AN – This fic was written for Always_jbj as a thank you for her hard work moving all my fics from the old BSV to the new one. She also, sweetie that she is, did some of the beta work while she was getting peeks at chapters before anyone else. Final beta was done by the brilliant Amyb who very sweetly does not point out to me that anyone who screws up as often as I do has no business running a community about grammar and punctuation issues.

Hearts Breaking Even

Chapter One

Buffy stared at the glowing portal swirling in space into which the demon she'd been fighting had just disappeared.

"Oh, this can not be good!" she groaned and looked at her Watcher with pleading eyes.

"If you hurry, you can jump through, kill him, and jump back before it closes," he offered helpfully.

"Jump through? In my new boots? What if I land in a pond or a pile of elephant poop or something? I'm not jumping into something I can't see."

Her lip struck out stubbornly and Giles sighed as he wondered why he had been the one to end up with a Slayer with no training and no regard for the importance of blind obedience.

"Buffy, you have to do it. It is your job and as unpleasant as the thought of possibly landing in elephant… manure… might be, you must—"

"Fine, fine, I know. Chosen One. The one in all the world, yada yada. But you are sooo going to owe me new boots if these get ruined."

"I will be happy to submit your invoice for footwear to the Council if it becomes necessary. In the meanwhile, the demon is getting away."

"I'm going, I'm going. But what if I have to chase him and the portal closes behind me? Did you think about that, huh? Did you?"

"In the unlikely event that should happen, I will endeavor to reopen it as quickly as I can. You simply need to remain in its vicinity so that you may respond quickly when it reopens. Now, do get on with it, please. I would like to get home at a decent hour tonight."

"Oh yeah, Cause you've got so many exciting things to do waiting for you at your apartment." With a final glare at her watcher, the teenager bit her lip and jumped through the still swirling opening.

Her landing was nothing like what she expected. She had been braced for some sort of demon dimension full of darkness and slimy secretions that would get on her shoes. Instead, she landed lightly in the middle of an open meadow full of wild flowers and startled sheep. If it weren't for the bright sunlight and the sheep, she would have thought she was still in Sunnydale.

An illusion which was quickly shattered when the demon rose up to roar at her from his menacing position over an extremely frightened child.

"What? " she yelled back to distract him from his intended victim. "Did you think I was going to just let you go? You tore my good shirt. You owe me, buster."

She waited calmly for the demon's charge, sidestepping agilely at the last second and swinging at his neck with her sword. Unfortunately, the demon was also fairly agile for something so large and it dodged just enough for her blow to slice into its shoulder rather than removing its head as she had intended.

"Damn!" she exclaimed, pivoting just in time to duck under a paw tipped with lethal-looking claws. She ran the sword into the demon's exposed stomach and yelled triumphantly when it doubled over, screaming in pain. While it was leaning forward, she quickly pulled the sword out and swung it hard at the neck, which was now down at her level.

The force of her blow not only removed the demon's head from it's still-toppling body, but spun her around so fast that she lost her balance and fell to the grass-covered ground. She sat there for a second, staring at the demon's intended victim who was now climbing slowly to his feet. She gradually became aware that she was sitting on something soft and less than fragrant.

"Ewwwwww! Please tell me I am not sitting in sheep poop!" she said to the wide-eyed little boy who was approaching her with awe and not a little trepidation.

His beautiful blue eyes were as big as saucers in his fine-boned face as he stared at the vision in front of him. Although the girl on the ground was obviously much older than his nine years, she was nowhere near as tall as most of the adults in his life. In a world where he was always the youngest or smallest in his group, he found the thought that someone not that much bigger than he could have killed a monster exciting and intriguing.

"Are you a fairy?" he inquired politely, ignoring the fact that she was spinning in circles trying to see the back of her skirt and muttering words he wasn't sure he understood. He was sure though, that if he went home and repeated the words, his mother would soon be scrubbing his mouth with foul-tasting soap.

"Am I a what?" Buffy stopped trying to see the back of her skirt long enough to acknowledge his presence and the attempt at conversation. "Don't be silly. Fairies aren't real. Now, vampires and demons, they're real. And very hard on the wardrobe," she added, pulling her skirt around to the front.

"Well, it's just that you are clearly not human," he said apologetically. "I mean, you are so beautiful, and you can fight and kill monsters. You must surely be some sort of avenging angel, or warrior elf queen or something like that!"

Buffy studied boy for a minute, taking in his strange clothing, his accent and the worshipful look on his face. She was torn between indignation that he thought she wasn't human and delight at being referred to as beautiful.

"I think someone's been reading too many comic books," she finally said kindly, pushing his unruly curls out of his eyes.

"Comic books?"

"Never mind. I don't have time to explain. I have to jump back through the portal before it—argh!"

Even as she turned to enter it, the gateway to her home in Sunnydale shrunk in on itself and disappeared with an audible "pop".

"Great! Now I'm stuck here until Giles figures out how to get me back."

Giving an exaggerated sigh of disgust, she walked to the edge of the meadow and, after carefully checking for more little sheep turds, sat down with her back against a tree.

"What's your name?" she asked the boy, gesturing for him to take a seat beside her.

"It's William," he said shyly. He gave a small bow and added, "William Carlisle the Third, at your service."

Buffy was charmed by the show of good manners in a boy his age. Thinking back to when she was in elementary school, or to some of the children she'd babysat for before she was called, she knew that sort of behavior wasn't typical of young boys. Not the young boys in twentieth-century Southern California anyway.

"Thank you, William," she replied just as formally. "I am very pleased to meet you. Now, sit down and tell me where, and more importantly, when I am. Since it looks like I might be here awhile, I might as well know where it is."

"As to where you are, you are at my family's country house in Kent. England," he added when she looked at him blankly. "And ,,.and when you are? How can you not know when you are? It is June fourteenth, the year of our lord 1864."

"Terrific," she mumbled. "Another country AND another century. I hate portals."

William stared at her with a worried expression on his face until she shrugged and smiled at him reassuringly.

"Do you require assistance then?" he asked, getting back to his feet. "Shall I fetch the authorities?"

"Oh, God, no! No authorities." She shook her head and her blonde hair swirled around her shoulders, capturing his attention.

"Your hair is so beautiful," he said wistfully. "I should love to—" He stopped, aghast at what he'd been about to say. Blushing furiously, he sat back down and studied his boots with great intensity.

Buffy looked around curiously, observing the placid sheep and meadow full of wild flowers. Just behind them she could see what appeared to be a small building.

"It's really pretty here, William," she said with a happy sigh. "I wouldn't mind if I could stay here all day. I could use a nice vacation in the country."

"I… we would… you are more than welcome to do so," he replied formally, trying to ignore the bolt of joy that shot through him at the thought of her staying all day. In spite of her protests, he could not stop thinking of her as some sort of mythical creature and he wanted to stay close to her for as long as possible.

"I probably don't have any choice but to do so," she said with a wry grin. "Who knows how long it's going to take Giles to open that thing up again. It could be days."

"You can't mean to stay out here by yourself all night!" William's little Victorian face managed to be shocked and intrigued at the same time.

"I have to stay near the portal so I can hop back through it when it opens again. Anyway," she said with a small smile, "I'll be fine. I can take care of myself. Warrior elf queen, remember?" she teased gently.

He blushed again and kicked his toes in the dirt. "You aren't really an elf queen or a fairy, are you?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just a normal fifteen-year-old girl who happens to have… I'm just a little stronger and faster than most people," she finished with another smile.

"And you have a sword!" he said enthusiastically.

"Yes, I do. Would you like to see it?"

Eyes wide with wonder, he nodded his head dumbly and held his breath as she picked up the sword and gently placed it in his hand. The sudden weight surprised him and he almost dropped it, but the sound of her laughter made him bite his lip and struggle to hold it up. His arm trembled with the effort it took to keep the heavy sword from dipping toward the ground, but he stubbornly forced himself to lift his arm until he was holding it straight over his head.

"Very good!" Buffy's laugh was gentle and not mocking as she caught the sword on its inevitable drop toward the grass. "I wouldn't have been able to lift this sword at all when I was your age. You must be used to sword fighting."

"No, not really," he admitted. "I'm rather more of a… a scholar than a fighter, I'm afraid. I prefer books and poetry to fisticuffs and sword fights. Although it would be wonderful to know how to use one the way you do," he said wistfully.

"I can teach you. If I'm here long enough, I can. There's no reason why you can't be a poet AND a warrior is there?"

"I suppose not," he said dubiously as though the idea was so bizarre he'd never considered it. "But all the other boys say—"

"The other boys? What do they know?" Buffy waved her hand airily. "Have they ever killed a demon?"

"No. No, I'm quite certain they have not," he agreed firmly. "Clearly you are much more experienced in that field than they."

"Well, there you go then. You just bring a wooden sword back with you—you are coming back tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked anxiously, figuring that the gathering dusk meant he would be expected home very soon.

"Oh yes! I shall be back as soon as Mother finishes my morning piano lesson."

"Okay, then. I'll see you tomorrow. I think you'd better be getting home before your mother starts to worry about you."

"Mother is quite accustomed to my wandering all over the farm by myself every summer. You are quite correct, however, to think she would worry about me if it was after sunset." He held up a sketchbook and small journal to indicate what he did to amuse himself.

He turned to leave, then looked back over his shoulder and raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure you are going to be alright?"

"I'll be fine. I'll just get in that little house there if it rains or something. You go on home."

Buffy watched as his slight figure disappeared into the rapidly-gathering gloom. She could see him stop occasionally and throw worried looks back, and she waved cheerfully every time he did until she knew he couldn't see her anymore.

Resigning herself to the fact that she might be stuck here for a while, she walked over to the small building and peered inside. It appeared to be used for storing various feed tubs and buckets and of course had nothing resembling a bed or food for humans.

Oh well, it's not like I haven't been cold and hungry before… wait! I haven't been cold and hungry – okay, hungry maybe; but not I-haven't-eaten-in- two-days kind of hungry.

With a sigh, she resigned herself to an uncomfortable night, and settled against a tree where she could quickly reach the portal if it opened before morning. She spent the night alternately bored and frightened as the complete darkness settled around her. She could hear the sheep make occasional "baas" and snuffling noises as they moved around the meadow before quieting down to sleep.

She amused herself for a while by staring at the stars overhead and marveling at how well she could see them. Only way out in the desert, far away from the reflected lights of towns and cities, could they be seen so clearly back in California and the complete lack of any glow on the horizon brought home to her exactly how far away she was from her home.

As the night wore on and the portal failed to appear, Buffy's head began to droop and she slid down the tree to pillow it on the soft grass. She told herself she was just resting her head while she kept her eyes open, but it wasn't long before sleep overtook her fifteen-year-old body.

She awoke with a start, blinking her eyes in the bright sunlight, taking just a second to remember where she was. As soon as she realized what had awakened her, she had no trouble remembering the previous afternoon and evening. Her sudden twitch as she awoke startled the young lamb that had been sniffing her face, but he only backed up a few steps before curiosity overcame his fear and he stretched his head out toward the immobile girl again.

The lamb's warm breath on her face, smelling of milk and clover, was a revelation to the city-born Slayer; she lay perfectly still while the young sheep allowed his nose to roam over her face and body. When he began to nibble on a blonde curl, Buffy sat up suddenly and sent him racing back to the safety of his mother's side while she laughed.

"Sorry, little guy, but I don't think you really want to eat my hair."

Mentioning eating reminding her that she hadn't been able to since lunch the day before, and she grimaced as her stomach growled in protest. She was afraid to get too far from the portal area, but the pangs in her belly sent her prowling around the edges of the field looking for berries or nuts of some sort.

"I hope William doesn't forget I'm out here," she murmured as her search turned up nothing but a few blackberries which were much too far from being ripe to be edible. Making a face at the sour taste, she sadly dropped the handful she'd picked with such hope and wandered into the meadow to watch the lambs frolicking with each other.

When William arrived several hours later, laboriously towing a rather large child's wagon behind him, he found his "warrior queen" hiding behind her tree and yelling at a snorting ram that shook his head threateningly.

"William!" she shouted in relief and fear. "Be careful! That big sheep has gone crazy. He tried to attack me. For no reason! I was just playing with the babies and he—" She stopped talking as the ram took advantage of her distraction to sneak around the tree and butt her hard enough to knock her down.

Smothering a smile, the boy rushed to her rescue, delighted that he was able to return the favor for the girl who had saved his life. Picking up a broken branch, he approached the snorting sheep and tapped it on the nose, saying firmly, "Back off, Sebastian. Miss Buffy is not going to hurt your children. You are being very rude. Now back off!" He waved his makeshift shepherd's crook at the large ram and firmly urged him back to his herd.

With a final glare at Buffy and a shake of his head, the protective flock leader moved back out into the meadow and resumed grazing with his ewes and their lambs.

Keeping a wary eye on the now placid sheep, Buffy moved out away from the tree and gave William a grateful hug.

"Thank you, William, I'm sure you saved my life," she said with a smile as she walked over to the wagon. She completely missed the rush of color to the boy's adoring face and the absolute astonishment on it. No one except his mother had ever hugged William. No one, let alone a beautiful girl from another world. He remained frozen in place until her voice finally penetrated the delighted fog he was in and he hastened to answer her questions.

"Is this for me? William? William? Can you hear me? Is this for me?"

He shook himself out of his stupor and, forgetting how strong she was, quickly moved to help her with the picnic basket she was holding.

"Yes, I thought you might be hungry and I didn't know how long you might be here so I brought you as much food as I could sneak out of the kitchen without alerting Cook to.…"He stopped as she tore the top off the basket and began stuffing a slice of bread in her mouth.

Something about his shocked expression reached through the hungry daze Buffy was in and she stopped chewing abruptly, swallowing the mouthful she already had and blushing all over.

"I'm sorry, William," she said apologetically. "My manners are terrible. It's just that I haven't eaten since yesterday's lunch and it looks so good—"

"It's quite alright, Miss Buffy," he said politely. "I should have been quite ravenous myself if I had not eaten for such a long period of time. Please, continue. Help yourself to whatever you want. There is jam for the bread, and some meat from last night's supper. And some fruit…."

For a second she looked like she was going to hug him again, and he waited with bated breath, both terrified and eager, until she turned away and began unpacking the rest of the food. With a resigned sigh, he relaxed and moved to help her sort out the rather large quantity of supplies he had brought with him.

In addition to the large picnic basket, which he assured her she could keep with her until she no longer needed it, he pulled out several blankets and a pillow, blushing as he suggested she might need to make herself a bed if she was still there by nightfall. He also brought out his sketch book and a pencil, laying them carefully to one side for use later.

Chapter Two

In the bottom of the wagon was a wooden sword – clearly a child's toy, and just as clearly one not having seen much use. She smiled and pulled it out, placing it beside her on the ground. The large metal battle sword she had brought through the portal with her dwarfed his wooden offering and William tried to take it back to hide away. His embarrassment at having brought it was palpable.

"I'm sorry," he said, blushing furiously. "I know it is just a toy. It was all I could find, but…."

"It's fine, William," Buffy said kindly. "We can work on some moves, how to hold it, when to strike. Things like that. It'll work. You'll see."

William looked at her dubiously, but set the toy sword back on the ground and waited for her to finish eating. In a time period when women did their best to appear fragile and feminine, which included picking at their food – at least in public – he found the way Buffy indulged her more than hearty appetite both amazing and interesting.

"Do you always eat like that?" he asked hesitantly as she polished off her second apple. "Not that I mind," he hastened to assure her when she appeared embarrassed. "It's just that I've never seen a girl consume quite that much food at one time."

Buffy colored slightly and said, "Well, I was really hungry. And I have a really high metabolism. I burn those calories like crazy – what with slaying, and school and—" She stopped short at the uncomprehending look on his face.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" she asked him, with a smile.

He shook his head and smiled back at her. "I am not familiar with some of the terms you use. I'm sorry. No doubt it is my own ignorance showing..."

"No, it's not you. It's me forgetting when I am and how old you are. You seem so mature for a… a… ten year old?" she hazarded.

"Actually, I'm only nine," he said proudly. "I won't be ten for another two months. But I've been told I'm very mature for my age – intellectually, if not physically."

"Well, go me, with the knowing more big words than a brain," Buffy laughed.

After Buffy had eaten her fill and stashed the remaining food, blankets and the pillow in the shed, she tossed the wooden sword to William and said, "Let's go learn to swordfight, Willie."

Leaving her own heavy sword for the time being, she picked up the branch William had used to intimidate the ram and broke it in half, using one piece as her own version of a wooden sword. After showing him how to properly grip the sword's handle, and watching him make several awkward sweeps with it, she picked up her stick and said, "Okay, now come at me like you want to take my head off."

His shocked face and immediate release of his sword told her that was not going to work and she sighed heavily.

"You aren't going to hurt me," she encouraged. "I won't let you. Don't worry about me. Just try to get through my defenses."

"Very well," he said dubiously, advancing on her and waving his sword around purposefully. "I shall endeavor to attack you. But you must promise to tell me if I am too rough."

Biting back a grin, Buffy agreed to tell him if he was becoming too aggressive for her and they began a timid sword fight with her stick and his toy. After several minutes in which it was clear that Buffy was in no danger of being struck by his wooden weapon, William became braver and began to actually try to break through her defense, not sure what he would do if he was successful, but desiring to show her that he was learning something.

When he faked a stab at her stomach and she lowered her stick to block it, he swung his sword at her exposed neck and hit her on the shoulder. With a muffled scream, he dropped his sword and fell to his knees in front of her begging forgiveness with tears in his eyes.

Buffy quickly dropped her stick and knelt beside him, pulling him into a hug and murmuring that it was okay, she wasn't hurt, that he did just right. She insisted she was proud of him and that he had done just the right thing.

"But I struck you!" His lower lip came out in a pout when she refused to stop smiling at him and praising his technique.

"Yes," she said proudly, "You did. It was wonderful! What made you think to try a fake like that?"

"That's what you did to the monster," he muttered, refusing to look at her happy face. "You struck him in the stomach and then cut off his head. I thought you might think I was doing the same thing and then I – but I didn't mean to hurt you!" His eyes teared up again.

"I'm not hurt, William. I promise you. See? Not even a mark. It was brilliant. I am so proud of you!"

"Really?" The hopeful expression on his face was irresistible and she nodded eagerly.

"Really. You are a very quick learner. I'll make a master swordsman out of you in no time."

Convinced that he had not injured her, and that she really wanted him to keep trying, William went back to his lessons with a willingness that surprised them both. When Buffy felt he had mastered the art of attack, she switched from strictly defensive tactics to a more aggressive approach and watched with admiration as he quickly adapted to the moves necessary to block her tentative strikes.

After an hour of this, Buffy laughingly called a halt and went to get a drink from the bottle of water he had brought for her. While she drank and rested against her tree, William bounced around her waving his sword and smiting imaginary enemies. She watched him with interest as he kept up a non-stop monologue while he leapt around the meadow.

"You have a lot of energy, William," she called out as he ran through the unimpressed sheep, shouting a battle cry. "You remind me of me when I was your age. My parents thought there was something wrong with me that I had so much energy. Of course, that was before we knew I was a sl— before I had learned to use swords and other weapons."

They passed the rest of the afternoon alternating between sword fighting and talking about William's life when he wasn't spending his summers in the country. She listened with interest as he explained about the British school system and how boys from his station always went off to boarding school at a young age.

"Don't you miss your parents?" The idea of being away from her family for most of the year was appalling to Buffy, and she looked at him with sympathy.

He shrugged and tried to look unconcerned. "You get used to it," he said quietly. "Everyone does it. Only a… a… momma's boy would stay at home."

Something in his voice told her he didn't want to discuss that particular aspect of his life any more and she switched the subject to the farm and the kinds of crops raised there.

When evening approached again, William reluctantly picked up the handle of his wagon and turned it toward home. He frowned at the small stash of food Buffy had set aside to eat later.

"I'll try to bring you some more bread and meat tomorrow," he promised. "Are you sure you're going to be alright here again?"

"I'll be fine," she assured him with a smile. "I'll be waiting for you. Unless the portal opens," she hastily added. "Then I'll have to leave."

"This… portal… it will take you back to your own world?"

Buffy nodded. She had been careful to tell him as little as possible about where she was from, allowing him to believe she actually came from some other world, if not the land of faery, then something else unrelated to the one he knew. When she wouldn't answer his specific questions about her life, he went back to referring to her as his "warrior elf queen" and insisting that she came from a magical realm.

"I should miss you," he mumbled, turning bright red. "If you weren't here tomorrow, I should miss you terribly."

"That's very sweet, William," she said softly, very aware of the effort it had cost him to say that to her. "I will miss you too, and the meadow," she waved her hand in the general direction of the sheep, "even mean old Sebastian, there. But I have to go back. There are more monsters there waiting for me to fight them."

"You are a warrior queen!" he exclaimed. "A warrior queen who fights monsters. I knew it!"

"Close enough," Buffy smiled. "I get called a lot of things, but I think I like 'warrior queen' the best."

With a final "good night" the boy reluctantly turned his steps toward home, casting looks back over his shoulder until he could not longer see her bright hair in the waning light.

Buffy spent a much more comfortable night, making herself a small bed in the cabin and snacking on what was left of the food William had brought before falling into a peaceful sleep. When an inquisitive lamb awoke her the following morning, she didn't jump this time, but just smiled and gently stroked it's soft nose and wooly head.

She finished off the food left from the day before and set the now-empty basket out by her tree for William to take back with him. She frowned when her stomach growled and she realized that it was getting late in the day and William still hadn't come. Telling herself it was nothing to worry about, she nevertheless spent the rest of the day worrying about the little boy she'd only known for two days.

When darkness fell with no sign of William, she was surprised at the disappointment she felt. She assuaged her hunger with the few remaining apples and some leftover cheese, but it did nothing to calm her nerves. Although she had only known him a day or two, she somehow knew that William was not one to lightly break a promise and only the fact that he was a child and therefore dependent on his parents for permission to leave the home kept her from going off to search for him.

She spent a restless night, waking frequently to check for the portal and to listen for any sign of William. So it was that she was awake to hear the voices approaching her shed, to hear the rough laughter and quiet crying that made her heart clench in fear. She rose on her knees to peer out the window, grateful for the coming dawn, which was just close enough to offer some light.

The sight that met her eyes was chilling, even as she felt anger that threatened to overwhelm her. Coming toward her on the faint trail that William followed to and from the meadow, was a small group of teenage boys that were dragging with them a struggling William. While one of the boys pulled the wagon, two others dragged the bloody and bruised boy, ignoring his repeated pleas to take him somewhere else. Anywhere but to the shed ahead of them.

With a pang, Buffy realized he was trying his best to keep them away from her and her hiding place. She slipped out the back window and crouched behind the shed while she pondered the best way to deal with what was clearly an ugly situation.

The boys pulled the wagon up in front of the shed and one of them peered inside. His shout of discovery when he found the blankets and pillow, along with the basket and water bottle brought them all running. They turned to the defiant boy glaring at them and demanded he tell them who was staying in the shed.

He clamped his lips together stubbornly and shook his head and then, pulling suddenly free from the inattentive boy left holding him, he took off running in the direction of his home. He had not gotten very far when the much taller and faster boys caught him and pinned him to the ground cursing and punching him in retaliation.

When Buffy saw them yank down William's trousers and realized what their intentions were, she no longer wondered how best to handle the situation. She stepped quietly from behind the shed and walked toward the boys, growling softly under her breath.

"We'll teach you to keep secrets from us," the one holding William said, unbuttoning his own pants. "Last chance to tell us who is staying there and where he is…"

William shut his eyes and bit his lip, refusing to reply and bracing himself for what he knew was to come. He groaned aloud when he heard Buffy's voice say cheerfully, "She's right here, guys. Something I can do for you?"

The boys whirled and gaped at the pretty blonde girl in the, by Victorian standards, indecently short skirt and boots. Forgetting immediately about the now sobbing boy on the ground, they began to surround the Slayer licking their lips in anticipation.

"No wonder William didn't want us to follow him out here," one said, walking slowly around Buffy and looking her up and down. "Although what a little wanker like that would do with a fine figure of a woman like you I can't fathom."

Just as the leader of the little gang reached toward Buffy's head to grab a piece of her hair, a small figure threw itself in front of her and held up little fists screaming, "Don't touch her! Don't you touch her!"

Laughing, the older boy backhanded William across the face, knocking him to the ground and deliberately stepping on him as he moved closer to Buffy. Instead of shrinking away from him as he expected, the girl's eyes narrowed and she hissed, "You really shouldn't have done that."

He laughed again, looking around at his friends for appreciation as he asked with a smirk, "And why would that be, missy? The little gentleman" – he snarled the word – "needs a lesson in minding his betters. And when we finish with you, we'll be just the men to give it to him."

He nodded to his friends and they all rushed Buffy at the same time, using tactics that they had obviously practiced on other unsuspecting girls. Unfortunately for them, this time they were rushing a girl who spent her night in violent confrontations with beings much larger, stronger and faster than they.

Ducking under the reaching arms and twisting slightly, Buffy sidestepped the intended group grope and grabbed the leader by his throat. While she wasn't quite tall enough to lift him off the ground, she was more than able to squeeze his throat shut, effectively cutting off both his oxygen and his ability to speak. It took his friends several precious seconds to realize that he was not pretending to be choking, but was actually being throttled by the petite girl in front of him. With a shout, one of them grabbed Buffy's arm, intending to pull her away. He frowned in surprise when he found himself not only unable to budge her arm, but the recipient of a scornful sneer as she dropped the almost unconscious boy to the ground.

She turned her eyes on his gang members, the joy of battle lighting up her face as she faced the angry boys. Victorian England didn't produce many women who would willingly face one angry man, let alone four at a time, and they were nonplussed for a moment before the security found in numbers gave back their courage and they charged.

Compared to the supernaturally fast and strong beings she fought every night, Buffy found fighting the human boys to be like moving in slow motion. She spun and kicked and punched and tossed the boys around until she was tired of playing with them, at which time she landed one good blow on each chin rendering them unconscious for several hours.

The leader of the little gang was lying on the ground, still clutching his throat and breathing hard as he watched the small girl wipe out his little gang of rough farm boys. When she turned her glittering eyes on him, he cringed involuntarily, shrinking back and whimpering. Buffy stalked over to him and yanked him to his feet, shaking him like a rag doll for emphasis as she growled, "I will be watching you boys from now on. If I see one attempt by any one of you to hurt anyone, boy or girl, I will rip off your balls and feed them to you. Is that perfectly clear?"

She cocked her head and waited for his answer. Instead of answering her immediately, he croaked, "What are you?"

With a wink at a still sniffling William, she said with as much authority as she could summon, "I am a warrior elf queen and this farm is part of my realm. I will not have its tranquility disturbed by ruffians. Do you understand me?"

While the boy nodded his head, promising to be a model citizen for the rest of his life, Buffy congratulated herself on channeling her inner Giles. She picked up the unconscious boys, piling them roughly in the wagon and handing the handle to the only one able to move.

"Drag your scuzzy friends out of here and take them home. Then take William's wagon back to his house for him."

Nodding and bowing as best he could while he backed away, the boy struggled to haul his immobile friends down the dirt track and back to the road to town. Casting the occasional glance over his shoulder at the tiny girl with her hands on her hips, he dragged the heavy wagon behind him putting as much distance as he could between the angry self-confessed elf queen and himself.

Once he was out of sight, Buffy dropped her angry queen pose and fell to her knees beside William, pushing the curls off his face and wiping the tears from his eyes. At her touch he began sobbing again, babbling apologies for not being able to prevent them from following him.

"Shhhh, It's okay," she soothed, pulling him into her lap and rocking him like the child he was. "You were very brave to try to fight them. They were much bigger than you and there were five of them. There was nothing you could do."

He looked up at her with suddenly old eyes and said with solemn promise, "When I am grown up I will never be picked on like that. Ever. If someone tries to hurt me, I will… I will kill them if I have to!"

"I'm sure you won't have to," she said, hiding her smile at his conviction. "You'll be a good man and bad things won't happen to you. But just in case they do," she added, standing up and pulling him to his feet. "Let me show you a few things that might be helpful."

Chapter Three

They spent the rest of the morning with Buffy teaching William some martial arts moves that would be useful for someone who didn't have super strength or speed. Along with the judo and karate moves, she threw in some dirty tricks that Giles had shown her when he'd had a little more scotch than usual.

When William protested that using such tactics would be "cheating" she took his chin and looked at him seriously.

"When someone is trying to kill you, nothing is cheating. You do what you need to do to save yourself. Do you hear me, William? You do what you need to do to stay alive."

He nodded solemnly, promising to remember what she said, then went for a leg sweep that left her sprawled on the ground and laughing with delight.

When they stopped to rest and eat the rest of bread from the day before, she smiled at how seriously he had taken the training.

"Now don't go starting fights just because you think you can win them," she cautioned. "With great ability comes great responsibility…and oh my god, I'm turning into Giles!"

"Who is this Giles?" he asked with what sounded suspiciously like jealousy.

"He's my… nevermind. He's somebody I work with. He helps me train."

"So you can beat the monsters."

"Yes, so I can beat the monsters. Now, shouldn't you be getting home and into a bathtub and some clean clothes?" She eyed his ripped clothing and bloody face and hands.

"Yes, I suppose so," he sighed. "Mother is going to be so disappointed in me."

"Well, just tell her it wasn't your fault!"

"Right. Because that always goes so well," he muttered, giving her a glimpse of the little boy behind the good manners and intellectual pursuits.

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Well, tell her an elf queen needed your assistance and your clothes got torn in the course of coming to her rescue."

"I think I shall write a poem about you tonight," he announced as he stood up and straightened his clothes as much as possible. "I could bring it with me tomorrow… that is, if you think you would like to see it?" he finished much less confidently.

"I know I would want to see it, William. I would be honored. No one has ever written a poem about me before."

"Then I shall be the first." He smiled and marched off in the direction of his home.

Although Buffy was quite sure the local riff-raff wouldn't be back anytime soon, she slept much less soundly and with her sword under her hand until the sun woke her up. She stretched, then jumped to her feet when she heard the sound of running footsteps. Peering out the door, she saw William running toward her, a cloth bag dangling from his hand.

Gasping for breath, he said quickly, "I brought you some breakfast… and luncheon and supper… but I can't stay. I have to go into town with mother today and I won't be back until this evening. I hope it's enough food, the poem is in the bag, I'll return tomorrow, good-bye." He waved his hand, giving her an apologetic look and ran back the way he had come.

Buffy stood smiling at him until he was out of sight, then dug into the bag to see what he had brought for her. She ate the warm, freshly baked bread with some of the butter and jam he'd managed to sneak out for her and sat back with a bottle of water to read the poem he'd written.

She glows when she smiles

She is the most beautiful girl for miles

She slays the monsters and saves the child

Isn't afraid no matter how wild

The enemy may have been

She is my warrior elf queen.

Buffy's desire to roll on the ground laughing at what she was sure was the worst poem she had ever seen warred with the warmth she felt that William had written it just for her.

"It's not like I could write a poem," she muttered. "Even a bad one. And he's only nine years old. I didn't even know what a poem was when I was nine."

Just as she started to set the poem down, she caught movement from the corner of her eye and whirled to see the portal opening. Frantically, she looked around for something on which to leave a message for William, finally tearing off the bottom of the beautiful paper on which he had written her poem. She snatched up the pencil that had fallen out of his sketch book earlier and quickly wrote, "I had to go. I'll miss you. Don't forget to cheat if you need to. Your elf queen, Buffy." She hastily shoved the paper back in the bag and grabbing her sword, ran for the now full sized portal and jumped through. Her last view of Nineteenth Century England was Sebastian staring at her suspiciously as she winked out of sight.

"Ah, there you are!" Giles' voice rang out with false heartiness as Buffy stepped out of the portal and glared at him.

"No problem? You'll be right back? I'll just open it up again if it closes. Stop me when I get to something that sounds remotely like something that might have actually happened."

"Yes, well, it was a bit more… complicated than I anticipated. But we've covered for you very well!" He beamed at her with pride. "Your mother thinks you've been staying at Willow's to do some intensive studying, and the school has accepted my word for it that you had a family emergency that called you away."

"Oh, well, that makes it all okay then. It doesn't matter that I sat in sheep poop, slept in a hut with no food for a whole day, got knocked on my butt by a big sheep, had to beat up a bunch of old-fashioned thugs and the only company I had was a nine-year old boy!"

Without further conversation, Buffy stomped off in the direction of her home on Revello Drive, throwing over her shoulder, "And, oh yeah, the demon is dead!"

Her watcher rolled his eyes and followed behind her until it was time for him to turn toward his own home. He went home muttering to himself about disrespectful American children and Slayers who didn't want to do their jobs properly.

Chapter Four - almost a year later

Buffy was enjoying her night off – dancing with her friends in the Bronze, flirting with the boys, laughing with the girls and pretending she was a normal high school junior for one night. Just for a second, she thought she felt the tingling on her neck that signaled the presence of a vampire, but it faded and she quickly dismissed it, returning to her dancing and pretending for one night that vampires didn't exist.

"Buffy, have you seen that blond guy in the leather coat? He is totally checking you out!"

Buffy tried to be casual as she danced around to face the way Willow was looking. She flushed from head to toe at the predatory look the obviously-not-natural-blond man was giving her. She could feel his eyes running over her body as she moved to the music and she unconsciously added a little more body movement to her dancing. She looked around the room idly, as though she might be searching for someone, allowing her eyes to slide across him briefly only to find herself caught in his gaze. The most brilliant blue eyes she'd ever seen fastened on hers and she felt her heart rate increase at the heat she saw there.

She faltered and lost the beat for a second as those eyes bored into hers, pinning her to the spot like a blonde butterfly on a pin. When he broke into a smirking grin, she brought her chin up and glared, breaking the eye contact and tossing her hair as she turned away from him. She could still feel his eyes on her and she tried to control the blush that threatened to turn her entire body bright red even as she continued to move sensuously around the floor.

She could tell the minute he stopped watching her and tried to smother the disappointment, telling herself he was obviously too old for her and anyway, she had a boyfriend. Well, sort of. In a we-hardly-ever-see-each-other-unless-there's-a-pro blem kind of way. When she overheard a boy frantically calling for help because someone was being attacked in the alley, she sighed, knowing her night off was at an end.

Buffy ran out the back door, yanking the vampire off the girl on which he'd been about to feed and sending the intended victim back inside to rethink her willingness to go for walks with strange men.

I guess this is why I thought I felt a vamp in there. Stupid vampire. Ruining my night off.

The vampire was actually a pretty good fighter. He was obviously not a fledgling and she was beginning to regret not having grabbed her stake before she came outside. As soon as Xander called her name and tossed it to her, she dusted the vamp and turned to rejoin her friends. She was facing away when she heard slow clapping and turned back to find the blond man Vamp! He's a vamp! walking out of the shadows, his mocking applause ringing in her ears.

Just my luck. I find a hottie and he's a frickin' vampire.

He was in the middle of a threat to kill her Saturday night when Xander called her name again, asking if she needed help. She watched curiously as the vampire froze, frowning when Xander called her "Buffy." He stared at her again, his frown deepening, then whirled in a swirl of leather and ran out of the alley.

Hmmm. Just my name is enough to scare them off now. That's pretty cool.

She joined her friends, grimacing when Willow supportively commiserated with her on the man's undead status.

"So, the hottie is a vamp, huh? That totally sucks."

"Yeah it does, I'm completely onboard with the suckage. I'm suckable girl – no wait – he's suckable –no, that's not it either…" She shook her head and sighed heavily. "Oh well, one older man in my life is enough - even if he is a vampire and… Oh my god, Willow! You don't think I attract vampires, do you? I mean do you think I put out some kind of vampire pher… fren… fomoho-"

"Pheromone?" her brainy friend asked with a smile.

"Yeah, that thing. I don't, do I?" Her eyes were wide in horror as she anticipated having to fight hordes of lustful vampires every night.

"I'm sure you don't, Buffy," Xander put in quickly. "No more than your average beautiful girl, any way. I mean, I know if I was a vamp, I'd rather bite a pretty girl than an ugly one. Even if she was the Slayer. And I'm shutting up now…."

With both girls giving him a look of disgust, he trailed off mumbling and doing his best not to appear to be ogling Buffy the way the vampire clearly had been.

The following evening, when Giles had found a picture of William the Bloody that everyone tentatively identified as the vampire they'd seen in the alley, he shook his head and said seriously, "You must be carefully, Buffy. William the Bloody has already killed two Slayers."

"But, Giles, I'm really not sure that's who we saw. The other vamp called him—"

"Spike," came Angel's flat voice as he entered the library and the discussion.

"You know of him?" Giles gave the old vampire an appraising stare.

"I don't just know of him. I know him. And if he says he's going to do something, he won't quit until he does it. The only way to stop him is to dust him."

Buffy felt a small jolt of fear go through her before anger took over and she glared at her sometime boyfriend.

"Then I guess he's going to be dusty sooner than he expected," she huffed, not a little offended that Giles and Angel seemed so willing to assume she was in danger from the new vamp in town.

"He's a very good fighter, Buffy," Angel began somewhat pompously. "He's very… innovative and unpredictable."

"I'm a very good fighter," she growled angrily. "And I'm unpredictable and… whatever that other thing was. I'm that too."

Her lower lip came out to add emphasis to the stubbornness in her voice. Her watcher fought the urge to roll his eyes in imitation of the teenagers he spent so much time with and he tried to soothe her ruffled feathers.

"Quite so, Buffy. No one doubts your abilities. We are simply saying that you need to exercise some caution until you have had a chance to evaluate your opponent as he was clearly doing with you last night."

"Well," she said, somewhat mollified, "he said he was going to kill me Saturday night, so I guess I'm safe till then. Now I've got to go work on Back to School Night stuff."

When Back to School Night had gone from bad – Snyder and her mom indulging in quality Buffy bashing - to worse with the arrival of Spike and his minions, Buffy's first instinct was to take out her frustration on the vampire's body before she staked him. When it turned out to be harder than she expected to beat him, she got even angrier and his snarky, "Did I spoil your doilies?" did nothing to calm her down.

And when she used one of her tried and true moves and found him anticipating and meeting it with one of his own, she began to feel the first prickles of concern. Suddenly the fight that she had to admit she'd been enjoying up to that point took on a whole new meaning. Where before she had been happy to have found a vamp that could give her a good workout before she dusted him, it now occurred to her that there was very real possibility that this one might be able to make good on his threat to kill her.

When she was pinned to the floor with the vampire's lean muscular body pressing against hers, that possibility became frighteningly more real. Buffy struggled vigorously against both the vulnerable position in which she found herself and the wildly inappropriate reaction she found her body having to that position. The hard length she could feel pressing against her thigh made it clear that she was not the only one to be turned on by the preceding battle and she smiled to herself as an escape plan was born.

Staring into the lust-filled amber eyes of the demon, she shifted her hips subtly, allowing his erection to slip between her legs and press into her suddenly damp center. The sensations that move caused almost made her forget her intention, until his involuntary groan reminded her that she had a plan. She quickly head-butted the distracted vamp, breaking his nose with a satisfying crunch and throwing him over her head.

She kipped to her feet and turned to face the blond demon, sure she would be looking at the face of an outraged monster. Instead, the vampire's handsome human face was back and even as he held his bleeding nose and cursed, his eyes glinted with admiration and joy.

"Nice move, luv," he drawled. "Got to say I didn't see that one comin'."

"Not gonna see the next one either," she grunted, ripping a broken two by four out of the shattered wall and holding it in front of her. She had the broken end pointed at his chest, ready to turn him to dust.

"You don't really want to kill me yet. Do you, Buffy?" His sudden change in demeanor and tone startled her enough that she paused and blinked in surprise. The vampire was speaking almost as though he knew her. The moment's hesitation was all he needed. With a leap, he kicked the board out of her hands and pinned her against the wall, once again putting his mouth much too close to her neck for comfort.

Surprisingly, he was still in his human face and the teeth he ran down her throat were small and blunt. Buffy shivered when his cool tongue slid up the side of her neck and she felt his lips twitch into a smile. He gave a little nip to the skin over her pounding pulse, then pulled back to look into her confused eyes.

"Not ready to kill you, pet," he murmured. "I want to make this last. You're the best I've ever come up against. But then, I should have expected that," he added enigmatically, leaning in to sniff her and letting blood drip from his nose onto her collar.

"You're getting blood on my good shirt," she managed to gasp out, completely at a loss as to why she wasn't already dead, but willing to go with his plan to put it off for awhile.

"Well, you're the bitch who broke my nose." he responded indignantly, "And you cheated to do it!"

"It's not cheating when someone's trying to kill you!" she snapped back at him.

"The hell it isn-" The vampire's entire demeanor suddenly changed. "Bloody hell," he breathed softly. "It is you."

Buffy frowned at the look on Spike's face and answered with some asperity, "Of course, I'm me. Who else would I be?"

Ignoring her question, he raked his eyes over her again then raised a shaking hand to her cheek.

"I cut you," he said as though to himself, running his thumb lightly along her jaw line. He leaned into her and quickly ran his tongue over the small cut, stimulating it to stop bleeding and sending another shiver through her body.

Buffy did her best to appear disgusted as she flinched away and muttered, "Well, duh! You were trying to kill me."

She did her best to get the conversation back to something she could understand and realized with a start that the vampire had completely relaxed his grip on her. He appeared to be so distracted that she might easily escape if she tried. Instead, she remained where she was, inches away from the most deadly vamp she'd every faced and feeling, quite suddenly, perfectly safe.

"No, I wasn't. Not really. Not yet." He spoke absently, his eyes continuing to search her face, almost as though he was trying to memorize her features.

"Well maybe if you'd let me in on that plan, your nose might not be broken," she replied, angry that he wasn't explaining himself or his bizarre behavior.

Her lower lip came out in a small pout even as a voice screamed internally that Slayers did not apologize to vampires for trying to escape with their lives.

"Why weren't you trying to kill me?" she asked, almost angrily, trying to bring the conversation back to something remotely not weird and confusing.

"Was having too much fun," he answered with a smirk.

"Fun? We weren't having fun; we were fighting. To the death."

"Admit it, luv. You were enjoying that just as much as I was. And it was having the same effect on you it did on me," he added with a leer. "You just took advantage of it while I was… distracted."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she sniffed haughtily. "I was just trying to rid the world of another worthless, bloodsucking demon. That's my job, you know."

"Yeah," he said softly, "I know. You slay the monsters."

Something in the way he said it and his tone of voice sent a chill down Buffy's spine and she tried frantically to place where she'd heard those words before. Before she could remember anything at all helpful, he threw his head up as though listening, then shocked her into complete silence when he brushed his lips over hers and whispered, "Got to go, luv. We'll continue this later."

With another dramatic swirl of his leather coat, he whirled and was gone just before Angel, Giles and Xander came rushing up the hallway. They paused when they got to Buffy, seeing the blood on her shirt from Spike's nose and misunderstanding her bemused expression.

"Did he hurt you?" Angel was in full game face, snarling as he scented his grandchilde all over her. He quickly assessed the blood as belonging to Spike rather than Buffy and relaxed back into his usual unemotional human face.

"Buffy? Are you quite all right?" Giles added his own concerned questions to Angel's.

"I'm fine," she answered without looking at either of them.

"Did you dust him?" Xander asked eagerly. "Did you slay William the Bloody?"

She shook her head slightly and tried to focus on the men in front of her.

"Uh, no. He… he got away. But I'll get him next time."

"So, you had no trouble with him then," her watcher said with relief.

"Oh. Oh yeah, he was trouble." Buffy's quick response brought a frown to both Giles' and Angel's faces. "He's really very good. Better than me, maybe. It was almost like he knew me…." Her attention wandered off again as she replayed the fight in her mind.

"If he's so good, then how did you get away?"

"Hmmmm? Oh, I cheated." Buffy's absent-minded answer left her watcher, her vampire boy friend and her friend staring at each other as she wandered off to find her mother.

Chapter Five

Buffy's stubborn refusal to talk to either one of them about what had taken place during her fight with William the Bloody had both Giles and Angel

fuming. They took turns badgering her about exactly what the strange vamp had said and done to make her so sure he wasn't trying to kill her, and her own inability to understand herself why she felt she could trust Spike's word leant a defensive edge to her voice.

"Look, I've told you what I know. He acted almost like he knew me from somewhere. He said he didn't want to kill me yet, and then he…." Common sense left no doubt that telling either of the angry listeners that Spike had sort of

Sort of! It was just almost a kiss! kissed her before fleeing was something to be avoided at all costs and she stopped her recitation of the conversation at the point where the vamp had said she was the one who slayed the monsters.

"He called himself a monster?" Angel's voice dripped with disbelief. "That doesn't sound like Spike. That's not how he sees himself."

"He didn't call himself a monster; he said that I slay the monsters. He said it as though it would mean something to me…."

"Does it?" Giles' cold voice reminded her that both he and Angel were staring at her suspiciously.

"I… I don't know. It sounds sort of familiar, but I don't—" Buffy's voice broke off and her face went whiter than Angel's.

The vampire couldn't miss the sudden increase in her heart rate, replacing the paleness of her face with a flush of bright red, but his repeated requests for her to finish her remark and/or tell him what she remembered went unanswered. With a mumbled, "I have to go now," she fled the room, leaving Angel and an angry Giles staring after her.

She ran out of the library, out the first exit she came to and toward her home. As her feet pounded onto the pavement, she was repeating over and over, "No. No. Please no. Not him. No." Tears stood in her eyes and the wind from her passage flicked the moisture out every few seconds as she tried to outrun her fear.

She reached her home and flew up the tree leading to her roof, barely touching the branches in her haste to reach the comfort and safety of her bedroom. She dove through the open window and sank down onto the floor, shivering all over. When her breathing was once again under control, she crawled to her bed and pulled a locked box out from under it. She stared at it in fear for a few seconds before pulling a small key on a chain out from inside her shirt and putting it in the lock.

Carefully removing her diary and setting it aside, she dug through the souvenirs of her limited social life until she found a folded piece of soft paper with a torn edge. With shaking hands, she unfolded the page and read the words so carefully written there.

She glows when she smiles

She is the most beautiful girl for miles

She slays the monsters and saves the child

Isn't afraid no matter how wild

The enemy may have been

She is my warrior elf queen.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying blot out the picture of a fine-boned face and beautiful blue eyes looking into hers with admiration and adoration. When the child's face morphed into that of grown man with chiseled cheek bones and the same brilliant blue eyes, she felt physically sick and doubled over clutching her stomach.

She huddled on her floor for minutes that seemed like hours, rocking back and forth and mourning the gentle, brilliant child who'd called her his warrior queen and written a poem about her. Too wrapped in her unhappiness to notice the vampire tingles on the back of her neck or the scent of cigarette smoke drifting through her window, she never noticed the equally anguished eyes watching her from behind the impenetrable barrier of her window sill.

Eventually, the physical need for sleep as well as the exhaustion brought on by the emotions roiling through her had Buffy carefully placing the folded paper back in the box. She carefully repacked all her treasures before locking the box and sliding it back under her bed.

Buffy ignored all attempts by Giles to find out what had changed her from a bouncy sixteen-year-old high school student to a quiet, sad, all-business slayer. She went out on patrol every night, returning to Giles' apartment or the library to report on her evening's slaying in a dull, flat voice. When he asked if she'd seen any sign of William the Bloody, she shook her head "no" without elaborating. She saw no reason to tell him that she was sure she occasionally felt the signature of a powerful vampire; usually when she was fighting more than one vamp or demon at a time.

Although she knew Angel often watched over her from a distance, she was sure the signature was not his. She was curious about the similarity between Angel's signature and what she knew was probably Spike's, but put it down to their both being old, powerful vamps rather than young fledglings like most of the ones she encountered in her nightly patrols.

She went about her slaying with deadly precision and an absence of her usual quips and tricks. As weeks went by and she didn't see Spike again, she began to relax and ease back into her usual routine, allowing Xander or Giles to accompany her once in a while as well as agreeing to meet Angel after patrol once or twice a week. As things went back to normal, her usual sunny disposition emerged and she was soon punning and teasing with the vampires she fought and killed every night.

She had just determined that the bleached blond vampire had probably left Sunnydale, whether because he thought he couldn't kill her or because he just didn't want to, when they received information that there was now a new Master of Sunnydale and that he had an insane and injured consort. There was apparently much speculation in the demon community that the new Master would soon take care of the Slayer, leaving the town at the mercy of its more evil denizens.

Buffy's hopes that the Master in question was someone completely new were dashed when young girls began disappearing in record numbers and those vamps who would talk before being dusted indicated they were being provided to the ill consort of the new Master. The Watcher's Council informed them of the near-dusting of Spike's sire, Drusilla, in Prague and the possibility that he had brought her to the Hellmouth for healing.

This time there was no brushing off Buffy's obvious depression as ordinary teenage moodiness. She sleepwalked through the school day, barely speaking to her friends, and went out alone every night to slay vampires with cold precision. Even Cordelia noticed and commented on the Slayer's obvious unhappiness.

Finally, Giles could stand it no more and he politely asked her if she would mind coming to the library in the early evening to talk to him and Angel. He deliberately left out her school friends, wisely assuming that they had no more idea what was wrong than he did and hoping she would be more open with just the two older men listening.

When she was sitting at the long table in the center of the room, drinking a Coke in a desultory fashion and showing a complete lack of interest in their agenda, Giles spoke in a soft, understanding voice.

"Buffy, it is rather obvious to us – to everyone, actually – that something is bothering you. This… melancholy… that has consumed you for the past several weeks has us all very concerned. Perhaps if you would share with us—"

"Is it Spike?" Angel broke in. "Has he been threatening you again?"

Buffy blinked in surprise and sat up straighter.

"What? No. No, I haven't seen him. I thought maybe he'd left Sunnydale.…"

Even as she said the words, she knew they weren't true. She had learned to recognize the distinctive vampire signature that mean that the killer of slayers was somewhere nearby, even though she had not seen him or heard from him since Back-to-School Night. And the Council's information clearly pointed to his presence in Sunnydale.

"He's still here," Angel said grimly.

"How do you know?"

Buffy's puzzled look was turned on the vampire and she missed her Watcher's unconscious wince. The Watcher history books in which they'd found Spike's picture were close enough to accurate for Giles to know that William the Bloody was somehow related to Angelus.

Angel took a deep breath and admitted, "I can feel him. He's here."

"Feel him?"

"Buffy…" He gave Giles a pleading look, but the man's face was closed and gave no hint of this thoughts. "Buffy, I can feel him because he's family. I'm his—"

"You TURNED him? YOU turned William?"

Buffy's voice was high and shrill as befitted a young girl who thought she had just learned something terribly disturbing about her sometime boyfriend, but the look she gave Angel made him step back quickly in fear. Buffy was pure Slayer as she stalked the rapidly retreating vampire across the large room; and he hastened to answer her, holding his hands up in front of himself in a placating manner.

"No, Buffy. No. I didn't turn him. But… Drusilla did, and I am her sire. Spike is my grandchilde. He is… was… a close part of my vampire family. I can feel his presence just as I could feel Darla's. I know he's still here, I just can't find him."

"Are you trying to? Find him, I mean."

She stopped her predatory stalk toward the puzzled vamp, but kept the hard look on her face.

"Yes," he answered simply. "I know him. If he has determined to kill you, he won't stop until one of you is gone. I thought if I got to him first…."

"You'd kill your own grandchilde?"

"I killed my sire to save you, Buffy." The sadness in his voice was its own reproach.

Shamefaced, Buffy nodded at the recollection of how much he cared for her and her fight against evil. When she had sent him a non-verbal twisted smile of apology, he continued, "Trust me when I tell you that getting rid of Spike wouldn't bother me in the least. The boy's a pain in my ass and has been since he crawled out of his grave."

"Is that the problem, Buffy?" Giles asked gently. "Are you worried about Spike?"

She shuddered and turned away, not answering him except to shake her head.

"I just want to get it over with," she said softly, almost to herself.

"Buffy, why don't you let me handle—"

She cut Angel off with a hard flick of her hand.

"NO! No," she continued more softly, "I'm the Slayer. It's my job to slay the monsters. He knows that. It should be me."

"But, if you are afraid of him.…" Her watcher's voice was calm and reasonable; truth be told, he found the idea of Angel taking on the legendary slayer of slayers very appealing.

"I'm not afraid of him," she whispered softly, walking toward the exit. Before either man could register what she'd said about Spike knowing she should be the one to slay him, she whirled on Angel and said fiercely, "It should be me. Do you understand? Stay away from him!"

With that final order, she left the building and headed out on her nightly rounds, leaving two very puzzled men behind her to mull over her words.

Chapter Six

She walked aimlessly through the first two cemeteries, absently staking one vamp as it tried to crawl from its grave and wondering why he was the only one she saw. Moving into the next, more remote, graveyard, her attention was drawn to sounds of chanting and the smell of smoke. She followed her nose and ears to a secluded glade in the woods backing up to the graveyard and found a small group of J'kack demons apparently beginning some sort of ritual.

With a trace of her normal good humor, she sighed, "Why can't it ever just be a bunch of kids smoking weed?" as she went into action.

Springing into the center of the circle the demons had marked out, she quickly released the intended sacrifices, shoving them through the smoke and hissing, "Run!" Then she turned to meet the charge of the outraged demons - wishing briefly that she'd thought to bring a sword with her, but falling into the rhythm of the fight anyway.

She was able to use her speed and agility to remain out of reach of the swords the demons had, with more forethought than she had demonstrated, brought to the ritual, but she was unable to penetrate the barrier made by the flashing blades well enough to strike any killing blows. As she tired, the demons were able to surround her; suddenly dodging their sword strikes became much more difficult and the first tendrils of fear crept into her mind.

When she received a cut on her shoulder from the demon to her left as she ducked the one on her right, she began to think she might really be in trouble. The wound was not serious, but it hurt and it was bleeding enough to distract her. Suddenly, she felt Spike's signature and she found herself sharply disappointed at the thought that he would take advantage of her wound and weakness to attack now. However, the expected attack from the vampire never came; instead she realized with relief that there was no longer an opponent behind her. Without looking to see where the demon had gone, she understood that she was free to concentrate on the ones in front and to the sides.

Although still weaponless except for her stake, renewed hope flowed through her body and she pressed the attack once again. A quiet, "Catch, Slayer," and she found herself grabbing a sword out of the air over her head.

Now armed with something suitable, she moved quickly to rid herself of the remaining demons, angrily cutting off the arm of the one that had wounded her and the heads of the other two. When there was nothing left but the green blood from the one-armed J'kack running rapidly into the woods and the disintegrating bodies of his fellow demons, Buffy lowered her sword cautiously and turned around to face the vampire.

She stared at his smiling face, wondering why he seemed so relaxed when he was facing a tired and wounded but basically functional slayer and one who was now holding a sword. When she didn't say anything, merely continued to search his face, he finally spoke again, cocking his head to one side.

"Don't I get a 'thank you', pet?"

"Why'd you do it, Spike? Are you that focused on killing me yourself?"

Her voice showed her weariness, but she dropped into a fighting stance, raising the sword and looking into his eyes with resigned determination. She almost faltered when she saw what could only be hurt flash across his face before his eyes hardened and he snarled back at her.

"If I wanted to kill you, Slayer, you'd have been dead weeks ago. Let's just say I was returning a favor." His tone changed, and again she thought she saw pain behind his eyes. "Don't pretend you don't remember, Slayer," he said, almost pleading. "I know you do."

She dropped the sword point again, wondering if she should pretend not to understand him. She could think of no way for him to know that she'd already connected him with the little boy she'd known so briefly over a year ago. She was even more surprised that he could remember something so far in his own past and she frowned before responding.

"So, we're even now?" she answered noncommittally.

"I suppose we are," he said slowly.

"Then I suggest you leave Sunnydale. And take your… whatever she is with you."

"Brought her here to make her well," he said flatly. "Not leavin' till I've done it."

They faced each other stubbornly until his face softened.

"Would you really dust me, Buffy?" His voice was as soft as his expression and for just a second she caught a glimpse of the little boy who'd worshipped her. Then the master vampire was back and she tried to shake off the inappropriate feelings he'd inspired so briefly. "If you could?" he added with a confident smirk.

"It's what I do, William," she whispered softly, then bristled. "And of course I could! You're not all that, you know."

"Yeah, luv, I kinda am," he said; the words held no sign of braggadocio, but were spoken as if he was stating a fact. "You're very good, Slayer, but you're not ready for me. Maybe in a couple more years, if you live that long, but not yet. I've had a lot longer to get good at this than you have. And next time, I'll be ready for you to cheat. Might even be looking forward to it," he added with a grin.

Changing the subject, she ignored his leering grin and asked, "So you'll just keep feeding her Sunnydale's teenage girls until she's well? I won't let that happen, Spike. I can't."

"Didn't expect you to, pet. That's not what we came for. Minions just got a little carried away about bringing her food; but it won't happen again. What she needs she can't get from humans."

Buffy gaped at him. "Are you saying you aren't going to be hunting?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm saying I don't plan to give you a reason to come looking for me," he answered evasively. "Unless you want to of course. I wouldn't mind fightin' you again; was bloody good fun the first time. But I won't give you a reason to stake me."

"You exist, Spike." Buffy felt her eyes prickle with unexpected tears. "I'm the Slayer. I don't need any other reason."

He tilted his head to one side and studied her conflicted face.

"You know, pet, you're the only reason I even lived long enough to be turned. The things you taught me, the encouragement you gave me. The example you set – well, except for runnin' from that harmless sheep…."

"Hey! He knocked me down!" she replied indignantly before noticing the twinkle in his eye.

With her sword now being held loosely and pointed toward the ground, he felt confident enough to step closer. He ghosted his hand over her hair, pushing a stray piece off her face and saying softly, "The point is, luv, I don't think I could kill you if I wanted to. Not saying I won't fight you if I have to. Not saying I wouldn't hurt you. But knowing that you're real… that you're alive, and not some figment of a child's imagination…."

He shuddered and stepped away quickly before she could respond.

"I'll try to keep the minions in line a little better, but I won't have any hard feelings if you have to dust them. And I'll try to stay out of your way. As much as I can, anyway,' he finished in a mumble.

Buffy remembered all the times she thought she'd felt him in the past months.

"Have you been following me?"

"Not as such, no. No, of course not! Why would I follow you? You're the bloody Slayer. Want to stay as far away from you as…." He stopped when he saw her crossed arms, tapping foot and the disbelieving look on her face.

"How did you happen to be here tonight? Just when I needed… when I wouldn't have minded a helping hand?"

"Jus' passing by and heard the noise. Can't pass up a good fight, you know. Keeps the old reflexes sharp and—"

"You didn't fight."

"Well, I could've if I wanted to. Just got sidetracked a bit watching you. It's been a while since I've seen you in action. Poetry in motion, you are."

"Speaking of poetry…."

A look of sheer terror passed over the vampire's face.

"There will be no speaking of poetry, Slayer. One word and my promise not to kill you is bloody well forgotten! I mean it," he growled as she started to laugh.

"What's the matter, Spike?" she teased. "Writing poetry doesn't fit your Big Bad image? What would your minions say if they knew you'd written a poem for a Slayer?"

"They wouldn't say a bloody word if they knew what was good for them, " he snarled. "And neither will you!"

He grabbed her arms, effectively pinning the sword to her side while he slipped into vamp face and lunged at her throat. Buffy's heart rate went up, but she held her ground in the face of the apparent attack, neither fighting him nor attempting to get away. When his lips just brushed her neck before he shook off his wrinkles and fangs, she knew he hadn't lied about not being able to kill her.

"I don't remember you being such an irritating bint," he grumbled, pulling back from her far enough to see the smile she was trying to hide.

He was very conscious of the warmth flowing from her body and his own body responded to the nearness in unmistakable fashion. Buffy's eyes grew wide as she felt him growing hard against her stomach. Although her experience with men since she'd been called at the age of fifteen had been pretty much limited to a few unsuccessful dates with fumbling boys her own age and even fewer yearning late night kisses with Angel, she knew exactly what she was feeling pressing against her again. She flashed back to Back to School Night and the way she'd allowed that rigid shaft to slide between her thighs.

Her mouth went dry and she tried to speak, managing only to croak out, "Is that going to happen every time you get near me?"

"Looks like," he answered, lowering his face to her neck again and running his lips over her now pounding pulse. "Can't help it, Slayer. Question is, what are we going to do about it?"

Buffy was unconsciously leaning into the hard body that fit her own so much better than Angel's bulk did. If she stood on her toes just a bit, her mouth was almost even with his as he dipped his head down to brush his lips over hers, just as he had weeks ago. He continued to move them gently across her mouth until her own lips softened and responded to the light pressure. When he tentatively ran his tongue over her lower lip, causing her to gasp and open her mouth, she gave up any pretense that they weren't actually kissing.

With a groan, the vampire pulled her willing body against his, slanting his head at the same time to deepen the kiss. Their tongues met, uncertainly at first, but gaining boldness as they stood together with nothing moving but their mouths. Buffy kept her hands at her sides, letting Spike's strong arms hold her to him while their kiss continued to deepen. As the vampire's passions became more ardent, his hands began to move over her body, stroking and kneading her flesh through her clothing; when his cool fingers slid up under her shirt to stroke the bottom of her breast, she began to understand that Spike was not likely to be content with the heavy petting and dry-humping that boys her own age might.

While her body responded to everything the vampire did with an enthusiasm that surprised and frightened her, her mind was screaming that she needed to stop him before she found herself losing her virginity while standing up in a graveyard. With a tremendous effort of will, and no small amount of reluctance, she brought her hands up against his chest and tore her mouth away long enough to protest, "Sp-William, we need to stop."

"Don't want to," he mumbled, burying his face in her neck again and planting wet kisses as far down into her shirt as he could reach without unbuttoning it. He felt her tremble and smiled to himself, reaching for the buttons with one hand before he smelled the tears and realized she was trembling more from fear than desire.

"P-please, William." Her barely spoken plea and the tears rolling down her face shocked him out of his lust-driven haze, and he pulled back immediately.

One look at the conflict in her eyes as well as the fear she couldn't hide and the Victorian gentleman that he hadn't been for well over a hundred years took over. He knew instinctively that the fear he could read in her face had nothing to do with his being a vampire and everything to do with his being a man.

"I'm sorry, pet, so sorry. Never meant to… I forgot how young you are…."

"I can't… I don't… I'm not ready for…." Buffy stumbled for a way to say what she was feeling; that although her body seemed more than ready to take what he wanted to give her, her sixteen-year-old psyche was not. As soon as he mentioned her youth, she was reminded of his own age and she nodded in agreement.

"I'm only sixteen, Spike. And you're… you're… Oh my God!"

The instant in which, in her eyes, he went from being a slightly older man to a 124-year-old master vampire was readily apparent. Eyes wide with shock and dismay, she retreated from his embrace, shaking her head as she backed away. He reached a desperate hand towards her as she continued to move away from him, her hand pressed to the mouth he'd been lost in just a few seconds ago.

"Wrong," she half-sobbed. "This is so wrong."

"Buffy…."

"No!"

She whirled and ran, dropping the sword so that it wouldn't slow her down. She had no idea if Spike was chasing her or not, and she didn't care as she continued running as hard as she could back to the refuge of her home and her chaste little girl's bedroom. Once again she dove through her window and huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth and crying – over what, she wasn't quite sure.

Chapter Seven

The following evening, without going into details about their conversation, Buffy did her best to bring Giles and the Scoobies up-to-date on Spike. Back against the wall of the library, Angel brooded in silence, frowning every time she mentioned his grandchilde's name.

"So, Buffy," Giles tried to keep his tone impartial and smooth, although he wanted to shout at her for her stupidity in pausing to talk to William the Bloody rather than slaying him. "You are saying that Spike helped you defeat the J'kack demons and then told you he wasn't hunting?"

"Well, he didn't so much help me as he evened the odds a little – I guess he killed one of them and threw me the sword. Then he just watched me fight the rest of them."

"So, once again, he was using this as an opportunity to study your moves."

"No, he just likes to—yes! I mean, yes, he was watching me fight them because he wanted to… study me."

"He's up to something." Angel's voice was a low growl and Buffy shot him an irritated look.

"Or maybe he just wants to cure whatshername and get out of here," she snapped, surprising everyone with the vehemence of her reply.

Giles gave the vampire a glare, then continued, "And did you say he apologized for the missing girls?" The disbelief was obvious.

"Well, not in so many words." She squirmed uncomfortably. "He just said that he hadn't meant for that to happen and that humans weren't what he needs to cure his.…" She found herself struggling to find something to call the woman Spike had come to Sunnydale to save. "…His sire," she finally got out.

"She's more than his sire," Angel said quietly. "She's his… everything. They've been together for over a hundred years; he won't leave until he makes her well."

"Well, if it isn't blood she needs," Buffy tried to smother the jealousy that hearing Drusilla referred to as Spike's "everything' sent stabbing through her, "then what is it?"

"Sire's blood," he replied, pushing himself off the wall. "She needs Sire's blood to heal. That's why he's here; he's here for me."

The entire group of humans gaped at the souled vampire until he bristled.

"What? Giles, surely you know how important Sire's blood is to vampires. It's what feeds us when we first crawl out of our graves, and it can cure us if we're hurt or sick. The only thing close to it would be—" He broke off abruptly, but the guilty look he shot at Buffy left no doubt about what he'd been about to say.

"Slayer blood," she said flatly. "He could use my blood to heal her too."

"He could, but he won't," Angel's snarl and flashing amber eyes were a sudden reminder that he was an even older vampire than Spike or Drusilla.

"Hey, no problem, then." Xander spoke up for the first time all night. "We'll just feed Deadboy here to the crazy vampire."

"We're not feeding anybody to Spike's… to Drusilla." Buffy spoke with conviction, glaring around the room and daring anyone to contradict her. "We—I'll find a way to make them leave."

"Or you could just slay them." Her watcher's voice was cold and harsh. "You have an opportunity to take out two of the remaining three members of the Scourge of Europe, Buffy. I fail to understand why you don't consider that your first option."

"Yeah, Buff, why aren't you all about the slaying of the slayer of slayers? And do not try saying that at home!" Xander added as they all stared at him.

Because all I see when I look at him is a brave little boy who took care of me for a few days last year? Oh yeah, that'll go over well, almost as well as "because he kissed me and rocked my world." Gah!"

"Yes, Buffy," Angel's voice was almost as hard as her Watcher's. "Why is it that neither of you is dead yet?"

Tired of the pretense, of lying to the people who cared about her, and too preoccupied to watch what she was saying, Buffy snapped back in a tone just as hard as theirs, "Because neither of us wants the other dead."

"Can you explain why?"

She could hear the struggle to control his temper in his voice, and she sent Giles a warning glare before giving up and allowing her shoulders to slump with submission.

"I could, but I really don't feel like it. Can't you just take my word for it that he isn't going to kill me?"

Angel stood up, his impatience clear.

"I've had enough. I'm going to get to the bottom of this and I'm going to do it now."

He started out of the room, stopping when Buffy sprinted to the door to block his way.

"Where are you going?"

"To find Spike and Dru and get him to tell me what kind of game he's playing. You may not want to dust him, but I have no problem with it."

"Are you going to dust Drusilla too?" Buffy had spent some time recently poring over Giles' books on vampire families and had a better understanding of the ties between sire and childe.

The vampire shrugged uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact with the girl glaring at him and waiting for an answer. When he saw that she wasn't going to give it up and that Giles was looking at him coldly, he sighed in resignation.

"I would rather not," he admitted softly. "I'm completely responsible for Drusilla's… condition… and I feel I owe her—"

"So then, you are going to take over care of the insane vampiress after you dust her mate?" The Watcher's voice was even and gave no sign as to what he was thinking.

"They aren't mated!" Angel snarled, startling the humans in the room into silence. Buffy's eyes were wide with shock at the vehemence with which the normally placid vampire responded to Giles' question.

"But all the Council's books say—"

"The books are wrong." Angel's voice was quieter, but no less sure. "Dru has never allowed Spike to claim her. He is just a toy and a… caretaker."

Buffy bristled on Spike's behalf at the tone of contempt in Angel's voice.

"He's been a 'toy' for over a hundred years? This vampire that you keep telling me is too dangerous for me to take on by myself?" Buffy's disbelief was obvious, though her quickly-smothered joy at hearing that Spike and Drusilla were not mated was not so apparent to anyone but herself.

"Tell me, Angel," Giles refused to let the subject go. "Who will become Drusilla's caretaker if you dust William the Bloody?"

Angel's nostrils flared in irritation. "It's not my problem," he muttered. "She'll turn herself another… companion."

"And I'm supposed to let that happen? She gets a free pass to kill somebody just because you don't like Spike?"

"Fine!" Angel's impatient snarl gave them a quick glance at what he might have been like without his soul. "I won't dust the bleached menace. Satisfied?" He stalked towards the door, growling under his breath, "Unless he does something to piss me off."

"Do. Not. Dust. Spike." Buffy's voice was pure Slayer and there was no mistaking the threat underlying her order.

Angel didn't answer, just continued out the doors leaving them swinging back and forth behind him.

"Hey, here's an idea, Buff." Xander spoke up eagerly. "Why not dust all three of them? Poof! No more Scourge of Europe."

"I HEARD that!" Angel's outraged roar floated back to them.

"You were meant to!" Xander responded, but much more quietly. As much as he disliked the vampire, he never forgot that the only thing standing between Angel and Angelus was a non-visible soul. Nor did he forget that the vampire disliked him in equal measure.

After once again refusing to tell Giles why she was so confident that Spike wasn't going to kill her, Buffy left the library and walked Willow home. They strolled in silence for several blocks before Willow ventured, "Buffy? William the Bloody – does he have anything to do with… I mean obviously he's a grown man, but he had to be a little boy sometime and it's about the right time frame and…." She stopped rambling for a breath of air and found Buffy staring at her in amazement.

"How…?"

Willow blushed and admitted, "I loved your story about little William and how brave he was and how he took care of you and wrote you a poem. And I remembered that you said that he was blond and had beautiful blue eyes, so I did some research… It is him, isn't it? It's William, all grown up?"

Buffy sighed, releasing the tension she'd been carrying around for weeks and grateful to have someone to talk to about Spike.

"Yes," she said softly. "It's him. All grown up."

"And a vampire," Willow felt constrained to point out.

"And a vampire," Buffy agreed with a groan. "Not just any vampire, but Angel's grandchilde and one that has killed two slayers."

"And he remembers you?" Willow's voice carried more than a touch of awe. "After all this time? I mean, I know it's only been a year for you – but for him it's been…." She looked at her best friend with renewed respect. "Wow. I meet guys and they can't remember my name the next day. And you… and he…. Wowie."

"Yeah, well, things would be a lot easier if we didn't remember each other. Then he'd be dust and Giles wouldn't be cleaning his glasses and grumbling all the time, and Angel wouldn't be such a sourpuss."

"Uh, Buffy?"

Her friend cocked her head in inquiry.

"Giles is always cleaning his glasses about something. And Angel? Pretty much a sourpuss most of the time. I don't think it's fair to blame it on Spike… er… William."

"Bloody brilliant observation there, Red." The rich, warm voice came out of the shadows just before Spike stepped out where they could see him.

While Willow gaped at the smiling vamp, wondering if his promise not to kill Buffy would extend to her friends, Buffy glared at him and demanded, "Are you following me again?"

"Jus' happened to be walking this way, pet; don't get your knickers in a twist. You should have known I was here, anyway. What's the matter with your vamp radar?"

The tone of concern in his voice wasn't lost on either of the girls and Willow shot Buffy a speculative look before stammering, "We… she was busy talking to me and it's Sunnydale so you know, vampires everywhere… and—" She stopped and looked at Buffy again. "Why didn't you feel him, Buffy? Didn't you tell me you can always tell when Angel's around?"

"I'm not Angel!"

"He's not Angel!"

There was silence for a few seconds, both somewhat abashed by their immediate identical responses. Then Buffy shrugged and admitted, "I knew he was around. I just didn't know he was eavesdropping on us," she added with another glare.

Completely unfazed by her scowl, Spike smirked and said, "Knew you knew it was me. Bloody bint -– pretendin' you didn't know I was here. Shame on you, Slayer."

He grinned at her, obviously pleased with himself at catching her out.

"So, why are you here, Spike? And don't try to tell me you were just out for a walk, either." A look of fear crossed her face. "Were you hunting? Did you just kill somebody?"

Her heart was pounding as she reached for the stake in her waistband. To Willow's complete amazement, instead of moving away in fear, the vampire stepped closer to the Slayer and put a gentle hand on hers pushing the stake back into its resting place.

"Easy, luv. I wasn't hunting. I'd just left you a gift and was on my way back from your house. Heard you two chattering and thought I'd catch up and introduce myself to your pretty little friend here."

Willow blushed all over at the appreciative wink from the vampire she'd identified the first time she'd seen him as a "hottie". She ducked her head and peered at him through her hair, whispering a tentative, "Hi?"

Buffy smothered another pang of jealousy as Spike let go of her to take Willow's hand in his and gently shake it. He held it just long enough to make the novice witch blush again as he purred, "I feel a lot of power flowing through this little hand, Red. Into the magic, are you then?"

"Willow's going to be a very powerful witch," Buffy put in quickly, pulling her friend back from the smiling vampire. "She's my right-hand…witch," she finished lamely.

Spike's attention was back on Buffy as Willow began edging toward her front walk. She could see that neither of them was interested in talking to her anymore that night, and quickly mumbled a "good night" as she ran toward her front door.

Chapter Eight

The Slayer and the vampire barely acknowledged Willow's departure as they stood only inches apart on the sidewalk. Buffy felt her heart rate go up again as Spike looked like he was about to touch her; her disappointment when he moved away instead made her sound angry as she said, "Angel says you're here for him. That you need sire's blood to make your… Drusilla… well. Is that true? Is that why you're here?"

"Yes, pet, that's why I'm here. There are only two things that have a chance of repairing the kind of damage that mob did to her, and one of them is the blood of her sire. 'Course, I don't know if the great pouf is going to give it up willingly…."

"I won't let you hurt him, Spike." She spoke as firmly, if not as threateningly, as she had to Angel.

He cocked his head at her, asking with genuine puzzlement, "Why's that, luv? Even with that soul he got saddled with, he's still just another vamp."

Buffy started to fidget guiltily, then remembered that the vampire was here with his long-time girlfriend and brought her chin up defiantly.

"He's my boyfriend," she said strongly, meeting his darkening look with a stubborn lip.

"He's your what?" Spike's snarl made her flinch in spite of herself; his eyes flashed amber and she could see the bones in his face beginning to shift before he regained control of himself. With a visible effort, he forced back the demon and said tightly, "Knew I smelled him on you, but I never imagined… Buffy, luv, he's not… you shouldn't… bloody hell, Slayer! Do you know who he is?"

"I know who he was before he got his soul. But that was a long time ago, and he's good now. He helps me, and he… he… likes me."

Instead of arguing with her, he stepped close again and ran his hand over her hair, lingering when he reached the ends that were hanging just above her breast.

"I like you too, luv," he whispered. "The more I see of you, the more I… like you."

Buffy trembled at his proximity, remembering how it felt to be pressed against the body now standing so close to hers. He leaned down, his cool breath tickling her ear as he whispered, "Do you like me, luv? Just a little?"

"Y… you… you're a vampire… you don't have a soul… you kill Slayers…." Her voice was more of a petulant whine than a firm denial.

"Don't want to kill you, Buffy. Just want to…." His lips brushed across her mouth, wringing an involuntary whimper from her as she pushed him away.

"Don't," she breathed. "Please don't. You have a… a girlfriend. A vampire, like you." She shuddered and moved back out of reach. "You need to stay away from me."

"If I was a gentleman, I probably would," he agreed cheerfully. "But I'm just a bad, rude man – er, vampire, and I don't want to stay away from you. In fact…." He moved toward her, frowning when she continued to back away from him.

His demeanor made another mercurial switch from cocky vampire to uncertain gentleman as she continued to back away, shaking her head vigorously.

"Don't be afraid of me, luv. Please. I'll not hurt you or yours. I swear it."

"It's not you I'm afraid of, William," she whispered, blushing.

Sudden understanding shone in his eyes and they softened until she was sure she could see the proper little boy she'd met last year reflected there.

"I won't push you, pet. Won't ask you for anything you're not ready to give. Wouldn't presume… I just want to be around you, Buffy, while I can. Can't help what you do to me, but I wouldn't force myself on you."

His expressive human face went from anxious to happy as he absorbed the fact that she wanted him almost as much as he wanted her.

"Doesn't mean I'm not going to want to touch you," he added, moving cautiously so as not to frighten her. "Doesn't mean I don't want to kiss you…." His hand gently tipped her face up until he could brush his lips over hers while he murmured soothingly. He heard the pounding of her heart as he whispered against her trembling mouth. "But I won't do it if it makes you uncomfortable, Slayer."

Hearing him call her Slayer snapped Buffy out of her lust-induced immobility and she shook herself regretfully before placing her hands against his hard chest.

"It does make me uncomfortable, Spike," she said clearly, holding him off with both hands but not pushing him away yet. "It makes me uncomfortable for a lot of reasons."

With a sigh of resignation, he reluctantly let go of her chin and backed away a few steps.

"All right, luv. Walk with me a bit and tell me what is so awful about spending some time kissing an old friend."

"We're not old friends, Spike," she said, turning toward Revello Drive. "We're just two people who knew each other for a few days a long time ago. In your case, a very long time ago."

"Didn't you like William?" The hurt in his voice was real and she had a sudden flashback to worshipful eyes and a tremulous smile.

"Of course I did! I do—did, like William. You know I did. But you… you aren't him anymore, are you?"

"I am when I'm around you," he said quietly. "I'm more like him than I ever expected or wanted to be again." His admission that William's Victorian manners and gentle nature were at odds with the vampire he'd become was just the right touch of honesty it took for her to believe him.

"And when you aren't around me?" Her voice was a sad whisper.

"I am what I am, Slayer. I'm a 124-year-old master vampire who was turned and taught his trade by three of the most bloodthirsty and evil demons of modern time. Can't change that. Wouldn't if I could. Grown-up William was more than a bit of a ponce; a mummy's boy who would rather write poetry than earn a living. No one respected him; no one wanted him. If he hadn't had a few tricks up his sleeve, thanks to a pretty visitor from the land of elves," – he sent her a sideways glance happy to see a small smile touch her lips – "he probably wouldn't have lived long enough to catch Dru's attention. As it was, he got beat up fairly often. Even though some blokes did learn that if he was sufficiently frightened he could be bloody creative in his own defense," he finished dryly.

"So now you get back at all those people by killing and eating total strangers who had nothing to do with anything that happened to you before you were turned?"

Buffy's angry tone told him he'd been a little too honest in his reply and he growled softly to himself.

"I'm a bloody vampire, Buffy!"

"So is Angel," she answered quietly. "He doesn't kill innocent people."

Spike's eyes flashed amber and his forehead began to furrow. With a visible effort, he once again fought down his demon although his response came out sounding more like a growl than actual words.

"Angelus is the same selfish, ill-tempered, impatient bastard he always was. Soul or no soul. I don't know what has set him on this quest to be good – other than the chance to get into your virginal little knickers – but he hasn't been like that for most of the past 200 years and I don't believe it's a way of life now. If he's concerning himself with the welfare of 'innocent people' I can guarantee you he has some kind of ulterior motive. I didn't trust him then, and I don't trust him now."

Buffy's face couldn't hide her dismay and anger – dismay that Spike refused to believe that Angel could be good; and anger that he could allude so crudely to her relationship with the souled vampire.

"Just because you can't keep your hands off—you have no right to accuse Angel of—how dare you!"

"I dare because I know the bloody wanker, better than you ever will. He didn't leave us the minute he got that soul. We had the pleasure of his brooding company for years before the tart finally tossed him out on his arse. He doesn't care about anyone but himself, and he has a thing for young girls. Always has – since before he was turned."

His voice changed from an angry growl to a soft, pleading whisper that Buffy reacted to in spite of herself.

"I'm not trying to scare you, luv. Or spoil your love life. But I know him, and he will hurt you. Sooner or later, the bastard will hurt you and I… I couldn't live with myself if I didn't warn you about him."

His face showed nothing but genuine concern and a bit of longing that she chose not to see. They had stopped walking to yell at each other and he moved closer to her so that he could gently stroke the side of her face.

"Just don't let him hurt you, luv; that's all I'm saying. Be careful. Find yourself a nice high school boy, and leave the pouf to do his brooding by himself."

"Well, that would be a good solution if I could actually find one who had the same effect on me that some vampires apparently do," she grumbled, missing the way his eyes lit up at her use of the plural.

"Well," he grinned as they started walking again, "I didn't say go find one right now. Maybe after I leave…."

The reminder that he was there only temporarily to cure his long-time girlfriend was all Buffy needed to firm up her resolve. As they reached the corner of Revello Drive within view of her well-lit house, she stopped again and turned to face him.

"I don't know why you and Angel hate each other so much – and I don't think I want to know. But whatever it is, you need to work it out without bloodshed. I… I don't want you killing each other – and I don't want to have to kill one or the other of you to prevent it."

"Well, if the bloody poufter will accept his responsibility and give Dru what she needs from him—"

"Didn't I just say I didn't want you to kill each other? What makes you think I'm going to let you feed him to your crazy girlfriend?" Buffy's voice was high and shrill and the vampire shushed her quickly when he saw someone look out of one of the houses.

"Shhh, pet. Gonna bring your neighbors out if you keep that up."

"Duh! It's the Hellmouth, Spike. Nobody goes out of their nice safe home after dark unless it's on fire or something. Don't change the subject. I'm not going to let you kill Angel to save your skanky girlfriend."

He cocked his head at her and said curiously, "Have your watcher and Angelus not told you anything about vampire bites, Buffy?"

"You mean other than, 'don't get one if you can help it'? What else is there to know?"

"Exchanging blood is a big part of vampire life, Slayer. We bite each other all the time. We can even bite humans without killing if we want to. Dru doesn't have to kill Angelus to get well – she just needs some of his blood in her system. She wouldn't kill him if she had to," he added bitterly. "Trust me. She cares more about that wanker than you do."

"I sooo don't want to know what you mean by that," Buffy muttered, surprised when the vampire readily agreed with her.

"I don't want you to know what I mean by it either, luv," he said quietly. "I hope you never know."

She frowned at him quizzically, but he didn't elaborate; there was an uncomfortable silence before Buffy said reluctantly, "Well. I'm home and I should get in before my mother wonders where I've been all this time."

"She doesn't know? Your own mum doesn't know you're the Slayer?"

"My mother is a busy woman. She doesn't know lots of things that she doesn't need to, and my being the Slayer is definitely one of those things she doesn't need to know. She would wig."

"I think it's a mistake to keep something like that from your mum, luv," he said, sounding very much like an adult speaking to a child. "The woman has a right to know—"

"To know that I'm out every night killing things? That I might not come back one of these nights? What good would that do? She'd just worry herself to death or order me to quit being the Slayer or some other pointless something. We went through this when I was first called; my parents didn't want to know then, and they don't want to know now."

He picked up on the sorrow in her voice and without thinking about what he was doing or the public street upon which they were standing, he put his arms around her and gave her a comforting hug. She stiffened, then relaxed into his embrace and laid her head on his chest. Somehow his spontaneous reaction to her tone of voice broke through all the defenses she'd set up against him and she sighed happily as he kissed the top of her head and murmured reassuring nothings into her hair.

Her hands slid around his body to hug him back and what had been a warm, chaste embrace suddenly threatened to turn into something else as he felt the inevitable tightening in his jeans. Before she could notice, he gently pushed her away, planting a final kiss on her forehead and smiling into her bewildered and disappointed face.

He rested his forehead against hers telling her softly, "Believe me, luv, I'd hold you all night if you wanted me to, but you need to go in and I need to get away from your warm little body before I start wanting things I know I'll never have. Good night, Buffy," he whispered. "Check outside your window for your gift and use it well."

With a last quick peck on her pouting mouth, he stepped away and vanished into the night, his long strides carrying him out of sight before she could even say her own "good-night". When she could no longer see his flapping coat and bright hair, she sighed and walked the rest of the way to her house wondering how a girl who hardly ever dated could have such a complicated lovelife.

She exchanged some small talk with her mother, barely paying attention to what the older woman was saying about an upcoming trip as she mulled over Spike's words and wondered if she was making a mistake keeping her mother in the dark about her calling. Putting the subject aside for another day, she said goodnight and went up to her room.

She looked around curiously for anything new that could be construed as a gift, then realized there was no way for Spike to have left a present in her room. Frowning at her own lapse at expecting a vampire other than Angel to have access to her bedroom, she wondered briefly what he'd meant by 'leaving her a present'. A soft breeze from the barely open window caught her attention and she walked to the window to peer out.

Lying on the slightly sloping roof just outside her window was the sword Spike had tossed her the night before. The one she had dropped when the reality of her standing in a graveyard engaging in lustful kissing with an unsouled vampire had hit and she had run off.

She leaned out the window and carefully pulled the clean and shiny sword into her bedroom, admiring the way it felt in her hand and taking some practice slashes with it. When she almost sliced through her drapes, she remembered where she was and looked around wondering where she could hide a sword that her mother wouldn't notice it. She finally settled on wrapping it in an extra blanket and pushing it up against the wall under her bed.

She went to sleep that night with a small smile on her face and the taste of cigarettes on her lips.

Chapter Nine

When several nights had gone by with no sign of Spike or Angel, Buffy began to worry that neither of the two old vampires had obeyed her demand that they stay away from each other. When she expressed to Willow her fear that they might have killed each other, Xander overheard.

"And that would be a bad thing because…?"

Giles and Cordelia turned to look at her with the same curiosity on their faces as was on Xander's. Buffy's eyes flew to Willow's, then back to the others, her unwillingness to discuss the two vampires plain to see.

"Well… well, Angel is my boyfriend – sort of," she stammered, only to be interrupted by Xander's happy, "Sort of? Did you say, 'sort of'? Does that mean you're getting over your weird urge to socialize with the undead?"

Her friend's happy countenance quickly gave way to suspicion as watched her cheeks redden with embarrassment. Her clear reluctance to say anything more also brought a frown to her Watcher's face and he said quietly, "Why don't you and I have a little chat in my office, Buffy." His tone made it very clear it was not a request, merely his polite British way of telling her he wanted answers.

With a final panicked look at a sympathetic Willow, Buffy slowly followed Giles into his office and stood stubbornly just inside as he closed the door on the curious faces in the library.

"Buffy," he began pompously, "I feel I have been very patient with you for the past couple of months, but I believe it is time for you to tell me what you know about William the Bloody and why you would feel anything but great relief at the thought of his demise."

Her shoulders slumping in defeat, she threw herself down in a chair and said petulantly, "It's all your fault."

"My fault?"

"You made me jump through that stupid portal last year and left me there for three days! So, it's your fault I don't want Sp-William dead."

Giles stared at her until she squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, then he sighed and leaned back in his own seat, pinching the bridge of his nose as he said quietly, "I take it that you somehow met Spike while you were in the other dimension?"

"It wasn't another dimension," she whispered. "It was just back in time in our own. Back to 1864, to a farm in Kent… England."

"I know where Kent is, thank you, Buffy," he snapped. "The question is, what has that to do with your reluctance to slay William the Bloody? Or his purported unwillingness to add you to his tally of slayers killed?"

When Buffy didn't answer immediately, he sighed and continued, "I am assuming that you and William developed some kind of… relationship… while you were there? A romantic relationship, perhaps?"

"Ewwww, Giles! He was nine years old! What do you think I am?"

"I think you are a Slayer who has had the misfortune to develop emotional attachments to some of the very creatures you are destined to slay. And I am very afraid that it is going to get you killed." The harshness of his words and tone belied the genuine concern on his face as he looked into Buffy's unhappy eyes.

"I understand that you have some… feelings… for Angel, and it is quite obvious that he cares for you and your mission. However, I do not believe it is in your best interest to forget what he was before he got cursed with that soul. Just because he fought on the side of good after tha—"

Buffy interrupted him, speaking so softly he almost didn't hear her.

"He didn't start fighting for good as soon as he got the soul. Spike says he stayed with them for a long time before Darla kicked him out. He said I… I need to be careful of Angel. That he wasn't a good man before he was turned and that he could still hurt me, even with his soul."

"He is quite correct," Giles answered, equally softly. "Although why he would tell you that, I cannot im—"

"You knew that about Angel? What he was like as a human? And you didn't tell me?" Hurt and betrayal were plain in the Slayer's face.

"Buffy, I work with and around teenagers. I think I have learned when to pick my battles." He looked at her sternly. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you would have immediately stopped seeing Angel had I told you he was not a nice person and not a good choice for a romantic partner."

Buffy's automatic response died on her lips as her innate honesty made her admit, "No, I probably wouldn't have. But at least I would have been warned and then you could say, 'I told you so'. If there was ever any reason to," she added hastily. "Which there isn't. A reason to, I mean."

"Not that we have seen," Giles said in a tone that indicated he was not sure they never would. "Now, if you could explain to me why William the Bloody, who was a nine-year-old child when he last met you, is so concerned about your physical and emotional welfare, I would greatly appreciate it."

With a sigh, Buffy told Giles about nine-year old William, the sheep, the care he tried to take of her when she was so unceremoniously deposited in his field. She told him briefly about the well-mannered little boy who tried so hard to defend her against a gang of thugs much older than he. She gave an abbreviated version of her fight with the older boys, shrugging when he asked dryly if she had remembered she was fighting humans and saying, "I didn't care at that point. They tried to rape William and they were planning to rape me." When he looked at her apprehensively, she growled, "I didn't kill them, Giles. Stop looking all Watcherly and worried. I just taught them a lesson in bullying."

"So, you saved young William from death and from a fate worse than death. And this is why the adult vampire doesn't want to kill you?"

"Pretty much," she said, struggling to keep any sign of the heated thoughts the adult William generated from showing on her face. She did her best to look honest and innocent as she finished cheerfully, "He said then that I must be a warrior elf queen. I don't think he thought I was real until we fought at Back to School Night."

Buffy carefully left out any mention of William's poetry, his last name, or the fact that the adult William seemed more than interested in having a physical if not romantic relationship with her. She just told Giles that she'd had to leave a note for the boy when the portal opened and that she hadn't seen him since then, not until the adult, demon version of William showed up in the alley, threatening to kill her.

The Watcher's face was a study in confusion and thought. He shook his head as he muttered, almost to himself, "Vampires with souls fighting on the side of the Slayer; vampires without souls who are capable of loving each other for over one hundred years…."

He missed Buffy's softly indrawn breath when he mentioned Drusilla's and Spike's long term love affair. Without noticing her reaction, he kept talking to himself.

"Unsouled demons that can remember good deeds from when they were children and remain grateful hundreds of years later. Who are capable of acting on that gratitude to the point of protecting a Slayer…."

He stopped and looked at Buffy's puzzled face. "I believe the Council is neither as all-knowing as they would like to think they are, nor as forthcoming with their employees as they could be."

"And I'm shocked and amazed," Buffy said sarcastically. She made no secret of her contempt for the organization that nominally "owned" her.

"So, are we done here?" she asked, standing up and edging toward the door.

"I suppose so," he sighed, taking off his glasses. "Although I do wish you had shared this information with me right at the beginning. It would have explained a lot."

"I'm sorry, Giles," she said reluctantly. "I just didn't think it was anybody's business but mine and Spike's. I just don't understand why I haven't seen him or Angel all week. He said it wouldn't hurt Angel to give Drusilla what she needs, so why isn't he around?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the answer to tha—" Giles was interrupted by the loud slam of the door being thrown open as Xander, Cordelia, and Willow tumbled into the small room.

"Buffy! Slayer needed. Right now – right here," Xander gestured behind them and continued to push his way into the room while Willow stood in the doorway looking somewhat sympathetically toward whatever had driven them into the Watcher's office.

Buffy pushed her way past her friends to see what was so frightening. At first glance, she couldn't see anything except a trail of blood from the library doors to the table. Then she caught a glimpse of a pale hand reaching to the tabletop and trying to pull a battered body to its feet.

"Spike!" She rushed to his side, heedless of the blood as she quickly put his arm over her shoulder and propped him up. He was a frightening sight – his throat torn and bloody, his vamp features fully visible as he struggled to remain upright.

"What happened to you?" She could see that one arm was dangling uselessly, and that in addition to his torn-out throat, he was covered in bites and claw marks. His tee shirt was hanging in bloody shreds, doing nothing to hide the gouges on his chest or the hole in his side.

As Buffy carefully helped him onto the table, taking care to lower his upper body gently until he was lying down, she repeated in a tight voice, "What did this to you?"

"Angelus," he gasped, dropping his head onto the hard wood without so much as a wince.

"Angel? Angel did this?" Buffy's anger was evident, but her concern for the vampire kept her from grabbing a stake and leaving immediately to search for her boyfriend. "After I told him to leave you alone?"

Spike shook his head gingerly, then met, not her eyes but those he quickly identified as belonging to her Watcher, saying clearly, "Not Angel. Angelus. ANGELUS."

The widening of the Watcher's eyes told him his message had gotten through and he allowed his own eyes to close in exhaustion. He looked very much like the corpse he was as he lay on the table not breathing or moving, the blood no longer running freely from his almost drained body.

Buffy whirled to the man whom she trusted to know everything and said desperately, "What's wrong with him? What do we need to do? And why does he keep calling Angel Angelus?"

Choosing to answer what he considered the most important question first, Giles said tightly, "I believe he is telling us that Angel has lost his soul somehow and that Angelus is back among us."

He looked at the anxious young faces peering out of his office and said sternly, "No one goes anywhere alone and you do not go anywhere to which Angel had an invitation. Can you think of a safe place?"

Willow was shaking her head, but Xander said, "Deadboy's never been welcome in my house. We can go there."

"Very well," he instructed. "Use Cordelia's car, keep holy water, crosses and stakes with you, and get there as quickly as you can. When it is once again daylight, you can go to your own homes and Willow can do disinvite spells everywhere that Angelus might have access." He turned to Buffy, "I presume he has full access to your home?" He tried to keep the accusatory tone from his voice, but her glare told him he hadn't succeeded very well.

"Yes," she said shortly. "But my mom is out of town, so there's no one there right now."

"Fine. Then we shall retreat to my apartment and I will do the disinvite as soon as we get there." He cast a dubious look at the inert man lying on his table and said with some reluctance, "I suppose we will have to take him with us until he has recovered enough to give us some more information. I believe I have some chains somewhere—"

"He needs blood," Buffy said abruptly, ignoring for the moment Giles' suggestion that they chain Spike up. "We'll have to stop at the butcher's or the hospital…"

"The butcher will be closed by now, Buffy," Giles said with a glance at his watch. While the butchers in Sunnydale tended to stay open after dark in order to accommodate their demon clientele, they didn't remain open all night and it was well past the time for them to have closed. "And I do not believe that Sunnydale Hospital is going to be interested in sharing the blood they have need of so frequently with one of the creatures that causes it to be in such short supply."

His voice softened as he saw Buffy tenderly stroke the ashen face on the table. He watched in amazement as the touch of her hand seemed to soothe away the demon and William the Bloody's handsome human face emerged. Watcher training consisted primarily of teaching different ways to incapacitate or dust vampires and Giles was uncomfortably aware that it had not prepared him to diagnose or repair damage to one.

"Buffy," he said gently so as not to startle her. "It is imperative that we leave here for someplace inaccessible to Angelus until we have some understanding of what we are facing."

"If Spike looks like this, what must Angel-lus…" She stumbled over the extra syllable that meant the difference between the vampire who loved her and his unsouled persona. "What must he look like? Spike is the best fighter I've ever come up against – better than Angel when I fought him last year. Maybe he's dust!" Her frightened eyes came up to meet the sympathetic brown ones of her Watcher.

"Buffy," he said gently, "I am fairly certain that Spike came here to warn us – you. That would not have been necessary if Angelus was dust or even gravely injured. We must assume that he is at large and quite capable."

"But Angel loves me," she said pleadingly. "He'll still love me, won't he?"

"I cannot answer that, Buffy," the older man said kindly. "I am not aware that it is possible for a soulless being to love – Spike's affection for Drusilla not withstanding."

"If Spike can love, then Angelus can love," she repeated stubbornly. "He won't try to hurt me."

A gurgling growl from the vampire lying on the table brought their attention back to Spike and they found those brilliant blues eyes glaring at them.

"Can, wants to and will," he managed to get out of his mangled throat.

"Don't trust him, Buffy. Don't let him-" His voice faltered and he lost consciousness once again.

"Buffy!" Giles' voice held a steely note that she rarely heard unless he was really angry. "We need to go. Now."

"Fine," she huffed. "Help me get Spike up."

Between the two of them, Buffy's slayer strength doing the heavy lifting and Giles helping her balance the load, they got an unconscious Spike out of the library. As a precaution, Giles grabbed a large cross from a shelf as they went out the door.

They reached his car without incident, loading the now-moaning vampire into the back seat and driving quickly to the watcher's apartment complex. Giles parked as close as he could to his front door, then stood outside the car holding the large cross and looking around warily as Buffy pulled Spike's complete dead weight out of the car and partially onto her shoulder. She half-dragged, half-carried him toward to front door, Giles following behind, walking backwards with the cross held up as a warning. They had just reached the door and Giles was fumbling with the key when an eerily familiar voice floated out of the darkness.

"You don't really think that pathetic religious symbol can protect you from two master vampires, do you, Giles?" Angelus' silky purr was more chilling than an angry roar would have been and the hair stood up on the watcher's neck.

Wincing as she let Spike slide to the ground, Buffy whirled around, pulling a stake from her waistband as she did so.

"I think this will work, pretty well, Angelus." She sneered his name even as her heart clenched at the thought of having to kill him.

With the Slayer between him and the menacing voice, Giles got the door open and stepped inside, trying to drag Spike with him. He paused uncertainly when he couldn't pull the vampire through the invisible barrier, then sighed and mumbled, "Come in, Spike," as he yanked the body through the door.

"Buffy, come in, now," he ordered as she wavered uncertainly, still facing in the direction of the voice but feeling the tingles on her neck that said there was another vampire somewhere close. Just as she began backing up toward the door, still searching the darkness for any sign of Angel, she felt a whisper of moving air. Her Slayer reflexes gave her a split second to react before a pale hand with talons for fingernails slid across the space her face had just been. With a disappointed hiss, a tall curvy brunette vampire in a flowing white dress stepped in front of the startled Slayer.

Deep brown eyes stared into cold green ones as the two natural enemies took each other's measure. The vampire began to sway back and forth, smiling as the Slayer unconsciously mimicked her actions.

"Be in me," she cooed, gliding closer to the suddenly still Slayer. "Look into my eyes and be in me."

An outraged roar from Giles, and his hand yanking her into the apartment snapped Buffy out of the fog into which she'd been slipping just in time for her to see the fury and frustration on the face that she assumed belonged to Drusilla.

"Another time, Slayer," Drusilla hissed again. "I will be back for what's mine. You may not have him, my sweet William."

"Did you do this to him?" Buffy's voice was cold and hard. She carefully avoided looking into the vampire's eyes this time as she gestured at Spike's drained body.

"He was fighting with my Daddy," Dru answered, as though there could be no argument. "I could not let him hurt my Angelus. Spike was a bad doggie and needed to be punished."

"Bitch!" Buffy snarled. "He loves you. How could you—"

Angelus finally stepped out of the shadows and into the reflected light from the apartment's open door. Buffy almost gasped at his appearance as it became obvious that Spike had given as good as he got in their fight. The old vampire did not approach the doorway, carefully staying well out of reach of Buffy's tightly clenched stake. Drusilla immediately moved to his side, smiling and murmuring when he pulled her against his chest, running one hand over her breasts as the other crossed her stomach possessively.

The two vampires faced the teen-aged Slayer, laughing at the look of sudden understanding and dismay on her face as her former boyfriend's hands began to stroke and caress the now-moaning vampiress. Buffy watched in horror as Angelus ran a hand under Drusilla's long dress and up her leg, pulling the dress with it. He was just slipping the hand between her opening thighs when Giles pulled Buffy further into the room and slammed the door.

He sighed in sympathetic understanding as Buffy's face crumpled and she collapsed to the floor in tears. He allowed her to cry for her lost naïveté for a few

minutes, then gently pulled her to her feet and gestured to the inert man on the

floor.

"Rather than crying for the vampire that is trying to hurt you, Buffy, I think you need to concentrate on the one who clearly was trying to save you. Without Spike's warning, we would have been completely unprepared for an attack and I doubt it would have gone so well for us."

Buffy took a shuddering breath and nodded her head in agreement. She fell to her knees beside Spike and stroked his cold, pale face before looking up at her watcher for help.

"What do I do for him? I don't know what's wrong. He isn't dust, so I guess that means he'll heal…?"

"I feel sure he will heal eventually, Buffy. We will have to get some blood for him as soon as the stores open in the morning. In the meantime…."

As he spoke, he was spreading a sheet on his couch and gestured toward it. Buffy nodded and picked up the vampire, carefully dragging him to the makeshift bed and placing him on it. She removed his heavy boots and the leather duster that had somehow survived the battle with only a few new tears, then covered him with a light blanket. She stepped back, unsure of what else she could do but knowing that she had to do something.

A sound at the window brought her head around and she grabbed her stake again as Angelus leered in at her. She heard a muttered, "Bloody hell, I almost forgot!" behind her as Giles quickly began a disinvite spell against the vampire.

As the barrier went up, the old vampire laughed, shaking his finger at Giles as though to scold him for locking him out. Then his face was gone and Giles hastily pulled the curtains, gesturing for Buffy to do the same at the other windows. When the apartment was secured and secluded from the outside, they relaxed and dropped into chairs, each lost in thought over the way life had changed for them.

Chapter Ten

When it became apparent that Spike was not going to wake up anytime soon, Giles suggested they get some sleep so as to be up early in the morning to prepare for what might come next. Buffy nodded reluctantly, politely refusing his offer of his guest room and insisting she was going to stay where she could see what was going on with Spike.

They both peered closely at the Spike's wounds, Giles agreeing with Buffy that she should cut off the tattered shirt and clean the ones they could see so that they could tell if he was beginning to heal himself. He held the surprisingly small vampire up while she cut off the shirt and quickly inspected the wounds and bruises. In addition to the arm, which Giles felt sure was dislocated rather than broken, Spike had a gaping hole in his throat where one of the other vampires had clearly bitten him. He was covered in gouges that Buffy felt confident had come from Drusilla's lethal-looking nails, as well as other bites and the hole in his side which looked like it might be from some sort of pole.

The wounds had long since stopped bleeding; probably, Giles told her quietly, because the vampire had little or no borrowed blood left in his body, and they did not appear to be healing at all. Buffy agreed to his suggestion that they snap the shoulder back into place while Spike was mercifully unconscious. The satisfying "pop" as it went back into its socket brought a low moan from the still oblivious vamp and, in spite of her regret at having hurt him, Buffy felt a jolt of happiness at this sign of life in the otherwise dead body lying on the couch.

They stepped back and looked at the corpse in front of them, Buffy's worried face reflecting her more-than-casual concern for the body on the couch.

"Do you think he'll be all right?' she asked anxiously for the third time since they'd begun to work on him.

"I can't answer that, Buffy," Giles said kindly. "As far as I know, an injured vampire can always heal as long as he is not dust. How long it takes may well be dependent upon the care and… feeding… he gets."

"He had to get sire's blood for Drusilla to heal her," Buffy said quietly. "Maybe that would help him."

She turned and walked toward the door, picking up her stake and the large cross as she did so.

"What do you think you're doing?" Giles' voice was almost a shriek as her purpose became obvious.

"I'm going to get that bitch and drag her back her by her messy hair," Buffy said flatly. "And then I'm going to feed her to Spike until he doesn't want any more of her disgusting blood."

"You cannot be thinking of going after that lunatic by yourself. I forbid it."

She looked at her the man who was rapidly becoming a surrogate father to her and said coldly, "Isn't it your job to send me out there? This vampire is much more dangerous than the fledglings I slay every night. She needs to be—"

"Buffy." The weak croak from the couch erased the stubborn, hard look on her face, replacing it with one of concern and hope.

"Spike?" She ran back to the couch, kneeling beside it where she could look into his eyes.

"Watcher's right, pet. You're not up to taking on a healthy Dru; not on her own terms and with the poof to back her up. She's got a really strong thrall; might take you right out without even touching you. Don't want you goin' after them until I'm able to help you."

"Which part of I am the Slayer are you two not getting here?" She glared back and forth from Giles's concerned face to the equally worried one inches away from hers. She tried to ignore the truth in what he was saying about the thrall. "This is what I do. It's what I'm made for. Slaying monsters."

Spike's mouth twitched slightly and he whispered, "And you will, luv. I promise. Just not tonight, alright?"

"You need her blood," she insisted stubbornly. "You can't help me like this."

"I'll heal, Slayer. It might take a few days, but soon as I get some blood in me, I'll start healing. Ole Angelus is too weak from fighting me and feeding Dru to be much of a danger for a couple of days; he's not in a whole lot better shape than I am."

"That would, no doubt, be why he remained safely away from Buffy when we were outside."

Spike nodded weakly. "He's in no shape to take on a Slayer. He'll be lucky to be able to feed himself."

In the face of the opposition from the two men in the room, and the fact that Spike seemed to be marginally stronger than before, Buffy reluctantly agreed to wait before going after Angelus and Drusilla. As soon as he was sure she wasn't planning to go out on her own, Spike allowed his eyes to drift closed again, smiling slightly when Buffy touched them gently with her fingertips.

Once he was assured that Buffy did not intend to go out after Drusilla, Giles excused himself and went to bed where he soon fell into an exhausted slumber that was full of dreams of Angelus rampaging through Sunnydale.

Buffy remained on the floor beside the couch for quite a while, reluctant to move too far away from the once again dead-seeming vampire. She turned all but one dim light and rested her head against the cushion, determined to remain where she wouldn't miss any change in Spike's condition. Taking advantage of his unconsciousness, she studied his beautiful human features while he couldn't see her doing so. When she had completely familiarized herself with his long lashes, prominent cheekbones, and the full soft mouth only inches from her own, she raised her head and looked at his partially exposed chest.

She squirmed a little at her reaction when she remembered what he'd looked like after they cut his shirt off. Even with the wounds and bruises all over his torso, it had been obvious that William had grown up into a very well-built man. She glanced down the lean body that was concealed by the blanket she'd placed over him and wondered briefly what the rest of him looked like.

Telling herself she was only checking for overlooked wounds, she carefully peeled back the blanket and ran her eyes down his torso to his denim-clad lower body. His flat abdomen, visible above the low-cut jeans, drew her attention until she noticed the blood-caked tear in his jeans. With a guilty gasp, she pulled back the edges of the ripped material to find what appeared to be knife wound in his upper thigh.

She was unable to see the whole wound as the fabric seemed insistent upon falling back over it and frustration made her growl low in her throat as she tried to get at the cut. Finally deciding she could probably get at it better from above, she reached a timid hand toward the waistband of his jeans, unconsciously holding her breath as she popped the snap and reached for the zipper.

She had just eased the zipper down and slipped her warm hand into the jeans, trying to push them away from the knife wound, when a rumbling purr caused her to jump. A quick glance at his face showed no signs of consciousness and she worried at her lip with her teeth while she debated what to do. She clearly was not going to be able to reach the wound from that direction either – not without pulling his pants completely off his hips and thighs.

Buffy could not bring herself to remove the jeans completely, particularly in light of the fact that she saw no trace of underwear either below or above the wound. Reaching for the scissors that she'd used to cut off his bloody shirt, she was just inserting them into the rip when Spike's warm voice washed over her.

"If you want to get my pants off, luv, you know all you have to do is ask."

Blushing furiously, Buffy quickly took her hands away from his cool flesh and put them behind her back.

"I was just… you have a cut… I wanted to… I thought you were out of it!" she finished defensively,

"Gonna take advantage of me while I'm unconscious, were you? Pretty kinky, Slayer," he whispered, a choked laugh escaping his chest when she continued to blush and stammer.

He stopped laughing when she dropped her head and whispered, "I'm sorry. I was peeking. But then I saw that wound, and I couldn't get at it to see how bad it was, and I thought maybe if I—"

Taking pity on her, he painfully lifted one hand far enough to touch hers and bring it back to his leg.

"I'm only teasing you, luv," he said softly. "I know you're tryin' to take care of me. An' I appreciate it. I do. But putting that hot little hand in my pants is just going to make me wish I was stronger, not make it happen."

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I didn't think it would wake you up. I just wanted to clean that wound too."

"I'm just dead, Buffy, not buried," he said, his voice getting weaker. "There's no way having your hand that close to my dangly bits wasn't going to wake me up. Jus' give us a minute here and I'll show you…."

His voice trailed off as he exhausted what little strength he'd had left. Buffy got a clean cloth and washed the wound as best she could without actually taking his pants off, carefully keeping her hands and eyes away from the soft curls trailing down his stomach and disappearing into his jeans. To avoid that area, she worked blindly with her hand inside the ripped denim, taking great care not to let it wander too close to the inside of his thigh. When she'd cleaned the cut – which she now realized had been aimed at his femoral artery – and placed a large piece of gauze over it, she taped the gauze to his leg, blushing again as she reached cautiously around the inside of his thigh to press the tape against his skin.

Thanking the powers that she hadn't accidentally run into anything she hadn't been planning to touch, she tugged his jeans back together and pulled the zipper back up, leaving the snap open. She breathed a sigh of relief when she had the blanket back in place, covering both the wounded leg and the exposed chest that kept drawing her eyes and making her want to run her hands over it.

She cast another worried look at his immobile face before laying her own head down next to his shoulder and allowing herself to drift off to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

When Giles stumbled sleepily downstairs the next morning, he found Buffy curled up on the floor beside his couch, her head pillowed on one of the cushions and Spike's leather coat wrapped around her. He tiptoed quietly past his sleeping guests and into the kitchen to make coffee. When neither of them had stirred by the time he had finished his coffee and dressed for the day, he stopped to study the vampire's ashen face.

In spite of his confident words to Buffy, he actually wasn't sure if Spike was going to recover or not. He'd never seen a completely drained vampire before, but he'd been told they just sort of shriveled up – stuck in a sort of limbo between being animated and being dust. While Spike did not appear to be quite that dehydrated, he certainly did not look like he was going to be back on his feet anytime soon.

Leaving Buffy to her rest, Giles left the house and drove to the butcher's for blood for his unusual houseguest. His instincts told him that the vampire needed human blood in order to heal properly, but he could think of no way to get it without stealing from the hospital. On sudden impulse, however, he swung by Willie's, catching the bar owner cleaning out the debris from the night before.

It only took a few moments of bringing out his inner Ripper to convince the man that providing Giles with several packages of human blood would be in his best interest, and the tweedy Brit drove away quite satisfied with himself. It wasn't often that the normally mild watcher had reason or opportunity to indulge his long-suppressed darker side and he decided he quite enjoyed the change. Determining that getting Spike healed quickly would be the best way to get Buffy's attention back on Angelus, he drove straight home and carried his cooler full of vampire food into the apartment.

He found Buffy frowning worriedly at the immobile vampire, her face a study in conflicted emotions. She turned when he came in and ran to take the cooler from him, talking rapidly about how Spike had awakened for a few minutes but then had fallen unconscious again and not moved or spoken since.

Leaving Buffy to attempt to get the blood into the oblivious vampire, Giles left again to check on Xander and Willow and be sure that every place Angel had been welcome was now closed to Angelus.

Buffy stood uncertainly by the couch, confused about how to get the blood from the bag she was holding into the vampire who was still unconscious. Knowing that Angel had preferred his blood at body temperature, she carried the cold packet into the kitchen and poured it into a mug, which she then placed in the microwave.

She carried the warmed blood back into the room and knelt down beside the vampire, dipping her finger into the warm blood and rubbing it gently over his soft lips. When that didn't work, she dipped in again and this time she inserted her finger into his mouth until she could feel his tongue. When he began to suck on her bloody finger, she gave a squeal of joy and quickly stuck the straw in his mouth. She smiled when he made a little mewing sound of protest as she withdrew her finger and substituted the straw, but was gratified to see him continue to suck up the life-giving liquid in the mug.

When the cup was empty, she quickly took it to the kitchen and refilled it, rushing back to the still-immobile vampire and offering the straw again. He fastened his lips around it, draining the cup quickly and lying back with a sigh. When she went to get up to refill it again, he put a hand on her arm and said weakly, "Wait for a second, luv. Need to be sure I can keep it down before we go filling me up too much.

"Anyway," he added, meeting her eyes with a wink, "I'd rather be sucking it off your pretty little finger than out of that piece of plastic."

Buffy ran her finger around the inside of the cup, collecting what little had not gone up through the straw. She held her finger out with a challenging grin, only to have the grin wiped off her face when the vampire grabbed her finger and began to suckle it in earnest, running his tongue around it while he pulled the already clean finger further into his mouth. His eyes gleamed as Buffy's breath hitched, her lips parting in an unanticipated gasp.

She felt the effects of his sensual suckling on her finger all the way down to her womb and she whimpered softly when he let it slide out of his mouth with a small "plop". She stared at him, her eyes wide and her breathing fast and heavy as he lay back down with a satisfied smile on his lips.

"Now that's the way to feed me, Slayer," he sighed as he rested and felt the borrowed blood being soaked up by his thirsty body.

"Do—" Buffy's voice was a squeak and she took a deep breath and tried again, "Do you want more now? I only have one more bag of human blood," she added apologetically. "But there's lots of pig blood too."

"One more bag, if you don't mind, luv. Then let's just see what happens, yeah?"

Buffy scampered back to the kitchen and warmed up the last bag of O negative. As she carried it back into the living room, she studied the vampire to see if she could see any improvement, but to her eye he was still just as cut up and bruised as before. She sat down on the edge of the couch and waited for Spike to take the cup from her, rightly concluding that he was strong enough to hold it himself. With a wince, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, allowing the blanket to slip down to his hips as he took the cup from her.

"Not going to feed me, then, luv?" he smirked, watching her eyes running over his chest and stomach. He could hear her heartbeat increase, but the eyes she raised to his were more worried than lustful.

"Why aren't you healing?" she asked softly, reaching out to touch the wound on his neck with a tentative hand.

He set the cup down carefully and took her hand in both of his.

"Buffy, I was about out of blood. Your bloody wanker of an ex…." He paused and looked at her fiercely. "He is your ex now, isn't he?" he growled.

She nodded quickly and he relaxed and finished his thought. "Your bloody wanker of an ex and my bloody bitch of an ex, they did a real number on me. Deliberately. Dru wouldn't let him kill me, but they did their best to make sure I wouldn't be able to interfere with their plans or to warn you. They drained me, pet. Until I've got a body's worth of blood in me, there won't be any available for fast healing."

"What if I drag Drusilla back her by stupid-looking dress and you drink from her? That would fix you up, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, luv, it probably would, but now we're back to not wanting you to take them on unless I'm there to help you. Kind of a Catch-22, innit?"

"Catch who?"

He grinned at her puzzled look. "Nevermind, pet. Great book. I'll get it for you someday. Point is, you can't go get her without me, and I can't get better that fast without her."

"There's another way…" Buffy didn't look at him as she whispered the words. She twisted the blanket around between her fingers, trying to control the way her heart was pounding. He cocked his head at her curiously.

"No, pet. That's pretty much it. Sire's blood. Anything else

wouldn't—" He stopped when she raised her eyes to his and let him see what she was thinking. "Oh. Oh no, Buffy. Not a good idea, luv."

"Angel said it would have worked for Drusilla, so why wouldn't it work for you? Wouldn't my blood heal you almost as fast as hers?"

"Faster," he said shortly. "But you'd be a fool to do that, Slayer. Your blood, it's…. Let's just say it's one hell of an energy boost. You don't want to be making a vamp that powerful, luv."

"Why not?" She cocked her head, unconsciously imitating his own gesture. "I'm not volunteering to do that for any vampire, just for you."

Her look of genuine innocence about what she was offering touched him in a way that nothing had in over a hundred years. Even as his mouth watered at the thought of tasting Slayer blood again after so many years, he fought off the craving and tried to reason with her.

"Slayer…Buffy…you really don't wa—"

"Stop telling me what I want!" She would have stamped her foot if she'd not been sitting down. As it was, she settled for sticking her lower lip out in a pout and poking him with her finger.

His face held a look of reverence and awe similar to the one he'd had when he was a child and he reached toward her face with a trembling hand.

"You are amazing," he breathed, leaning toward her mouth and its still protruding lip. When his lips touched hers and he sucked the lower one into his mouth gently, she exhaled with a moan and leaned into him, her movement causing him to gasp in pain as her weight came down on his wounded leg.

Buffy jumped back with a stuttered apology, only to be held by a hand still barely strong enough to hang on to her. Spike shifted onto his side and pulled her down to lie beside him on the narrow couch so that he could look into her eyes as he spoke.

"I am not William, Buffy. I'm not a child, I'm not helpless, and I'm not human. I'm a vampire who has killed two of your sister slayers and, if you weren't who you are, would have probably killed you by now. I want to taste you so badly it makes me ache, but I don't think you've thought this through and I don't want you doing something you will hate me for later."

"Do you want to see Angelus and Drusilla kill me? Because you're telling me that's what's going to happen if I take them on without your help."

"So you wait for my help."

Buffy sighed and rested her forehead against an uninjured spot on his chest. "Spike, I'm the Slayer. Girl who slays the monsters, remember? And right now there are two monsters free in my town. They want to kill me. They want to kill my friends and family." She raised her head and looked him in the eye. "I can't wait for you to get strong again. If you can't come with me, I'll have to try it on my own."

"That's blackmail, Slayer. It's bloody cheating!"

Buffy looked into his indignant eyes and smiled sweetly. "It's not cheating if someone's trying to kill you," she purred. "And you know Angelus is trying to kill me."

He rolled his eyes at her familiar rationalization. "I might kill you, luv."

"No you won't. You told me yourself, vampires don't have to kill humans when they bite them. I trust you, William. You won't take too much," she breathed, moving closer to his hovering mouth. "I trust you."

With a groan of acquiescence, he met her offered lips with his own, allowing the world that contained his sire and grandsire to slip away while he kissed the pretty girl who trusted him. Once again, Buffy lost herself in the pure sensual pleasure of kissing the weakened vampire. Her frustration built up quickly as she tried to get closer to him without putting pressure on his still-open wounds. The fact that the wounds could remain open and still not bleed was proof that his supply of borrowed blood was still not what it needed to be and she struggled to keep her mind on healing the body she wanted so badly to be touching.

Wrenching her lips away from his, she stretched her neck out and breathed, "Do it, William. Take what you need from me."

Soft lips touched the offered throat and he ran his tongue over her pulse point, sucking on it gently and causing them both to moan softly. Then, to Buffy's surprise, he kissed her throat lightly and pulled away from her. Before she could protest what she saw as another rejection of her offer, he had picked up her arm, using his nose to push up her sleeve until his lips were pressed against the soft skin on the inside of her elbow. He gently sucked on the exposed area, then, before she realized what he was doing, he slid his fangs in and made two small holes over the vein.

He took his fangs out carefully and fastening his lips on her skin he began to take deep, slow pulls that Buffy could feel throughout her entire, suddenly limp, body. She moaned deep in her throat as she felt her warm blood flowing from her arm into his caressing mouth. Spike was making a soft purring sound as he drew just enough of her blood to feel its magical properties affecting his body. Long before he would have felt her heartbeat falter, or her body weaken at all, he stopped sucking and carefully licked the tiny wounds closed, leaving a soft, open-mouthed kiss on her arm and trailing light kisses down the arm to her hand. He left one lingering kiss on her palm, tickling it with his tongue and causing her to giggle, before raising his head and looking at her through eyes that shone with gratitude and renewed strength.

"That was a very foolish thing to do, Buffy," he growled, even as he pulled her in for another lingering kiss that quickly threatened to turn into something more. "Do you have any idea how powerful I feel right now?" He pulled her against his visibly healing body, allowing her to feel the hard length of him pressing into her stomach.

She didn't answer, being much too busy melting into his lean hardness and giving herself up to the sensations he was creating with his lips and tongue. Somewhere in the back of her brain, a little voice was screaming that she was on the couch in her Watcher's living room in broad daylight, but it was easily drowned out by her libido's clamoring for more Spike kisses and more Spike touching.

In a repeat of the first night they'd met, she opened her thighs and allowed the hard bulge she was feeling to slide between them. She felt him shiver all over as it pressed against her suddenly damp crotch, stimulating a whimper in her throat. He rolled over on his back, pulling her with him so that she was lying on top and unconsciously rubbing her throbbing clit against him.

Growling softly, he put his hands on her hips and pushed her down against his aching cock. The heat from her body was making him so hard he was sure all the blood he'd consumed that morning had gone to the same place.

The voice in Spike's head reminding him that he was lying in a Watcher's living room, and that the man would undoubtedly throw him out the door into the bright sunlight if he walked in and found Spike shagging his seventeen-year-old charge, was somewhat more insistent than Buffy's. No matter how impulsive he might be, Spike had not survived to become a master vampire by being stupid. As much as he wanted to show her exactly how strong her blood had made him, he managed to fight down the impulse to rip off her clothes and take her virginity right there where anyone could walk in on them.

Instead, he rotated his hips so as to continue the pressure against Buffy's center, waiting until she was whimpering with frustrated desire before sliding a hand between them. When his cool fingers slid under her waistband and into her wet folds and he began to stroke places she hadn't known wanted stroking, her whimpers changed to panting cries and incoherent gasping. Within a very short period of time, she was arching against his hand, her head thrown back and her eyes closed in ecstasy.

Buffy collapsed onto his chest, still trembling slightly from her first orgasm. He pulled his hand out of her jeans and brought it to his lips, thoroughly licking her juices off each finger before putting both arms around her and nuzzling her hair.

"You alright, luv?" he queried when she didn't say anything. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She shook her head vigorously, but kept her face buried in his chest until the heat from her blushing face gave him an idea what was going on. He rolled them back to the side so that she was facing him again and tipped her chin up until she was forced to meet his eyes. She tried to twist away, her face a contrast in embarrassment and contentment.

"What's this, then?" he asked softly.

"I… you… we… I… you… I never… what did you… Oh my god!"

"You're adorable when you're embarrassed," he chuckled. "Did you know that?"

"Well, no, because I don't think I've ever been quite that… embarrassed before." She continued to be bright red and to look around everywhere except at him.

"You've never…? Oh, my poor, neglected baby. If you were mine, I'd make you come a dozen times a day – just to watch the expression on your face when you do."

His remark reminded her that she had just had one of the most incredible experiences of her young life with someone who was almost a stranger, as well as one of the creatures she had been chosen to slay whenever possible.

"Well, I'm not though, am I?" she mumbled, reluctantly pushing away from him and sitting up. She was still unwilling to meet his eyes and therefore missed the pain that went across his face at her words.

"No, love, I suppose you aren't," he answered, sitting up also and swinging his legs to the floor.

She shot a quick look at him, amazed to see that most of his cuts and bruises were either already healed or well on their way. The huge rip in his neck was still raw and oozing, but even it was looking better. She dropped her eyes to his thigh, hoping to see that the wound there was also healing, but instead she was met with the unmistakable sight of a large bulge in his pants.

At the same time, Spike squirmed and tried to unobtrusively shift his swollen cock into a more comfortable position, thereby drawing even more attention to it. Buffy's gasp told him she'd noticed what he was trying to do and he grinned ruefully.

"Between your blood and having your hot little body on me like that, it's gonna be a while before that goes away. Sorry, pet. Not much I can do about it right now. Not with you here, anyway."

"What would you do if I—oh!" Again Buffy turned the color of the large red easy chair as she realized what he meant. She eyed the bulge again, noticing how it was pushing against the fabric of his jeans.

"It… it doesn't look very comfortable," she ventured, surprising herself with a sudden urge to touch him. She snatched her hand back just as her disobedient fingers were about to stroke the denim-covered object.

"It's just a little… confined… right now," he whispered, having seen the way her eyes were glued to his crotch and the way her hand had twitched as though drawn to it. "If I could just…" He reached for the zipper on his jeans, watching carefully for any sign that he was frightening her, but she was watching avidly, her mouth open slightly and her breathing growing faster.

His suddenly clumsy hands fumbled with the zipper, and without thought Buffy extended her own hand and pulled the zipper down easily. With a sigh of relief, Spike flopped back on the couch, his now freed cock sticking up from its nest of brown curls. Buffy's hand was still holding the tab of the zipper and she was pulled forward when the vampire fell backwards.

Her fingers were only fractions of an inch away from the base – close enough that the heat from her hand was more than apparent to Spike. He fought back a groan, holding an unnecessary breath as he waited to see what she would do. When she reached out a tentative hand and lightly ran it up to the head of his cock, he shivered and groaned with suppressed desire.

"I want…." Buffy wrapped her hand around him, eliciting another heartfelt groan. "I… I don't know what to do," she whispered. "Tell me what you want me to do."

"You're touchin' me, love. That's more than I ever would have hoped for. Feeling your hot little hand on me, your breath blowing over my…'S heaven, Buffy."

"That's not what you'd be doing for yourself if I wasn't here," she insisted stubbornly. "What would you be doing?"

He opened one eye and cocked his head at her. "I'd be giving myself a good wank, love, and pretending it was you the whole time."

"Show me." The tone of command brooked no argument and he smiled his assent.

Spike covered her small hand with his own calloused one and squeezed gently. He then began to slide her hand up and down his shaft, squeezing on the way up and sliding loosely down each time.

"Like that, pet. Just like that. I'd be pulling away on m' poor aching cock and trying to convince myself I was in your sweet little cunny… would be thinking about you, about your soft lips, your perfect little breasts… your warm mouth—"

"You don't know what my breasts look like!" she broke the rhythm to protest.

He grimaced and pushed into her temporarily stilled hand. "Work with me here, Slayer. I've got a good imagination – know they're perfect." His voice changed and grew softer and warmer. "Got to be perfect. Jus' like the rest of you…"

"Oh," Buffy breathed out softly, resuming her strong, steady stroking. "Ok, then."

With Spike's verbal encouragement, she began to experiment with different pressures, pausing to run her thumb around the tip and collect some pre-cum to provide more lubrication and exerting some of her Slayer strength as she began to pump harder and faster.

"Yes, oh, yes, baby. Like that, love. Squeeze me harder, pull for me, darlin'. Make me…. Buffy!"

As he shouted her name, Spike grabbed his torn shirt from the floor and covered her hand and his cock, effectively preventing any hard-to-explain stains on the watcher's furniture. While he took some unneeded breaths and tried to calm down, he peered at Buffy and saw her looking back at him with what could only be called a look of accomplishment on her face.

"Pretty proud of yourself, are you, love?" He smiled at her obvious self-satisfaction.

"Yep!" she replied happily, then doubt crossed her face and she asked tentatively, "I… it was okay, wasn't it? I did it right?"

"Bloody hell, pet! If you'd been any more right, I'd have scared the neighbors!" He pulled her against his chest, planting soft kisses all over her face until the doubt went away and she was smiling shyly.

"Oh, good. I wanted it to be good." She blushed and started to pull away, but he held fast and nudged at her face until she looked up into his worshipful eyes.

"You touched me, pet. You let me touch you. Let me give you pleasure and then you gave it back. Couldn't have been anything but good. Something for me to remember on cold nights when I've got no warm Buffy nearby. I'll never forget it, love. Never."

Embarrassed by his avowal, she squirmed loose and said quickly, "We need to get some more blood into you." She looked at him speculatively and added with an embarrassed giggle, "And we need to wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before Giles gets home."

He laughed at her, stretching his arms over his head and flexing newly restored muscles. "Oh I don't think this grin's going anywhere anytime soon, love. When you put a smile on a man's face, you tend to make it kind of permanent."

She blushed at his praise, wondering why she wasn't more ashamed of being complimented on her "wanking" skills. Picking up his wet, bloody shirt, she carried it to the kitchen trashcan and shoved it down to the bottom, hoping Giles wasn't in the habit of looking closely at what he threw away. She pulled her sleeve down over the two little holes on her arm, rubbing them absently before she did so.

She caught Spike watching her rub the bites and smiled reassuringly as his brow furrowed.

"Do they hurt, pet?" She could hear the anxiety in his voice and hastened to reassure him.

"No, they didn't hurt at all… and they don't hurt now. I was just… touching them."

He stood up and came toward her, giving her a mouth-watering look at his scarred, but no longer cut up, torso.

"Shirt!" she squeaked. "You need to put on a shirt. Now. Before Giles gets home."

Chapter Twelve

"My clothes are back at the warehouse with Dru and Angelus, pet. Kinda doubt they're going to be willing to pack a bag for me and send it to the Slayer's."

Buffy couldn't take her eyes off his lean body, eyes that kept wandering to the prominent hip bones angled toward the still undone button on his jeans. She unconsciously licked her lips as she said, "May… maybe I can find something of Giles' for you to wear…."

"I don't do tweed," he bristled. He followed her eyes to his flat stomach and ran a hand down his chest. "What's wrong with the way I am now?" he added with a knowing smirk. "Having a hard time concentrating, are you?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, his cockiness being all it took to get her mind back on their situation.

"You wish!" she huffed, stomping upstairs to search her watcher's bureau for a tee shirt. She pawed through the collection of plain white shirts, pausing when she found a Grateful Dead tee shirt and one with a Black Sabbath logo on it. Underneath them were other multi-colored shirts sporting the names of bands – some she'd never heard of. "Whoa, Giles! " she muttered, grabbing one of the white shirts and hurrying back down stairs.

She found the vampire warming up a cupful of pig's blood and complaining bitterly to Giles that it wasn't "fit for vamp nor beast". Buffy threw the shirt at the vampire, ordering him to "cover up, now!" and bringing a raised eyebrow from the older man.

"Um, Buffy? Is that my shirt?" he inquired politely as Spike pulled the much too large tee over his head. "Where did… where did you get it?"

Buffy giggled at the slightly panicked look on his face and replied cheerily, "I got it from your drawer – you know the one – it has lots of tee shirts in it? Lots of different tee shirts?"

She watched with a grin on her face as Giles struggled with whether or not to ask her what she'd seen in the drawer before he realized from her obvious glee that she had found his stash of concert shirts. He pulled off his glasses and polished them vigorously before clearing his throat and deciding to ignore the whole thing.

"Right, then," he said quickly. "Xander and Willow will be by shortly and we can talk about our plans. Willow has done disinvite spells at your house, her house, in Cordelia's vehicle, everywhere we could remember that Angel has been. There is nothing we can do about the school – it is a public building – so we must assure that none of us is there after dark. Jen – Miss Calendar is coming over also," he added with a puzzled frown. "It appears that she has some interest in Angel/Angelus and wishes to be kept informed of his activities."

"Miss Calendar? What would she know or care about Angelus?" Buffy's brow furrowed. "She's a techno-pagan. Demons and mechanical spirits and stuff like that that. What's that got to do with vampires?"

"I don't know, but when I warned her about Angelus, she was quite insistent that she be included."

Spike watched quietly as the Slayer and her watcher discussed their possible strategies for drawing out Angelus and Drusilla and assessed their potential weapons. Buffy seemed to be in favor of marching into the warehouse they now knew about – thanks to Spike – and planting stakes in both their hearts as quickly as possible. She flounced over to the couch to pout when both Spike and Giles vetoed anything as hasty as charging in before they knew what to expect.

"Slayer." Spike's voice was serious, lacking any trace of William or the lecherous vampire that had replaced him. "Listen to me, luv. Drusilla has a very powerful thrall. She can—"

"I've already seen it," she muttered, still annoyed that they didn't think she could take the two vampires. "I just won't look at her."

"Sometimes that's easier said than done, luv," he insisted gently. "I've seen her convince people they were safe in their mother's arms while she was chaining them to…. Never mind. I just don't want you around her unless I'm with you."

"Afraid I'll stake your ho-bag of an ex?" she said meanly.

He studied her face until she dropped her eyes and said meekly, "I'm sorry, Spike. I didn't mean to—"

"Yes, you did," he replied shortly, turning back to Giles and holding up his mug of pig's blood. "I want to thank you for the O Neg, Watcher. It was a big help. But if I'm going to be using this stuff to mend, I'd like to have another day or so to get back up to strength before we take them on. Angelus is a right wanker, but he's not a bad fighter and Dru can be very…"

He stopped when Giles held up a hand and said quickly, "I quite agree. As long as we know everyone is safe—"

"He's going to come after the Slayer's family and friends," Spike broke in, crossing to sit near Buffy when she gasped. "It's his way, love," he said gently. "He'd rather spend weeks emotionally torturing a victim than fifteen minutes in a fair fight. He'll try to weaken you by killin' off the people you care about before he comes after you."

Buffy's eyes were wet with unshed tears. "How could he?" she whispered. "He loves me. He wouldn't—"

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes, gesturing for Giles to come closer. "The demon's out now, pet. And it's furious that you made him feel… human. He can't admit to loving you – wouldn't if he could. He wants you to pay for making him weak."

"What about Drusilla?" Buffy demanded. "I thought you two were l–l–lovers," She stumbled over the word, finding it very hard to accept that Spike had loved the insane vampire for so long. "Can't you just tell her to – can't you just take her away?"

"That seems reasonable, Spike," Giles put in. "Surely your long-time… consort would not join Angelus in an attempt to kill the Slayer if you asked her not to. You are responsible for getting her well again, are you not?"

Ignoring the last question, Spike just silently turned his head so that they could both see the still angry-looking rip in his throat. He looked into the watcher's eyes and said tightly, "Dru will do whatever Angelus tells her to."

Buffy's eyes were big as the implication became clear and she reached toward him with a sympathetic hand, stopping herself just in time when she saw Giles' eyebrows go up.

Spike had seen the aborted gesture and smiled gratefully at her before he continuing, "Just give me a day or two to get up to strength and I'll come up with a way to distract Dru while the Slayer takes care of Angelus. Then I'll take her away and we won't be back."

He didn't meet Buffy's confused eyes as he spoke of leaving Sunnydale with his sire; the sire who clearly did not love him as much as she did his grandsire.

Any response Buffy might have made was interrupted by the arrival of Xander and Willow bursting through the door and trying to talk at once.

"Hey, G-man, did you know— What the hell is he doing here?"

The boy's eyes were fixed on the vampire sitting, in his opinion, much too close to Buffy. While Xander glared and postured, demanding to know why Spike was not only not dust, but apparently well on his way to being healed, Willow gave the vampire a timid wave and smile. The wink she received in response caused her to blush and study her shoes intently, thereby missing Buffy's punch to Spike's arm and his subsequent chuckle as he stood up.

Before any more explanations could be given, there was a light knock on the door and Jenny Calendar was ushered in by a nervous Rupert Giles. Introductions were made – the whole room falling deathly silent when she walked right up to Spike and said clearly, "William the Bloody, Slayer of slayers. I'd thought Rupert must have been mistaken when he said you had come to warn Buffy."

For long minutes they stared at each other, the woman with undisguised curiosity and some fear, the vampire with a speculative assessment of the woman before him.

"Gypsy," he said finally and turned his back on her.

The librarian and his students stared at the two polar opposites – one a dark-haired, dark-eyed school teacher, the other a blue-eyed, bleached blond punk vampire. Buffy's never very plentiful patience quickly wore off and she snapped, "Does either of you want to tell me what that was all about?" She almost admitted to a pang of jealousy at the thought that Spike might have also met Jenny Calendar before he came to Sunnydale.

I wonder how many girls or women he's gotten to know over the past 124 years? Why am I starting to think I'm not so unique?

Spike shrugged and gestured to the woman still standing where he'd left her. "Think the gypsy might have some information to share," he said quietly, then went into the kitchen to fix himself another mug of pig's blood.

There was another minute of silence while everyone thought furiously. Giles' eyes lit up with understanding, but it was Willow who spoke first.

"Miss Calendar? Are you a Gypsy? Did you… well, not you, obviously, because a long time ago, but your… did you…?"

Jenny smiled at Willow's enthusiasm for having figured it out, and then addressed Giles.

"Why don't you sit down, Rupert, while I tell you about my family and our history with Angelus."

Jenny's tale of how her ancestors had cursed Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, for having the poor judgment to kill one of their own young virgins held her audience's rapt attention. The only one not closely following her narration of how her tribe had punished the old vampire was Spike. He listened idly from the kitchen as she explained how they had cursed Angelus with a soul. The Gypsies knew that, at a minimum, it would take the joy out of his life of torture and bloodshed, and with luck it would damn him to an eternity of guilt and regret. The hope was that the guilt would be so great that the vampire would eventually dust himself after several years of torment.

When word came that the souled vampire was still alive and working on the side of good with the Slayer, they sent Jenny to keep an eye on him and be sure he was still suffering. Very hesitantly, she admitted that they knew there was a possibility that a sufficient measure of happiness could break the curse, but the Gypsy woman had seen no signs that the vampire was actually happy, in spite of his growing feelings for Buffy.

All eyes turned to Spike when she said haltingly, "I cannot imagine what might have made him so happy that he could lose the soul he's had for so many years…"

"My dark princess is a very resourceful woman," he growled, turning his back on them.

Buffy was torn between the need to understand what might have happened, and her desire to spare Spike what was obviously a painful memory. Having no such compassion, Xander blurted out, "So, Deadboy Jr. What did your significant other do that was so happy-making it made Angel lose his soul?"

Spike glared at the boy, then asked Buffy with a serious face, "Can I eat him?"

She shook her head, giving Xander a quieting glare and stepping closer to Spike. "No, he's my friend. No eating of Xander."

"Just a snack?" he asked hopefully, snickering as the boy quickly retreated behind the watcher.

Buffy smacked him on the arm, drawing looks of astonishment from the gypsy and the watcher.

"Behave," she scolded. "And tell us what happened to Angel. How did he get so happy – and if he was happy, why did he try to kill you?"

"Wasn't trying to kill me," he growled. "Wanted to teach me a lesson and when I wouldn't roll over and take my beating, Dru jumped in to protect her 'daddy' from me."

"So, he lost his soul and then he tried to dominate you?" Giles frowned, trying to understand the progression.

Spike looked at Buffy carefully before saying without a lengthy explanation, "No, it was before. He came to see how sick Dru really was and he smelled something on me he didn't like."

"He did all that because he didn't like the way you smelled?" Buffy's disbelief was plain. Spike whispered into her ear, "Think about it, Slayer," then straightened up and shrugged. "It's a vampire thing – got nothing to do with losing his soul. He'd have been just as brassed off with or without it.'

"So, if it wasn't beating you to a bloodless pulp that made him so happy, what was it?" Giles brought the conversation back to the issue at hand.

"Dru's bite," Spike muttered, refusing to look at anyone. "That and the fact that I had to watch them—"

"Had to watch them what?"

Again, Xander had no compunctions against asking the questions everyone else was avoiding. Giles cleared his throat and began to take off his glasses while Buffy tried to convince herself Spike didn't mean what she thought he meant. She remembered the blatant sexual behavior of the two vampires outside the apartment last night, as well as their obvious delight in its affect on her. She turned stricken eyes on Spike, hoping he would tell her she was wrong.

Instead, he turned on her watcher, growling, "Haven't you told her anything about vampires?"

"You'll have to forgive me if I didn't think the mating habits of the creatures she slays every night were things my teen-aged slayer needed to know just yet," Giles snapped back just as angrily, guilt that Buffy hadn't known what to expect from Angleus fighting his belief that she hadn't needed that information in order to do her job.

Not one to leave an uncomfortable subject alone, Xander pressed on. "So you had to watch them do what? Deadboy got groiny with your girlfriend? And that made him happy enough to lose his soul? Man, I've got to meet this woman! Er, vampire."

While the women in the room stared at him, aghast, Spike moved toward him deliberately, his eyes blue ice as he said softly, "I would be more than happy to arrange that meeting, whelp." The cold anger did not totally conceal the pain the subject was causing him and Buffy put a sympathetic hand on his arm and tried to turn him away from her friend.

"I'm sorry, Spike," she whispered sadly. "This isn't very pleasant for me to hear either. I thought he loved me."

Ignoring the gasps from the other humans in the room, he put his arms around Buffy and murmured into her ear, telling her that Angelus was a "bloody wanker" and not worthy of her tears. When she had taken a deep shuddering breath and wiped her eyes, he gave the watcher another glare and said so that everyone could hear, "Vampires are not moral creatures. We take what we want when and how we want it, and sexual fidelity is not an important part of most vamp relationships."

He felt Buffy stiffen and reluctantly dropped his arms as he continued, "But Dru and I are… were different. Since the bloody poof left us to go off and brood about his soul, we've mostly stayed faithful to each other. We never mated, but I've loved and cared for her for over one hundred years and I thought…." He paused, and swallowed hard before continuing, "I thought she loved me, too. I thought that I knew what to expect from her.

"I didn't expect that the minute her sire showed up, she would be all over him like a bloody coat and I didn't expect him to be so glad to see her that he would forget about the Slayer. I should have expected him to object to smelling Buffy on me – even though his nose could have told him there was nothing there to be brassed off about," he added quickly when her watcher's eyes narrowed.

Buffy gave a guilty start, remembering their activities of just a short time ago, but the vampire read her mind and growled too low for the others to hear, "That was after they did us wrong, luv.

" Anyway, that was when he decided that after all this time, he could just step back in as head of the family, give me a beating for talking to his girlfriend and shag my woman right in front of me, and I'd just stand there and take it." Spike's eyes flashed amber as his demon struggled to emerge again.

"When I didn't, when the bloody wanker started losing, my princess – my reason for unliving – she hit me on the head with something and knocked me out long enough for Angel to pull my arm out of the socket and pin me to the floor with some kind of pole.

"Long story short – they left me lying on the floor while they shagged themselves silly and when Dru bit the big poof, the soul just couldn't take that much feeling good and it took a powder. Could see it immediately. Could tell from how he looked at me that Angelus was back. That's when they really decided to teach me a lesson."

"How did you get away?" Giles asked with surprising gentleness.

"After they'd got tired of entertaining themselves with me, they went back to shaggin'. I guess they thought I was unconscious again, but I could hear the big poof ranting about the Slayer, how she made him weak, how he was gonna break her. How he was gonna punish her for—"

He stopped, not willing to say what his grandsire had planned to do to punish Buffy for allowing Spike to touch her.

"I crawled away while they were busy and went looking for Buffy. Had to warn her before he showed up and tricked her into getting too close…"

Buffy shivered in spite of herself as she remembered the cruel voice and the familiar and yet different face from last night's encounter.

"So, Drusilla is recovered then?" Giles tried to focus on the immediate danger and not on the way the two blonds seemed to be leaning together for support.

"That she is. And when she's fed the poofter enough of Sunnydale's finest, he'll be pretty formidable too. Not," he added with a sharp look at Buffy, "that this slayer couldn't take him. He's strong, but he's no match for her if she's on her game."

"What do you mean, if I'm on my game?" Buffy's indignation was stronger than her sadness at being expected to kill Angelus.

"I meant what I said earlier. He's going to try to throw you off by hurting you in other ways. He'll try to kill the people you care about, make you weak by making you grieve."

"It could work…." Giles muttered almost to himself.

"Or, it could just really, really piss me off," Buffy said quietly. Suddenly she looked much less like a teenager and more like the killing machine whose essence had been around for thousands of years.

Spike cocked his head and looked at her with admiration. The power radiating off her small body called to him in ways he'd never expected and he recalled why he'd been so anxious to add her to his list of dead slayers.

"Is it true you killed old Batface, Slayer?" he asked. "That you went back after him even though you lost the first time?"

"Yes," she said simply, having no trouble knowing who "Batface" was. She could hear Willow hiss, "The Master" to Xander, and saw him nod in understanding.

"Oh yeah, the Buffster kicked major Master butt. And then last month she put a hurting on his minions. Angelus is just dust waiting to happen." Xander nodded his head with satisfaction, ignoring the pain on Buffy's face.

"All right then, let's talk strategy."

Buffy sat down on the couch and patted the cushion beside her for Spike. He smirked at the startled looks of her friends and she poked him again before speaking.

"You'll distract Drusilla – keep her from putting a thrall on me, and I will dust Angel… Angelus. That's the plan, right?"

"Sounds good to me, pet." He carefully avoided asking her what, if anything, she planned to do with his lover.

"May I offer an alternative plan?" Jenny's voice was soft as she requested their attention.

Everyone looked at her, at a loss for any possible alternative to dusting Angelus. Spike frowned at her suspiciously, wondering if she was going to suggest dusting Drusilla also.

"What if I could restore the soul?"