the evening, around here it was deserted.

            She looked at the gun she'd stolen from Riley, glanced around, and took an experimental shot at the river.

            Right.  That seemed to work.  Buffy fastened up Willow's red coat and squared her shoulders and approached the stage door.

                "Showtime," she said, and opened the door.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

            Dawn looked warily around the stage.  It was small - smaller than she'd expected, anyway - and lit all around with candles.  There were candles in little boxes at the edge of the stage.  Footlights.  Dawn thought they looked dangerous, especially with Drusilla's long flowy dress brushing past all the time.  But right now catching on fire was not the worst of her problems.  Drusilla had turned the screw at Dawn's neck a hundred and eighty degrees and Dawn was finding it hard to breathe.  She knew Buffy would do everything she could to find her - maybe send in the army or a SWAT team or... What did they have here?  The SAS.  James Bond and MI6.  Spike.

            She tried to concentrate on the bizarre relationship her sister had with this man.  So he was being paid to look after her, but he was also sleeping with her.  From the way he looked at her, Dawn knew he loved Buffy.  But Buffy seemed pretty indifferent.  Or maybe she'd just been hungover.  It was sometimes hard to tell.

            Angel and Drusilla had disappeared temporarily, after a heavy necking session, to one of the millions of backstage rooms.  Dawn had been left under the watchful eye of a big, muscly man called Adam.  He didn't look like an Adam.  Adam was a cultured, refined name.  This man looked like a brick shithouse, with braincells to match.  And a very big gun.

            Dawn was terrified.

            Spike made his way on silent feet around to the front of the stage.  The brilliant advantage of a place like this was that there were no house lights, so he could creep around the auditorium completely unseen.  He knew that if you were on the stage, the audience was invisible, the lights were blinding.  The amount of times he and Drusilla had played with people trapped on that stage, unable to see that anyone was watching them, aiming at them, shooting at them... Helpless on the stage, just like the little bit in her chair, unable to see a goddamn thing, no idea when death was coming, or even that it was coming at all...

            Spike closed his eyes.  God, he'd been a bastard.  If Dru shot him here and now, it was all he deserved.

            So long as he saved Dawn.  And kept Buffy safe.  He'd do anything, so long as Buffy was safe.

            Suddenly he heard a sharp noise, a muffled _pshew_ and a cry and a loud thud.  A gun with a silencer.

            The man-mountain watching Dawn toppled to the boards and rolled down the steep rake of the stage.  Spike leapt up onto the boards to try and catch him, but it was too late.  The body rolled towards the edge, knocked into a footlight and set the candle falling to the ground.  The body went up in flames.  The carpet caught fire.  Spike spun around and saw Dawn still trapped in her chair, staring at him in horror.

            "You all right, bit?"

            But she didn't seem able to talk, and Spike knew they'd turned the screw tight enough that her voice was useless.

            "Oh, Jesus," came a voice from the wings, and Spike looked up and nearly fainted in terror when he saw Buffy standing there, a gun in her hands.  "Spike, help me get Dawn out of that chair thing.  Dawn, it's okay.  We're gonna get you out."

            She rushed over, but halted in the middle of the stage, caught like a rabbit in headlights, and Spike turned to see what had stopped her.

            Angel, standing there with a gun.  And on the other side of the stage, Drusilla, also armed.

            "Oh, bollocks," Spike said quietly.

            "William," Angel greeted him, gun trained on Dawn's head.  "Is this the fabled Buffy?"

            "Yep."

            "Very nice.  Buffy.  I'm Angel."

            "Now that's the misnomer of the century.  What do you want with my sister?"

            "Oh, nothing much.  She's a pretty little thing though, isn't she?  Be a shame to blow a hole in her head.  Which I might have to do unless you drop that gun you're holding."

            Buffy glanced at Spike.  Would he cover her?

            "Drop it," Drusilla said from behind Buffy, and Spike tried to size up whether he could get them both before either of them shot at Dawn or Buffy.  No.  It would be impossible.

            There was only one thing he could do.

            He held up his gun and ostentatiously let the cartridge fall to the floor.  Angel watched in amazement.

            "I said she should drop hers, William," he said, "but thanks very much.  Buffy, sweetheart, do me a favour.  Drop your gun or I'll be making doughnuts out of your sister's brains."

            Dawn's terrified blue eyes flickered at her sister.  Buffy, looking stricken, tossed the gun on the floor.

            "Nice piece," Angel said.  "Riley's?"

            She nodded.

            Drusilla came forward and picked the gun up.

            "Hey," Spike said, "don't I get a reward?"

            They both looked at him.

            "Reward?"

            "For bringing her here?"

            Buffy turned and stared at him.  In the flickering light from the spreading fire in the auditorium, Spike's face was hard and cold.  He flashed her a smile.  "You were a damn good screw, pet," he said.  "Took me bloody long enough to get you here."

            Buffy put her hand to her throat.  She felt sick.

            "You were working for them?"

            "You were working for us?" Angel echoed, just as amazed.

            "Hey, mate, no hard feelings.  I bring you the chip, I get a share of the proceeds, right?"

            Tears rolled down Buffy's face.  "All that stuff you said...?"

            Spike laughed softly.  "'Anything to keep you safe'?  'Protect you with my life'?  Oh fuck off, Elizabeth.  Did you really think I'd fall for a skinny whelp like you?  You were a good fuck, but-"

            "Stop it," Buffy said through gritted teeth.

            "Oh, it hurts, does it?  Poor little sheltered Buffy can't take it like she can deal it.  I'll tell you what bloody hurts, love.  Broken soddin' ribs, gunshot wounds, having to look at you like I loved you.  Made me feel bloody sick.  And you know what?  I nearly was, the first time I went down on-"

            "Stop it," Buffy said, louder.  She raised her hand and yanked off the ring.  "Is this what you want?  This little ring?  Why do you want it?  What was that about a chip?"

            "Very important chip," Drusilla said, looking at Spike like a cat with cream.

            "Yeah?"  Buffy let the ring fall to the floor and Angel and Drusilla started after it but Buffy caught it with her heel.

            And crunched it, hard.

            "No!" Angel yelled, and switched his aim from Dawn to Buffy.  And fired a shot.

            Buffy crumpled to the floor.  A tiny scream escaped from Dawn's constricted throat, as Spike whirled around and fired one shot from his apparently empty gun, hitting Angel right in the head.

            Drusilla screamed, an insane mad scream, which was suddenly echoed by a loud yell from the auditorium.

            "Drop your weapons.  This is the police.  Drop your weapons.  The fire is spreading."

            Drusilla aimed her gun at Spike and fired one shot.  He fell to the ground, close to Buffy, and reached for her hand.

            There was a fourth shot, and Drusilla fell, a large red hole in her chest.

            "Baby tricked me," she gasped, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

            The fire surged higher.

            Buffy woke in hospital, her sister sitting beside her, holding her hand.

            "Hey," Dawn croaked.  "How're you doing?"

            Buffy rolled her shoulders and registered immediate pain.

            "I've felt better," she said.  "Dawn, your neck..."

            The brunette touched her hand to her throat.  "Iron collar," she said.  "Hurts like fuck."

            "Dawn, Summers, watch your language!"

            Dawn smiled.  "You can't be that bad if you're still scolding me."

            "What happened?" Buffy asked, and Dawn looked torn for a moment.  She held up a finger and left the room, and Buffy sat up in bed, looking around in confusion.  Her chest hurt, but not horribly - more like a bad bruise.  She peeked under her gown.  Yep.  Pretty nasty bruise.  Almost as bad as Dawn's.

            Her sister came back in, followed by Willow, who smiled and said, "Dawnie's throat really hurts, so she asked me to tell you what happened."

            "Oh," Buffy said.  "Okay..."

            "God, I don't know where to start.  When Giles found out I'd told you to go to that theatre, he insisted on calling the police to alert them.  They sent out like one British bobby, but when he got there he smelled smoke and called for backup.  They got in and saw you all shooting at each other..."

            "I think someone shot at me..." Buffy said, looking at her chest again.

            "Yeah.  Angel did.  It's a good job you took Riley's Kevlar."

            Dawn rolled her eyes.  "You could have said," she croaked.  "I thought you were dead."

            "We thought all of you were," Willow said.  "After Giles shot Drusilla-"

            "Wait, _Giles_ shot Drusilla?" Buffy said.  "Since when was Giles there?"

            "He crept in around the back with a seventeenth-century duelling pistol he stole from the museum," Willow said cheerfully, as if this was perfectly normal.  "Made quite a mess.  He said he would have hit her in the head, but those ancient pistols are not very accurate.  He does game shooting, you know."

            "Hence the cottage on the moors..."

            "Yep.  Riley said you were hinting that he should go there...?"

            "I was trying to get him out of the way," Buffy admitted.  "Is he okay?"

            "He's fine," Willow said.  "He wants to come in and see you."

            "Well, he'll have to want," Buffy said firmly.  "I am so pissed at him."

            Willow and Dawn exchanged glances.

            "Don't you want to know what happened to Spike and Angel?" Willow asked.

            Buffy closed her eyes.  Images filled her head, images of Spike telling her he'd been lying all the time, making it up, working for the man who'd nearly killed her, and Dawn...

            "I'd really like to be alone right now," she said.

            "But-"

            "I just want to be on my own.  I don't feel too good."

            "You want me to get the doctor?  They said-"

            "No.  I'm okay.  Just go.  Just go away!"

            Willow left, and after a horribly long pause, so did Dawn.

                Buffy slumped back against her pillows and cried.

Okay, so that was a really short little chapter.  But I feel like making you wait for the ending… I'm almost as evil as the Angelus gang themselves…

_etaknosnhoj_


	16. Epilogue

Epilogue

            Buffy stretched right up and put her arms around Riley.  "You take care," she said.

            "I will.  And you too.  I mean that.  You gotta look after yourself."

            She smiled.  "Believe me, Mom and Dawn are making sure I do.  Say hi to Sam for me."

            "I will."  Riley bent down and kissed her cheek.  "Bye, Buffy."

            "Bye."  She closed the door and leaned against it, her eyes closed for a second.  Riley, married.  It was insane.

            "It's nice you two are talking again," Dawn said, coming down the stairs.

            "Well, you know.  He's a good guy, he's just not my good guy," Buffy said, heaving herself upright and going through into the kitchen.  "We had a long talk about London.  He said he was a sorry about a million times - you know, I actually got sick of the sound of it."

            Dawn smiled.  "I might have to get that in writing.  You know - Spike said he was sorry..."

            Buffy's smile faded.  "Yeah.  Well, not to my face he didn't."

            "Look, if you call him or, you know, get Giles to call him or something... I know he'd love to see you, and you really should-"

            "No," Buffy said sternly.  "No.  I still haven't forgiven him for... For the things he... Look, I just want to forget about him, okay?"

            "Like that's ever going to happen," Dawn muttered.

            "What was that?"

            "Um, I said I'd better go.  I'm meeting RJ at the Bronze.  You don't wanna come with...?"

            Buffy made a face.  "I really don't think that's appropriate, do you?"

            Dawn laughed.  "Well, maybe not.  Okay.  I'll see you tomorrow.  Tell Mom I took my sneakers to drive in, okay?"

            Buffy grinned.  "Sure I will.  Have fun."

            Dawn skipped out of the door and Buffy watched her go, adding to herself, "'Cos I know I won't."

            Spike sat in his sister's kitchen and drummed his fingers on the table.  It was scrubbed oak, very farmhouse, and there was a gingham runner down the centre.  The walls were a rustic yellow and the cupboards all had artful cracks in them.  Harmony had wanted a rustic, farmhouse look, but she had absolutely zilch taste.  The place made him feel ill.

            "Come on, Spikey," she said, coming back into the kitchen and untying her frilly apron.  "Don't just sit there moping.  Go and find her.  Ravello Drive isn't that far away."

            "I am not moping," Spike said.

            "Look, Spike," his other sister came in and dumped some dishes in the sink, "much as it pains me to say, Harm's right.  You've been a misery-guts for bloody weeks now.  Go and find her.  You can even take my car."

            He looked up for a brief second.  "You don't have a bloody car.  They impounded it when you lost your licence."

            "Yes, well, if I had one you could borrow it," Darla said, unruffled.  "I'm sure Harm'll lend you the Beemer, right, Harm?"

            Harmony didn't look happy about the idea, but she nodded.  "If it'll stop him looking so miserable," she said.  She chanced a glance at her sister, who nodded.  "I went into her Mum's gallery yesterday," she said casually.

            "Harm, you hate modern art.  If it doesn't have a unicorn in it, you hate it.  Remember?"

            "Well, I still went in.  And I got chatting to Joyce and she said Buffy's ever so down these days.  Really misses someone but she's too proud to call him... But she really should have called him..."

            "And I happen to know that her sister will be out tonight," Darla chipped in.  "I met this guy who has a brother in high school and he said his brother is going out with this girl called Dawn Summers.  They're meeting up tonight."

            "And there's a late showing at the gallery," Harmony added.  "Buffy will be all alone..."

            "She's probably got a date," Spike said, fingers drumming faster.  "Girl like her won't be single for long."

            "Only if she wants to date," Harmony pleaded.  "Go on, Spikey-"

            "Stop bloody calling me that!"

            "All right, then, William," Darla snapped.  "Just go and see her before I start testing out my new pepper spray on you."

            "You can take my car," Harmony wheedled.

            "Why are you two so desperate for me to see her?  Is that the only reason you invited me out here?"

            "No," Darla said airily, "I wanted you to beat up this guy who won't stop pestering me.  But since you're here..."

            "Fine," Spike shoved his chair back and stood up.  "I'll bloody go."

            He snatched up Harmony's keys and stalked out.  Behind his back, the two sisters high-fived each other.

            Spike got in the car and reversed far too fast out of the drive.  He drove one block east and another south and then he stopped.  This was stupid.  He couldn't just turn up unannounced.  He didn't need to see her.  He needed to move on.

            It was just because she smelled so good.  He'd smelled her perfume on a woman on the Tube the other day and nearly got arrested for following her.  Why did he miss Buffy so much?  Why was she so special?  Why couldn't he get her out of his head?

            Why was he suddenly outside her house?  He didn't even remember driving here.  But he'd been by so often, every day since he came to Sunnydale.  It wasn't that he was stalking her, it was just...

            Okay, he was stalking her.

            He peered through the dining room window and saw her sitting behind the table, book in hand, papers spread out all over the tablecloth.  That was right - she was doing some sort of course.  Harmony had heard it from Joyce.  Some art history thing.

            She was wearing glasses - a new addition, and very adorable - and her hair was falling out of its clasp.  She was so incredibly beautiful.

            Spike was out of the car and halfway up the path before he realised what he was doing.  He paused, swore to himself, and stomped up to the door.  If she didn't answer after ten seconds he was leaving.

            ...four, three, two...

            He turned away.

            And then the door opened.

            "Can I-" Buffy began, and then stopped.  There was a long pause, so pregnant its waters were nearly breaking.

            "_Spike_?"

            "You got me," Spike said, unable to turn and look at her.  "Thought you were out," he added.

            "I was studying.  Home study - like correspondence, you know..."

            "Right."  His eyes were fixed on the wing mirror of Harmony's car.  There was a longer pause.

            "Are you gonna turn round?" Buffy asked eventually.

            Spike took a deep breath and spun on his heel to face her.

            His head went light.

            He fainted.

            He came to on an unfamiliar couch, bright lights in his eyes. Something damp on his forehead.

            "God, Spike, are you all right?  What happened?"

            "Something you must never tell anyone about," Spike said.  "Ever."  He blinked and turned his head.  Buffy was kneeling by the sofa, a damp cloth in her hand and a worried expression on her face.

            "What happened to your face?" she asked

            "What happened to your stomach?"

            Buffy's arm went around her waist - or where her waist used to be, before Spike's baby filled it out.

            "Oh," she said.  "Yeah.  I was sort of going to tell you about that..."

            Spike stared at her.

            "Well, okay, so I wasn't."

            "You're pregnant?"

            She nodded.

            "Is it - is it-"

            "It's yours," Buffy said.

            "Jesus."  Spike let his head fall back on the sofa arm.  "Bloody hell."

            "You're not going to faint again, are you?"

            "I didn't faint.  I - I blacked out.  In shock.  Bloody hell.  She didn't tell me that."

            "Who didn't tell me what?"

            "Harmony."

            "Harm - wait a minute.  Does she like unicorns?"

            Spike nodded painfully.

            "Mom said some rich English girl had been asking about me.  God.  That's your sister Harmony?"

            "Yep."

            "But - Mom said she was titled.  Like, Lady Harmony."

            "Yep."

            "But..."

            Spike gave her a weary smile.  "If your full name was Lord William Henry Dashwood, Viscount of Spellingdon, would you tell everyone?"

            Buffy's mouth dropped open.  She swayed on her knees.

            "You're a _lord_?"

            "Yeah.  Well - no, but my dad is.  It's a courtesy title... When he dies I'll be the Earl of Stanchester."

            Buffy clutched at his hand.  "The-"

            He peered at her.  "You all right, love?"

            "Yeah, I'm - I just-"

            Spike grabbed her shoulders as she swayed, and awkwardly swung her onto the sofa in his place.

            "Shouldn't have shocked you," he said.  "Not in your, er, your..."

            "My condition?"  Buffy smiled.  "Believe me, I've had enough shocks since I found out.  Actually, finding out was the biggest shock..."

            "Why didn't you tell me?"

            Buffy sighed.  "Well, I... Okay, to begin with I thought you were evil."

            "A common mistake.  As I recall, love, I saved your life."

            "As I recall, _love_," Buffy shot back, "you said you'd been using me and I made you feel sick.  And then the person I thought was your ally shot me."

            Spike's fingers tightened around her wrist.  "He was never my ally," he said.  "Ever.  After what he did to you, and your sister and your friends... If I hadn't already killed the fucker, I'd do it again."

            Buffy stroked his hair.  "Giles explained it all to me," she said.  "He said he'd talked to you.  He didn't tell me..." She trailed off, and her hand slid gently down the side of his face.  There was a burn mark there, a livid pink puckered scar, and Spike winced slightly at her touch.

            "Does it hurt?"

            "Only when I laugh."

            Buffy smiled.  "He said your gunshot would was healing okay..."

            "What about yours?"

            "Bulletproof vest.  You didn't think I'd go in there without protection, did you?"

            "Speaking of which..."

            Buffy blushed.  "I was on the Pill," she said.  "I really was.  I didn't lie to you about that.  I don't know... I guess it must have been a timezone thing or maybe because I took it late or something.  I never thought..."

            Spike reached out and placed a hand on her swollen stomach.  "Neither did I.  Wish you'd told me, Buffy."

            "What was I supposed to do?  Call you up and say, hey, you know you said sleeping with me made you sick?  Well guess what?  It got me pregnant.  Congratulations."

            "It never made me sick," Spike said.

            "Did me."

            He stared at her.

            "The morning after the vodka?  Wasn't hangover.  Morning sickness.  I have been throwing up for bloody months."

            Spike gave her a smile.  "I've been thinking about you for months."

            "I missed you," Buffy said quietly, and Spike's heart turned over.  He lifted her chin and kissed her, and Buffy kissed him back with months and months of longing and desire, totally unable to separate her mouth from his.  He tasted so good and she'd missed him so much.

            Eventually he released her, gasping, "Reckon that baby's gonna need some oxygen, love."

            Buffy put her arms around him and held him close.  "I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she whispered.  "Figured I'd be a single mother forever.  Live with my Mom and be a bitter old spinster with a delinquent kid."

            "Hey, the next Viscount Spellingdon is not allowed to be a delinquent."

            "What if it's a girl?"

            "Oh, then she can be a tearaway.  Worked out okay for my sisters."

            Buffy smiled.  "I met Harmony once.  I didn't think she was that bad."

            "Obviously didn't spend too much time with her.  Oh, no, wait, Buffy, the kid can only inherit the title if I acknowledge it."

            A cold shiver ran through Buffy.  "If you _what_?"

            "If I marry his mother."  Spike's eyes glittered and he gave her a cocky grin.  "Fancy marrying me?"

            Buffy stared.

            "Buffy?"

            "Ask me again," she whispered.

            Spike grinned, got off the sofa and propped himself on one knee.  He took her hand in his, and his smile faded.  His face was earnest, desperate, scarred and beautiful.  Buffy reached out and touched his hair.

            "Buffy Summers.  I bloody love you.  I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but I really bloody do."

            "I love you too," Buffy said, and was horrified to find she was crying.  "I only realised it after you were gone, but I really do."

            "Will you marry me?"

            She paused.  "You're not just asking me because I'm pregnant?"

            "No!  Although that is a rather large factor.  I'm asking you because I love you and I want to be with you.  Can't you tell?  I bloody adore you, Summers.  I'm drowning in you.  And I'm also getting cramp, so can you answer before I fall over?"

            Buffy sniffed and attempted a grin, and wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.

            "Ask me again," she croaked.

            "Will you marry me?"

            Buffy looked at him for a long moment, this man who had ricocheted so insanely into her life, turned her upside down and all around, messed up her head and her body, who gave her the best sex she'd ever had, who'd risked his life to save her sister, who looked at her with so much love.

            "Yes," she said.  "I will."

            Spike broke into a massive grin and swept her into his arms.  He was still kissing her when the front door opened and Dawn walked in.  Her hand flew to her mouth.

            "Hey, Buffy, I saw Xander and Anya, they said - Oh my God!"

            Buffy tore herself away from Spike and stared guiltily up at her little sister.

            "Hey, Dawnie," she wiped her mouth as subtly as she could, "how was the Bronze?"

            "Uh, okay.  Hey, Spike," she gave a fingerwave.  "I guess you two made up," she added with a big grin.

            "Yep," Spike said, standing up and hauling Buffy to her feet.  He looked her over speculatively, then swooped and picked her up in his arms.

            "Hey!  Spike!  Put me down.  Come on, put me down, I weigh a ton."

            "No, you don't.  Which way's your room?"

            "It's upstairs, but you can't carry me-"

            "Tough.  I'm gonna.  Niblet," he nodded at Dawn as she stepped out of the way, grinning so wide Buffy thought to top of her head might fall off.

            "Have fun," she called up the stairs as Spike carried Buffy up.

            "Oh, I intend to," he grinned.

            He made love to her, carefully and gently, awestruck by her new body, delighting in everything, and afterwards held her close and kissed her sweetly.

            "So then, Lady Buffy," he said.  "What have you been up to?  Did I miss much?"

            Buffy considered it.  "I could write it down for you," she offered, "on maybe a postage stamp.  In really big letters."

            Spike grinned and kissed her hair.

            "Hey," he said, "if it's a girl maybe we could call it after Willow or Tara."

                "I'd like that," Buffy smiled, and then her eyes started to shine.  "And if it's a boy, we could call it Riley."  She watched his face change.  "Come on, I was joking.  Spike, I was joking.  Hey, Spike... Spike?  Oh_, Spike_!"

_Well, it's been a rollercoaster ride for me too… but the Spuffy goodness had to come to an end some time.  Sniff.  I miss them now.  Oh well, guess I'll have to write another one!_

_Hope you enjoyed it and thanks very, very much for all the fantastic feedback.  It's been really encouraging. __J___

_etaknosnhoj___


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