Buffy watched from the shadows at the mouth of the alley as the officers strolled down the sidewalk, lurching slightly and singing in off-key, demonic chorus. Their boots scuffed the dirty snow as they moved together, arm in scaly arm.

"And the lady, she said to me / 'Grek, you ground his bones to chalk!' / And she grabbed my horns with glee / cried, 'Grek, I need your mighty--'"

A scream ripped across the night, interrupting the song. The demons staggered to a halt a few yards past Buffy and peered around in confusion.

"Sounds like a wench in trouble," one said. He thrust out an arm to point down the street and overbalanced as a result, saved from falling only by the grasp of his companions. "We'll rescue her." He paused significantly, then hiccuped. "Then have dinner."

Buffy's mouth tightened in frustration and she clenched the stake in her pocket. This was all Spike's fault. If this street theater production of "'Tis a Pity She's a Snack" got any more graphic she would have to break cover. She peeked around the corner and saw, across the street, a disheveled young woman in a torn dress stumbling off the curb. As Buffy watched, the woman sobbed and skidded across a patch of ice, going down to her knees. Behind her, a vampire wearing enlisted grey and game face was laughing and waving a pink flag. It took Buffy a moment to realize this was the woman's shawl.

The officers crossed the street. "Here now," one called. "Where'd you get that, Private? You got papers? Cause if you don't, we're going to have to claim her, in the name--in the name of--"
"Straighten up, solider," another demon barked in careless interruption. "Salute your superiors." His authority was somewhat spoiled as he suddenly halted, bent almost double and retched into the snow. The vamp merely snarled in derision.

"No discipline these days," Buffy murmured to herself. "What is the army of hell fiends coming to?" Her breath puffed out frostily in a sigh.

She had squared her shoulders and pulled out her stake in reluctant preparation to attack when the group in the street abruptly fell silent, heads turning to watch the approach of someone--or something--to their left.

"Atten-SHUN," bellowed one demon, and the rest stiffened, even the vampire. On the ground, the woman cowered as if whatever neared exceeded her current nightmare.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

The voice was colder than the night air, sharp enough to skin flesh, and pitched to capture the rich, dark tone of blood in hollowed cheeks. Buffy felt her heart skip a beat. She drew back into the shadows again but not so far as to miss Spike's arrival. He shrugged his cloak back, folded his arms behind him and studied the group deliberately.

Enlisted grey and officer blue ducked their heads with respect before the black uniform of Reich Army Intelligence. The red armband denoting party membership drew Buffy's own attention for a grim moment before she lifted her gaze. But the bill of his hat obscured Spike's eyes, and she was too far away; all she could see of his face were the acute cheekbones and the set line of his mouth. Against the darkness of hat and uniform, his skin seemed ghostly white.

There was a space of several seconds in which he did not move or speak, and so no one moved or spoke, and the quality of that dead, still silence made Buffy tense again. Spike was looking over the other vamp, betraying nothing by the posture of his body.

"I'm told the mess hall serves a fine blood sausage," he said at last. His voice was soft, his words innocuous, but he exuded menace. Buffy's shoulders tightened as she was briefly folded in an Arctic chill. "So you shouldn't be needing to feed off the livestock, isn't that right, Private?"

The vamp lost game face immediately. "N-no, sir," he stammered. "I mean, yes, sir--"

"Shove off."

The vamp hurried away, and Spike turned his head, taking in the revelers. His measured tones did not rise as he said, "Carry her back to my quarters, tie her to the bed, and leave her. And if you spoil her in the slightest I'll cut the lot of you into ribbons and wear you on my hat."

The woman wailed and then fainted. With murmurs and twitches of obeisance, the demons lifted her between them and bore her away.

The street was left silent.

Buffy's heart accelerated again and she kept perfectly still, pressed to the wall of the alley, hidden by shadow. Except not. She saw his head lift, felt his eyes on her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as his head tilted slightly, as he inhaled scent into his airless lungs. Then his head ducked, his hands slipped into his pockets. Cigarettes were withdrawn, one mouthed, cupped, lit.

Spike surveyed the street both ways with apparent casualness, an aloof black figure standing straight as a streetlight on the glittering white snow, plumes of smoke drifting around his head. He was a perfect target. With one motion, Buffy could have arrowed her stake dead-center into his unbeating heart.

He ditched the cigarette with a precision of fingers she envied and strode directly toward her. He moved without the cockiness she'd grown used to, and without the deference. These days he walked the streets of Sunnydale arrogantly, fluid as a panther and as powerful in the eternal night.

She backed further into the alley and then he loomed, filling her vision. Their bodies slid together, bringing her relief. He drew her under his cloak as if feeling her cold. Her hands clasped his back, and his came up to cup her face. He wore leather gloves, which were completely unnecessary to him. Fetish gear, she called them.

He kissed her as if he'd forgotten what she tasted like. She kissed him the same way, though she could never forget.

"You're late," she breathed when they broke away. She tried to sound irate, but it came out pouty. Pouty-lipped, even.

One crooked finger stroked her cheek. "Sorry, love. These bloody demon hoedowns go on forever."
 
"If it had gone on any longer you'd have had a ho down here too."

"See the snarky Slayer," Spike drawled, one brow raised. "Nick of time'll do, won't it? I'm sure the lady was right glad I came along when I did." He sounded almost reproving. How wrong was that? Big faker.

"Uh-huh," Buffy said dryly. "She looked real happy to be headed for sheets of vamp. Speaking of which."

"Just gonna have a taste, pet--ow!" He winced at the kidney punch. She didn't know why. All his vampy organs were perfectly non-functional. Most of them.

"Only joking." He was smirking down at her now, but the smirk faded to seriousness. Not even Spike could sustain a smirk these days. And how sad was it that her every thought carried that mental tag: these days. "Better a few hours of terror and tremblin' in fear of me than becomin' a lunchable for that lot, I figure. Set her loose afterwards with a few coins jingling in her unmentionables."

"That better be all jingling in her...what I'm not going to mention." Buffy could feel Spike's right hand sliding down her body as she spoke, along the curve of one breast, down toward her own unmentionably aching...focus. "Stop that."

He leered with a charm she hated to admit, lips twitching, eyes gleaming under heavy lids. He'd take her right here against the wall if she let him. She gave him a little shove, but he caught her firmly around the waist and held her closer. Now his hand was back there and that was not at all good--and not all bad. She groaned with exasperation, though quietly.

"Anyone walks by, we're just having a snog," he said, and then he kissed away any protest she might have given, cementing the charade that wasn't a charade. He was Mister Tongue tonight, she thought, and she wanted to resent the distraction but he was cold and slippery and sweet as ice cream inside her mouth. And distraction was good. It was all too good, these days. Before she knew it, she was pressed against the bricks, his hard body moving urgently against hers, his hands everywhere they should be.

"Buffy," he gasped between kisses, as if he'd needed breath for her name.

She managed to ease him off, soothe him. His hat had been knocked back from his forehead at a surprised and rakish angle. "I can't stay," she said. "I don't have time for this." She paused and watched him swallow words, a little shudder under the skin. Through his parted lips she saw a hint of fangs, but his face was nakedly human, nakedly needful; half sculpted in shadow, the other half washed white as soap in the street's light. "Neither do you."

He closed his eyes a moment. When they opened again, his gaze was shuttered. "Hard, innit." It was statement, not question. One corner of his lips moved in a small, rueful way that she didn't mistake for a smile.

She didn't back down, but she impulsively touched his face. "I miss you," she said simply.
And he looked back at her, almost awed. That look melted her, but she didn't have time to melt.

She withdrew the caress and shoved both hands in her pockets. Clutched her stake as a reminder of who she was, which helped her remember why she was here, braving the street patrols in the early hours.  "Were you able to get the plans?" she asked.

He stepped back and wordlessly removed his cigarettes, stuck another between his lips, lit it. She watched with growing impatience. "Smoke?" he asked her, holding out the pack. She rolled her eyes, but he kept holding it out with a long-suffering look. After a moment she blinked at the offering.

"Oh," she said. "Sure. Smoke." She took the pack from him, the wrapper crinkling against her fingers. "I'll just--I'll have one later. You know me. Always with the smoking. Bad, bad habit." She feigned a cough, then tucked the pack away.

"How's the Little Bit," Spike asked, taking a drag on his cigarette and glancing toward the street.

"Don't get me started." Buffy blew out a huff of air. "She never listens to me anymore. I turn my back two seconds and she's haring off into the tunnels to practice her archery on sewer rats. I'd collar and bell her except that would attract every demon within tinkling distance. And does she do her homework?" She collected herself from the rush of words and made a frowny face at him. "Look, see? You got me started."

"Maybe she doesn't do her homework cause she's got no home."

"Thank you, Doctor Joyce Vampire. Tell me something I don't know."

Spike squinted at her, tossed his cigarette, pulled his hat back into place. "She's a Summers. Got a head on her. Nothing you can do 'cept what you're doing. Keep a sharp watch, feed 'er vitamins and Victorian poetry while you're saving the world in your off hours."

Buffy looked down and tightened the belt of her coat absently. "I thought...when mom died, I told myself I'd take care of Dawn. Just like she would've. Wallop demons, wash the dishes. I thought, make a schedule. You're all set." She paused, the brightness of false optimism fading back to worry. "I promised her I'd take care of Dawn."

"And you do," Spike said firmly, grabbing her arms and dragging her attention up to him. "No call being so hard on yourself. Bloody tiresome, if you want to know the truth. If I wanted to spend my days with a brooding drama queen I'd be datin' Angel, wouldn't I?"

She slapped his chest, annoyed, but he just kissed her gently and then let her go. He looked terribly herolike and serious in his uniform, with the black brim of his hat shading his eyes. Like something from a history book. A part of her heart still compared Spike to Angel, and found him wanting--shorter in stature and in soul; all glittering, smirking surface, no depth. He could never live up to her first love. Die up?

And yet in nearly two years he'd given her no reason to distrust him, and every proof he could be counted on. She hated that. Hated when things changed, when people you'd trusted to behave one way pulled the rug out from under you. Fathers left, and watchers, and lovers; and mothers died. Friends grew up, turned gay, went all wacky in the head. Sisters popped out of nothingness and grew bratty roots in your heart.

And evil dead rotten fiendish bastards hung around and took care of you.

Spike was adjusting his coat, flexing his shoulders as he prepared to go. They had nothing more to say, and dallying was dangerous. Even so, he paused to stare deeply into her eyes a moment, his feelings buried and unreadable there, then said, "Tell Harris I miss him something terrible and am countin' the days till I can see his puffy face again." He saluted and walked off jauntily, leaving Buffy smiling.

He could feel her smile warming his back as he walked away. It took a lot to walk away from her. Putting safe distance between them--that's the way to look at it, mate. You're a bloody hero, he reminded himself, the thought teetering ironically between gloom and puffery. It was a cold night, though, even for the unliving. Cold night, colder bed. And she'd had on that fuzzy sweater, blue with ribbons, which he'd salvaged from her house not long after the invasion and brought to her. That and a box of knick-knacks. Hairbrush, bits of frippery, stuffed animals. He remembered that scene with a wince: her eyes big and shiny with unshed tears, his own helplessness as he stood there holding the box out, shredded by the sight of her pain and feeling a right git, certain his gesture had done more harm than good.

Worn the sweater though, hadn't she. And tonight she'd been warm and soft under his hands; even through the damned gloves he could feel her. Wondering idly what color knickers she'd been wearing, Spike reached for a smoke, then realized he'd given over the pack. He stifled a curse.

Steam poured up from sidewalk grates, swirled aside by his passage. The street was deserted except for him and a couple of guardsmen patrolling for curfew violators. When they saw him, they swerved his way with intent to maim, but drew up short when their piggy little eyes focused on his stripes. The shorter of the two chopped his tusks together sharply and saluted before they moved on. Spike sketched a salute back with an expression of distaste they didn't see.

Sunnydale reminded him more and more of Berlin in the dark days, even to the occasional air raid--though the Volstag beasties made less of an impact than the Allies had, given they could only erupt out of their underworld ghetto at certain times of the lunar cycle. They'd had a chance tonight, but so far the skies remained clear. As the hotel where he resided came into view, Spike could see the faint blue shimmer of magical shielding holding steady.

In the windows overlooking the street one curtain twitched; Spike glimpsed it from below as he walked by. He was still a block from his hotel. He shot a glance sideways at the building. The Sunnydale Arms. Cheap apartments. Caldarth demons living there now. Sleepless. Filthy lot, too. Leaving skins like rotten banana peels in the halls, bringing down property values. No danger. Curious buggers, that's all.

Curious.

Spike casually crossed the street, turned the corner and doubled back along the rear alley of the
block. He scouted the alley with care, heard nothing. Felt no presence. At the service entrance of the apartment building, he swung himself up onto the fire escape and climbed light-footedly to the third floor, then let himself in a window. The hallway stank of shed skin and had the peculiar emptiness of a building whose rat population had met genocide on hors d'oeuvre trays.

From the nearest apartment came the recorded tinkle of a piano and some baby-voiced bint he recalled from the thirties singing, "Love is good for anything that ails you..."

"Bleedin' nostalgia," Spike muttered. "Must be puttin' in the water with the fluoride." He ghosted down the corridor, took a turn, and grabbed the nearest thing that moved. It squeaked in alarm.
"Hey, hey, hey--" The demon tried to pull away but Spike's grip tightened. Its pink skin went pinker with distress, casting a faint electrical glow into the darkness of the hall. Patches of damp pink skin were barely visible, surfacing from the otherwise lumpy shadows of the creature's face and form.

"Shandy. Thought I recollected you lived here now." Spike smiled in a nasty way.

"Spike. I-it's good to see you."

"Course it is. Couldn't have missed me, keeping an eye out like that. Six of 'em, even."

Shandy gurgled what passed for a nervous laugh. "No, no. A complete mistake. Just getting some fresh air."

"You a huffer, then? Dangerous habit, that. Hear that fresh air'll strip pores raw on your sort, get the slime ducts--" Spike paused. "Slimin'."

"Ha ha, yes. I should turn in now." The demon made another effort to slip Spike's grasp.

"You'll turn into a messy stain on the floor if you don't tell me who's got you on sentry duty."
Half of Shandy's eyes closed; the other half twitched with tics. "Okay, okay." His whispery voice lowered to a resigned breath, barely audible beyond a vampire's ears. "It's the General."

Spike let go of Shandy's arm. "Nilec."

"He wants to know when you come, when you go."

"Does he." The wheels of thought sped distractingly, and Spike barely noticed as Shandy began edging away. Then his hand shot out and closed around the demon's throat. Its moist jowls hung heavily around his wrist, brushing the pristine cuff. Spike tilted his head, sliding into game face.

"Now, now. Don't run off." Teeth bared themselves in a sharpening smile. "We've got things to talk about."

Buffy whistled a few bars of "Camptown Races" as she passed the sentry point by the west tunnel entrance. A tinny warble floated down to her from the treetops.

"So not a whip-poor-will, Xander," she said under her breath.

Inside, Tracey or Stacey--or maybe Tacey--was guarding the entrance, very Private Benjamin chic in her olive-green jumpsuit and accessorized automatic weaponry. Buffy nodded at her as she started to pass and stopped short as the gun descended like the gateway thingy in a parking garage to bar entry.

"Password," said the girl.

"What? Oh." Buffy searched her memory. She'd been listening during the evening briefing. She really had. Dawn had chosen the password, she recalled. "Um. Joey?" The girl shook her head once. "Lance. JC. Justin. Damn it." She almost stomped her foot with frustration. "Chris!" Tacey Stacey Tracey stared at her stonily. "Oh, come on," Buffy pleaded, taking a shot, "...Tracey?"

"I was told to make no exceptions," said Tracey, whose girl power had clearly gone to her head. She lifted her chin slightly. "For all I know you could be a robot--or, or inhabited by a rogue slayer, or manifesting the attributes of a demon."

"You could have just stopped at robot. And what is this--is my whole life story a Dark Horse comic now? Oh, oh--Howie. Howie. Ha!" The chica grudgingly lowered her gun to let Buffy enter, and okay, maybe she'd relished that ha a little too much. After all, the girl was only doing her duty.
 
Buffy felt that positive feedback was called for. "Great, great job, with the whole passwording thing." She nodded smartly. "Very unbudging of you. Keep up the good work." And now I will take my obnoxious perkiness off, thought Buffy, turning on her heel and descending into the sewers.

She had to turn on her flashlight after a few yards. They needed a budget for safety lights, she thought. Rebels all over the world could get funding. Why, there was probably some six-man cell of grungy militant sheep-herders in West Nowhere getting American money for missiles right now--so why shouldn't they? They were a scrappy band of freedom fighters, battling the armies of darkness hell-bent on taking over the earthly dimension. If that wasn't the best pitch ever for financial relief and maybe some of those Red Cross goodie bags, she didn't know what was.

"Ewww," she said, stepping on something that squished. She made a face at her once trendy boots--less shiny with every passing day--compared herself unfavorably with Rebel Barbie, then sighed and headed to the command center. A quarter mile north, turn right at the stinky drain, fifty paces, through the big broken hole in the wall and into the bat caves. Abandoned sewer tunnels, mine shafts, natural caves, passages left by giant worms boring through the earth--even with a history of subterranean slayage, Buffy had never realized before the invasion just how extensive the network of tunnels under Sunnydale was. It was a wonder the town didn't collapse into a big hole after a heavy rain.

Inside the dimly-lit cavern they'd recently colonized, she wound her way through shelves and cots and stacks of crates and into the control room where a poster of Britney Spears gazed down inspirationally over their oh-so-commandy command table, on which lay a tattered map of Sunnydale, a battle axe, and...pie.

"Ooh, cherry?" she asked.

"Strawberry-rhubarb," said Dawn, before shoving half a slice into her mouth.

"Oh," said Buffy brightly, trying to sound enthused and not at all ungrateful. "Yum. Who got us pie?"

"Depeche Mode took down a supply transport," said Willow, wiping a red smoodge from her mouth almost guiltily.

"That's demon pie?" Buffy said with alarm. "Willow!"

"Actually, it's Mrs. Friendly's," said Tara. "See?" She held up the box reassuringly.

"But--guys, come on. Even I know you can't just go around grabbing strange pies off strange trucks!"

Willow looked at Dawn, who looked back and then looked over to Tara, who looked back at Dawn and then to Willow.

"Why not?" asked Willow gamely.

"Trojan pies?" Buffy said, eyes wide, eyebrows raised with a big fat hello? that none of them were heeding.

"Trojan pies," repeated Tara in her careful way, looking at the others again. Dawn smirked.

"There could be a spell on them. The Reich could have known we'd hit that truck."

"I think it was spur of the moment, Buffy. Truck. Pies. A happy coincidence and then a happy dessert." Willow smiled, and not that Willow was condescending, because a good friend would never be that, but then why did Buffy want to poke that smile off her face? "And see--the Orb of Thaeron didn't change color. No witchiness. Well, except for the witchiness that is us."

Buffy frowned at the clear orb sitting like a centerpiece on the table. "Fine. But if your tongues swell up and grow all pointy like porcupines don't come crying to me is all I'm saying." Privately she vowed to have a little talk with Jason about spur-of-the-moment raids on enemy pies. She would play Buffy, the Highly Intimidating Slayer.

She slid her coat off and sat down at the table with the others, suddenly feeling her tiredness and elbowing herself into a slump. Almost immediately she straightened up again. Tireless leader, that was her. An inspiration to the forces. Just like Britney.

"How's your batty boyfriend?"

Buffy gave Dawn the look. "Someday--when you outgrown puns?--I will allow you to rejoin the civilized world," she promised dryly.

Tara smiled then quickly asked, "Was he able to get the plans?"

Oh, duh, thought Buffy. God, she was more tired than she'd realized. She grabbed her coat from the bench and pulled out the cigarettes. "Yep. And hey, they're mentholated, too."

"For that cool minty sensation," said Willow in a jolly way, then glanced aside at Dawn, whose head was bowed over her pie. "Not that it's cool to smoke. Because, so not cool. Nope."  She shot a glance at Buffy, then went back to eating her own pie as if totally absorbed by a mental conversation with the pastry. Dawn looked up, clearly checking the Buffy-weather, then ducked her head again.

Okay, what was that, thought Buffy. She sensed she'd be having a certain big-sisterly chat. But later. And maybe with Willow.

"Was it a big risk--getting the plans?" asked Tara.

Buffy slewed her attention back to the matter at hand. "What? Oh, no. Not really." She blinked. "There was a demon patrol on State street, but I was able to use my slayer slipperiness to avoid them."

"Did you take to the rooftops like a cat and slink fluidly through the shadows and then leap to saftey over the snow-covered shingles, narrowly avoiding a crunchy plummet to the ice-covered street below?" asked Willow. A gleam of hopeful excitement lit her eyes.

Buffy stared for a moment, eyebrows levered, lips parted for a fresh breath of whoa. "Okay, first, no. And second, we really need to get cable down here."

"Um," broke in Tara gently. "That's really good, Buffy--that you were, you know, able to avoid the crunchy plummet. But I was actually wondering if it was risky for Spike." She sounded a bit apologetic, but it was the barest trace of her old manner. Mostly she sounded like she cared. "I mean, stealing the plans from that colonel's study had to be kind of dangerous."

"Oh," said Buffy, her thoughts grinding to a halt. Spike. "I didn't ask." Spike. Abruptly she wanted nothing better than to run back out into the cold night, find his cold body and throw herself into his arms, say stupid girlish things.

I love the undead, she thought. My bright future is Jerry Springer and years of therapy. If I live through this week.

"Buffy?"

God, when did I start loving him? When did I stop fighting and start toting around this bottle-blond, pulse-challenged action figure with his leather and sneers and cigarette breath--when did he stop being my demon lover and start being my demon--

"Buffy?"

--everything.

"Oh my god," she said aloud.

"Buffy, what is it?" Willow stared at her, concern in her furrowed brow.

"What?" She snapped alert at the tone of her friend's voice. "What what?"

"You said, 'Oh my god,' and then you looked sick, like that time you ate all those pickled eggs."

Everyone was staring at her. She stared back, head swiveling in nervous fractions. "I'm fine. Fine. I just...had a thought. A bad thought." She blinked, said the first thing that popped into her head. "Overdue library book. Just remembered it. Three years ago, American History. Boy. When this whole invasion thing is over, that book's going right back."

"Buffy--"

"Sorry." She stood up and pulled on her coat. "I have to go out again."

"For the library book," said Dawn in a heavily skeptical voice.

"No, just out. Fresh air. Clear my head." She looked down at their worried faces, managed a smile. "It's all good. I'll leap over the rooftops like a cat; and I remember the password even. It's--" Her mind blanked.

"Howie," said Dawn.

"Right. Howie."

Buffy retraced her steps back to the surface of the earth, leaving the subterranean reek behind with a sense of relief. Her guilt reflex kicked in as she thought of her friends left to hold the fort in the most literal sense, but she kicked back hard. She kicked guilt's ass and knocked it flat.

Once outside though, she simply stood by the tunnel entrance and inhaled the crisp air, hands in pockets, making no move to return to town. Going to Spike's rooms could lead to their discovery, could get them both the wrong kind of dead. It would be selfish, stupid and...stupid. Telling herself that didn't help a whole lot.

The stars glittered in the dark sky with a clarity that made Sunnydale's eternal night appear almost normal. A few hours and the sun would come up, hidden behind a density of magical clouds. Mist would roll across the fields, small rainstorms would pepper the ground, and vampy types would stroll freely through the streets of her town, shopping for shoes and sipping blood-laced cappuccinos bought from demon baristas.

An insistent trill penetrated her thoughts and Buffy looked up at the Xander tree. She couldn't see him through the leaves, leaves that should have withered a long time ago but hadn't. She walked over and tipped her head back to look up into the branches. Xander peered down at her from where he sat cross-legged on the shored-up remnants of some kid's tree house. The leafy shadows flickered across his face, wind and moonlight, and she shivered at a darkness in his expression that she rarely saw. Then he smiled and with a poof Darth Xander became Dork Xander.

"Buff. Buffster. The Buffman."

"Buffwoman, I think you mean." Thank you very much, her tone said.

He raised one hand from the gun resting across his lap, directed an admonishing finger her way. "Never mess with a classic riff. The riff is all. The riff comforts us."

Buffy smiled wryly, then climbed up boards nailed to the trunk to join him.

"Enter, enter." Xander scooted to one side, making room. "Mi tree casa es su tree casa."

She mirrored his position, leaning against a heavy branch. The bark was cool but solid against her back. "It's nice up here," she said, looking around in surprise. There was a small cooler with a folded blanket on top, and additional weapons hung on nails from the branches. "Cozy."

"The life of the bandito is not cozy, nor is his lair. His is a rugged, manly, lonely existence." He paused with momentary drama. "And so is his lair."

Buffy's lips curled in amusement. "I'll remember that."

"So what's up tonight. You're in, you're out, you're up a tree." He gazed at her steadily, face mild but not entirely without challenge.

"Oh. Just. You know." She shrugged one shoulder. "Hard to breathe down there sometimes."

"No kidding. Living in sewers gives a whole new meaning to the suburban lifestyle."

"Yeah." She tilted her head, moved by wistfulness. "I miss my bed."

"I miss my fridge."

"TV."

"TV," Xander echoed with feeling.

"Air-popper."

"Bathtub."

"Mmm. My Waterpik." Xander stared at her with lifted brows and fascination until she noticed and blushed. "It's perfectly therapeutic."

"You're forgetting. I have a plain-speaking ex-demon girlfriend. I have been made privy to the secrets of the harem."

"Speaking of--how is your undercover angel?" asked Buffy, redirecting the conversation.

Xander looked out through the leaves and didn't answer. He was still, but his fingers moved in brief restlessness across the gun.

Buffy dropped her gaze and picked at the laces of her boots. "You miss her," she said quietly after a few moments had passed.

"I miss her more than I'd miss my spleen. You can live without your spleen."

She cut her eyes up and considered his profile. He was broody. She recognized broody from the mirror.

The leaves rustled in the wind and quietness.

After a minute, Buffy decided the conversation was over; her muscles tensed in preparation to rise and leave Xander to his rugged, manly, lonely existence.

"So," Xander said, turning his head back her way. He looked more tired than he had before. She sometimes had that effect on people; or so she worried. "How's your own undercover..." He trailed off, then flexed his shoulders as if to say he could find no other word: "Devil." Still a lot of casual loathing there, check.

"Good," she said tersely.
 
"Hasn't made the firing squad yet?" Concern masked a mockery so deep he probably didn't even know he was doing it. "Hasn't been gutted, flayed, knifed--strung up?"

Buffy lowered her eyes. "No."

There was another awkward pause, and when she glanced at him his eyes gleamed in the dark and made her skin prickle. His expression was unrepentant, lips slightly parted as if he relished his own hatred. She couldn't remember the last time he'd been given reason to hate Spike, but then he'd never really warmed to Angel either. It was a vamp thing for Xander, and as always in the face of his low-key needling she didn't know whether to feel angry or guilty, so she felt both.

"I should go."

"Going back to him?"

Heat flared in her face, burned her ears, but her voice ran cold. "That's really none of your business, is it." She couldn't stand up in the cramped tree house, it was absurd, but she did anyway, and Xander rose as well. "God, I thought we were past this. Haven't we done this little scene of yours, like, a thousand times?"

"Yeah, well. See, I have this thing. I care about my friends. Crazy, isn't it." He mocked her now, as gently and hurtfully as a brother. "And I happen to think you deserve better than a monster." He stared at her, head cocked, then made a sound, less a laugh than a bit of sandpaper rubbing across her nerves. "But you don't want to hear that, do you."

"Frankly? No." She turned to descend the ladder, but he grabbed her arm.

"Buffy."

She drew on impatience as defense. "What?"

He hesitated, searching her eyes, then said, "It's dangerous in town. Going in when you don't have to is stupid." He shoved a lot of emphasis into the last word.

Buffy considered him, the grip of his hand on her arm like a tether to sanity. She forced herself to relax. Stand down. "You're right," she sighed. "It's late. And if I recall, the last entry on the Slayer's Tuesday to-do list involves one seventeen year old, math homework, and a red pencil."

Xander squeezed her arm. "Tell the Dawnster from me that algebra will save the world." He blinked and shook his head as disbelief washed over his face. "I can't believe I just said that. I lie the lie of the big adults now."

She smiled wryly. "Don't we all."

Back inside the tunnels, Buffy cut left instead of right and jogged along the corridors until she reached one of the southern exits. She climbed one of the maintenance ladders, slid a manhole aside, and let herself out in the alley behind Schraeder's Grocery. A sentry melted out of the shadows and she recognized him as Andrew. He helped her replace the manhole cover.

"What are you doing on the surface?" she asked, huffing white air as the cover slid quietly back into place under their combined efforts.

"Uh, sorry." The redhead rubbed hair off his face and pushed back his cap, and at the gesture Buffy thought helplessly of Spike. "Stinks down there."

"Cold up here," Buffy parried. "And you'll have some angry little Wiccas on your ass...sault weapon if they find you off position. What did we learn in training? Inside, hear noise, run fast. Outside, hear noise, get eaten."

"I know." Andrew looked at her with the look she'd come to recognize as goopy-boy-crush. "Thanks, Slay--er, Buffy. I'll, uh, go back in." Then a thought struck him. It was like watching a bird hit a windowpane. He swung his weapon off his shoulder and handled it in a way that made her faintly nervous. "You want I should watch your back on this one?"

"One what?"

"This mission," he said, his whisper descending to intimacy.

"I think I can handle this one--"

"Because I'm ready, I'm primed," he went on eagerly. "I'm frosty."

"Yes." Buffy's brows raised. "Because it's twenty degrees out, Andrew."

"No, I mean--" He broke off, laughed. "That's funny."

Buffy felt that junior high might not be a memory but a recurring nightmare. She smiled, spoke clearly. "I have to go now."

"Oh. Okay. Bye!"

Half turned to leave, she flinched and turned back. "Andrew," she whispered. "Shhh. We don't like to cry out, 'Snack! Snack!' to the creatures of the night."

"Right," he whispered, giving her the thumbs up and a brilliant smile.

She had to smile in return, and then she turned again and rolled her eyes.

Spike kicked the door in, right out of Benny's hand. He spared his demon manservant a brief and suspicious squint, a flicking gaze down waistcoat and trousers. Had to make sure the fellow was keeping himself tidy. Went with his whole image, having a presentable little twit on retainer.

"Cloak, sir--"

Spike was already shrugging his cloak off to drop to the floor, or would have been except the handy bastard caught and hung it on the mahogany hall stand. Spike paused at the gleaming table on which his mail lay, felt his hat deftly removed from his head, from behind and without comment.

"Coat, sir."

Spike grunted and didn't look up from shuffling his handful of mail as the Hanomag removed his coat. He held up his right arm, transferred his mail from one hand to the other, let the coat be slipped off his left, returned to an idle scan of the addresses. Most of them, he could tell all he needed to from the envelopes alone. White cream, wax seal, a scent of rotting flowers: invite to another sodding ball. Ball, ball, interrogation, ball.

Absently, Spike picked up a glass of brandy from the silver tray and killed it in two swallows. Had a forty-proof blood taste to it that warmed the cockles. He smacked the cut crystal back onto the silver, and left his hand there, spidered over the glass. Warmth was uncurling in his gut but something was wrong.

"Another drink, sir?"

"Something not right here." Spike let go of the glass and turned in a semi-circle, looking around the small foyer. "Off." He assessed the softly ticking clock, the poncey oil paintings, the lamp and its muted glow, before narrowing his gaze on Benny. Benny looked down wordlessly, then up again, then down again. Blinking, Spike followed his gaze to the glossy black-and-white tiles. Bare tiles. Yes. That was it. That nice cushiony feeling under his shoes he was used to--

"What the hell happened to my sodding rug? Real Persian, that was."

"Unfortunately, sir, the sodding rug became...sodden. A unexpected delivery today. Balloon slugs. No courier and, alas, no note."

It was only then that Spike finally noticed the bite marks all over the demon's face. Hard to make them out against the rough, brick-red skin. "Looks like you had a tussle."

"Sir," Benny agreed. "I had to wrestle them to the ground. And--"

"Squash 'em flat," Spike finished with a wince.

"Quite. The rug has been sent out for cleaning. A reputable firm."

"No note." Spike gave a terse laugh as he matched the style of the prank to its source. "Know who that was. Hrarffahr. Bloke's hasty calling in his poker debts and fancies he has a sense of humor. Bad combination."

"Balloon slugs are not dangerous. To my kind."

Spike raised his brows at the meaningful tone of voice.

"If they attach themselves to a vampire they can drain one dry in under a minute." Benny paused, no expression breaking through the brick. "Or so I have been told, sir."

"Hell," said Spike with feeling and astonishment. He gave it a moment's serious contemplation in connection with Nilec, then straightened and dismissed the assassination attempt with a one-shouldered shrug. "Oh, well. Man doesn't have enemies, he's no kind of man."

He turned and entered his sitting room. Fire crackling, comfy chair. He removed his uniform jacket and flung it at a settee, then dropped into the armchair, propped his feet up, and started tearing open envelopes, casting each carelessly aside as he did and finding what intrigue and amusement he could in the feminine scrawls.

"'Dear Colonel,'" he read aloud to himself in a light sing-song, "'please do not think me forward but I'm advised by a dear friend that you would enjoy an evening of fine music and company. My protegee will be playing the works of Iannis Xenakis--' Bludgeoning the guests to death'd be more honest." Spike skimmed the card into the fire, returned to reading.

After a while he glanced to the side table and frowned. By now a second glass should have been sitting on the table, this one of blood. "Oy, you blasted--" he began, then cut his yell short with an oath as the demon materialized at his side.

"Sir."

Spike glared, tilted his head in subtle warning. "Dinner'd be nice." You oily-hoofed git.

"Dinner was delivered earlier and is waiting in the bedroom, sir."

"Wha--oh." He gave the demon an annoyed look. "That's not dinner." Which you well know, his tone reminded.

"As I've mentioned before, sir, I'd certainly be glad to assist--"

"No," Spike said, more fiercely than he'd meant to. Temptation made him angry; the sting of old humiliations made him savage. Standing, he loomed over his servant. "Get helpful and I'll skin you for it. Twice." He stalked into the bedroom where the girl lay tied up on his eiderdown, asleep. Drained by fear, likely. He shut the door behind him and moved to the bed, eyeballing her.

Overripe, dark hair, buttonish nose. His gaze fixed on her plump neck, all white and soft. Like a marshmallow, even. And he'd wager it was as sweet. At that moment he felt he'd give his right arm for just one...small...snack.

Spike turned abruptly away, ran a hand over his head. "Like a cat fed from a tin," he muttered. "Live mice nipping at my bloody tail, playing jumpsies." Furious, he kicked a hole in his dresser. Boot lodged in the shattered wood, he cursed. Yanked it out, and then with a tightening mouth put his fist deliberately through the wall. Once, twice, three times. Felt good. Game faced, he seethed. And then, snarling as the plaster dust settled, he began to methodically destroy his room.

Buffy's heel slipped on the snowy roof and she yelped as she fell flat, grabbing a ventilation pipe just in time to keep from sliding into the icy street below.

"Like a cat," she muttered ironically to herself, breathless and glad no one could see her. She pulled herself up one-handed and swung a leg over the roof's peak. "Whoof," she said, eyes widening a moment as the cold shingly roof made itself intimate. Then she jumped upright and dusted off her coat and pants. Across the narrow alley she could see the fourth-floor windows of the Hotel Arcadia. Room interiors glowed through sheer white drapes, and she counted the windows east to west under her breath.

"Right," she said, craning her neck to peek over the edge of the roof and then pulling back. "Just fifty feet down. No problem. Hello, kitty."

Thus bolstered in confidence, Buffy backed up several paces, eyed the two-foot ledge that was her target, then bounded across the slippery roofline. As she leapt through space all she could think was, what the hell am I do--, but before she could complete the idea she smacked up against the bricks and had to grab quickly for purchase.

She stayed there a minute, catching her breath and reknitting her nerve, then picked her way carefully along the ledge which was luckily without snow. Ahead of her she could see the stripe of light from Spike's window, painted yellow against the shadowed concrete. From inside the room came a tinkle and a small crash.

Buffy shimmied up to the recessed window and peered around the edge. The gauzed drapes were so thin she could see through easily. Nice room, she thought. Or it would have been if someone who was probably her hot-headed boyfiend hadn't trashed it. What looked like nicely faked antique furniture lay wrecked and scattered, chairs tipped over with their arms ripped off, tables smashed. As she skated her gaze across the room, Spike strode into view with game face on, ripping a canvas painting to shreds and mouthing something she didn't think was art appreciation.

It was cold and she was about to enter, but instead she froze, breath halting in her chest as Spike dragged a girl off his bed. He gripped her wrist, on which a piece of torn rope dangled. She was crying and cringing from him--it was the girl from the street, Buffy suddenly recognized. Will paralyzed, she watched in rising anguish as Spike grabbed the girl's hair and tipped her head back. He held her upright with one hand and stroked her hair with the other, ignoring the ineffectual blows she tattooed on his chest. He inhaled her, tilted his head, fangs at her bared neck. Buffy didn't move. She could be through that window in two seconds, stake out, but she couldn't move--

Spike tossed the girl back on the bed and lowered his face into his hands. He stood there a minute while the girl sobbed; while Buffy gripped brick hard enough for it to crumble unnoticed. When he raised his face from his hands, it was stripped of demon and she saw that he'd been sobbing too. Buffy's heart ached so hard, so suddenly, it was as if it had stopped beating and only just started again.

She remained on the ledge as Spike eased the girl off the bed and from the room, manhandling her with care as she became more violent. She heard him yell something that sounded like penny. The bedroom door opened almost at once and a bright red demon met Spike on the threshold and took the struggling girl from him. Comments were exchanged before Spike banged the door shut behind them and turned to face his room.

Buffy paused one more moment to watch him survey the wreckage, but when he picked up a broken table leg she hastily kicked in the window and hopped inside. He stared at her, amazed and blinking, while she walked over and took the splintered wood from his hand. She threw it to one side where it landed on the capsized deck of a dresser. They both watched as it promptly rolled off and bounced on the floor.

"Way to slay the dresser," said Buffy. "In fact, a fine job all around," she added brightly. "Any particular reason your place looks like Billy Idol's hotel suite after a bad show, or is it always like this?"

"What are you doing here?" asked Spike. His voice was harsh and low, and his eyes burned with barely banked fury. She'd seen that look before, and not just in his eyes. She reached up a hand to stroke a tear from his face, but he turned away and did it himself, roughly.

The violence coiled in him would have made her hesitate another time, but she'd seen his hard-won self-control and she felt only normal slayer wariness. She looked around at the closest debris and absently righted a chair. Tried to. It tipped and she caught it. She let go. It tipped and she caught it. She let it fall with a sigh.

When she looked up Spike was watching her, broody, mouth a tight line. "What," he repeated slowly and distinctly, "are you doing here? Come to spy on me? Catch your pet vampire having a crisis of faith over the dinner menu?" His voice was so dark it could have eclipsed the sun. "Hope you had a good laugh. Should've jumped in sooner though, love; staked me yourself."

"Shut up!" Buffy cried. She'd have smacked him if he'd been three feet closer.

The outburst, its lameness, seemed to take them both by surprise. They stared at each other, and then Spike's jaw twitched and he slowly uncurled a reluctant smile, ducking his head to one side as he looked away from her, ironical in his amusement. And then his gaze came back, striking her like a snake, making her heart skip, and there he was up against her, equally fast and...snakey. He held her tightly around the waist and tipped her head back with his free hand. Buffy realized she was in almost the same position as the girl had been, and shuddered with sudden heat. Non-slayer instincts kicked in, and she arched her neck back further. She could feel Spike hardening against her, his arm tightening against her lower back.

See me with the swooning, Buffy thought, but then the seriousness of his need cut through her own dazed longing like a knife. He'd vamped out, and was looking at her neck with glowy-eyed hunger and bared fangs. His hand cradled the back of her head and felt better than a pillow. She could rest there. She closed her eyes.

"Drink," she whispered and then gasped as his fangs buried themselves in her neck without hesitation, breaking like a shriek through her skin and mind, a shriek she didn't make aloud. And oh god it was so good, so incredibly wrong and good that she clawed at his back and ripped his shirt and didn't care and rubbed against him with her entire life as he jacked her up higher to ride his thigh and then frantically, frantically she was sucking in breaths as he drank. From the fangs hooked in her throat a line ran down to a knot of exquisite pain between her legs, tightening further and further until the line snapped and a blossoming heat made her cry out and he tore away.

"Buffy!"

"Oh," she said weakly, swaying in his arms. "Hello, kitty."

He made a noise she couldn't decipher, and then she felt herself lifted in strong arms and carried. His bed was comfy at her back when he laid her down.

"Nice mattress," she murmured, opening her eyes. He sat next to her, devamped. Concern was showing in his naked face, or maybe fear.

"You all right?" He touched her hair, and she could feel that his hand trembled. "Bloody hell, Slayer." He sounded as if he'd been about to say more but his voice choked off.

"Relax." She was dizzy, but after eight years of slaying she was well accustomed to measuring blood loss and knew she'd be fine. "I can spare a pint."

"And a half, love," Spike said, still caressing her tenderly. "That's not the point."

"Get me some water?" Buffy asked, just to get him out of her hair. He jumped up at once and sped from the room on this valiant and watery quest. When he was gone, she sat up carefully and removed her coat and boots. She rubbed the already clotted wound on her neck, prodding to determine how sore it would be and how visible. Though she already knew. "Big hickey," she said.

Spike returned with water, which she gave a perfunctory sip before setting on the bedside table. Doing these small things kept her from having to focus on him, on how he stood awkwardly and at a loss in front of her, shifting from foot to foot. She hoped he wasn't going to want to talk. It wasn't pretty, when they did the talking thing. When there was something to talk about.

"You just gonna stand there and dance with yourself?" Buffy asked with a stab at archness, sparing him a glance at last. He was still wound up, muscles tense. If he'd been anyone else, anyone alive, she'd have guessed from his expression that he was angry at himself. She was a realist, though, and he was rebel without a conscience man. Spike cared about her, sure. That didn't mean he wasn't jonesing for a chaser.

He uttered a short laugh and shook his head. His eyes had filled with wonderment, but his face held unresolved worry. "Oh, you're a mad bird, you are. Give Dru a run for her money, I sus--" He squawked as she yanked his belt and threw him on the bed. Bouncy mattress.

"This mattress is--is better than all things chocolate," she said, turning and stretching out against the headboard. "I find this grossly unfair. Do you know I'm sleeping on burlap?"

Spike rolled onto his side and propped his head up with one hand. The other stroked her feet lightly. "Didn't know that, pet. Chafes, does it?"

"Mmm. Dunno. I'm not really sleeping on burlap."

He smiled, and then shoved up next to her. They lay side by side, face to face. He played her ribs as if tickling piano keys. She unbuttoned his shirt, in no hurry.

"Don't have to be so careful. You've ventilated the silk."

Buffy tore the shirt down the middle and palmed his chest and Spike did that thing he did, which looked like he was taking a deep breath. Old habits die hard, he'd once told her, even when the rest goes easy.

"I can't stay the night," she said.

"Day, you mean. Nearly sunrise."

"Then we'd better make this fast." But her fingers were slow again, and he didn't make a move.

"Risky as hell, your comin' here. For both of us."

She met his eyes. "I know," she said quietly. She gave a small smile, and to distract them both from the real risks said, "You should've seen my feline leap across the snowy rooftops."

Spike raised a brow and glanced past her toward the window whose draft she could feel against her back. "Bloody hell," he said, then glared at her. "Well, you'll not be leaving that way." She watched his eyelashes lower as he mused to himself. "Have to smuggle you out. Take the freight elevator. There's a tunnel leadin' out the cellar. Used it a coupla times myself."

"Know your escape routes," Buffy affirmed lazily. Tired of talking, she pushed Spike onto his back and rolled on top of him. He held her hips obligingly while she shifted. She had his full attention now, and wished she were wearing a skirt. The breeze from the window was chilly and zippers were complicated. She yanked down his, though, and rotated herself against him as if buffing a floor. His fingers tightened and she teased him like this for a minute, but her own breath hitched as the rhythm picked up, and next thing she knew she was on her back and his cold hands were sliding her jeans and panties off. He left her sweater on.

It was cold, she was cold, but his head dipped between her thighs and she forgot to notice, and a hazy while later after cries and hair-tossing and arching, Spike slithered up again, cheeking a path up her belly and breasts until his face loomed above hers. His cheeks were flushed. That was her blood, she thought. Her blood from before, warming his dead skin.

"Tell me how evil I am," he breathed. "I'm evil, aren't I, love?" Desperation laced his voice, and with it a new hunger.

"The evilist."

He thrust into her and she lifted to meet him. "Oh god," he said, the cords of his neck thick with effort, his voice tight.

She buzzed beneath him as he rode her. He was like music only she could hear. When he moved inside her, he wrecked himself and she grew reckless. He watched her like a hawk, focused completely on her, eyes burning into hers as if he didn't know whether to hate or love her, slaying her with every thrust. She came twice, seizing him, and then his eyelids fluttered shut and his chin lifted, and he was gone, the way all men eventually left, disappearing somewhere else at the important moment.

He groaned and half-collapsed on her, nuzzling his face against hers. She stroked the tatters of his shirt, and his belt clinked as he drew away. After he slid off they lay together side by side on their backs for a few minutes, limbs splayed bonelessly.

Dinner and a tumble, Buffy thought, sitting up at last and reaching for her jeans. Spike too had gotten up from the bed, his own trousers zipped. He wandered through the debris of his room, hunting for something, bent down and drew an undamaged enameled box from a pile of wood that was once chair, opened it with a grunt of surprise and removed a cigarette. The lighter hunt looked to last quite a while longer.

When she was dressed again, boots and coat on, and he was standing, cigarette lit and smoking in one white hand, they stood at opposite sides of the room and didn't look at each other. Buffy wasn't sure what dead boy was thinking, but the ache in her chest was familiar: a twist of meaningless happiness; longing and hope. All the wrong things to feel, but she couldn't stop feeling. Or maybe they weren't the wrong things to feel; she wasn't sure anymore. Angel, Riley, Spike--it was just one lost boy after another ever since pulling on her little red slayerhood. She couldn't remember any more what was normal and what wasn't. She and Spike--they fought together and occasionally still fought each other, and if she kept her eyes on the epic drama of good against evil she could sometimes kick free of the aching undertow of her feelings for him. Which was probably for the--

"Best be going, then," said Spike, looking around for a place to put out his cigarette and then mashing it out in the shards of a lamp. He met her eyes. "'Fore the breakfast service begins and the hallways fill up with--"

"Spike."

He stopped, waiting for her to go on. He looked almost polite.

She took a deep breath, then ducked her head. "Nothing."

"Right then."

With a warning to quietness, he led her out through the apartment. Buffy glanced around as she passed, impressed and annoyed by the deep rugs, the deep fireplace, the deep sofa. He had the whole deep thing going for him.

"This undercover gig isn't exactly a hardship, is it," she groused.

Spike turned his head and smirked unnicely. "Tables've turned, haven't they? Gettin' a taste of life underground. Everyone up above got the big-screen telly, the well-stocked fridge, while you scurry through their sewers and eat scraps."

"Well, tonight we had pie," she shot back, unable to think of a more suitable retort.

"Bully for you." He paused at the front door, first to pull on his coat, then to scrutinize her. "Here," he said, taking his cloak off a hook to wrap around her shoulders. "Wear this. Put the hood up if you're in the open." His brow did the wrinkly worry thing, which she liked better than the wrinkly vamp thing. "I should come with, make sure you get home safe."

"No," she said firmly. "Now let's go."

The halls were deserted, the freight elevator not in use, and they descended unspeaking to the basement, where Spike held her back briefly with one arm and poked his head out to make sure no one was around. They wound through what appeared to be abandoned subkitchens full of pots and crates, past big humming machines and down corridors with pipes that ran along the ceiling. Concrete walls gave way to brick, and lights became more scarce. The entrance to the tunnel was in an empty wine cellar with a dirt floor, behind a dusty piano.

"Not sure how far this goes," he said, while Buffy skeptically assessed the dwarf-sized door and pulled out her flashlight.

"Guess I'll find out." She hesitated, looked up at him. He was staring at the door in a fixed way, thinking his cryptic thoughts or just avoiding her. Faced by his heroic profile she wanted to tell him, I love you or maybe just take care of yourself. She couldn't help it. She was wired that way. And he turned his head and gazed down at her finally, as if he'd heard the words she wasn't saying, as if she was music only he could hear. His eyes were grey and unblinking, his face smoothed of expression, the corpse of a monster or cold marble of an angel. And when she couldn't bear good-bye another moment, he kissed her, and it was like kissing snow, except for that deep fire place inside her that didn't stop burning.

Every big movie moment had to end, and she gave what she hoped was a convincing smile before she turned and left him.

 
When Buffy kicked her way through the bricked-up conduit and discovered she was only a few hundred feet from the tunnel she'd come to consider her freeway home, she felt a stab of guilty pleasure. She stepped back through just long enough to hang Spike's cloak on a heavy piece of rusted wire extending from the inner wall.

Trysts 'r' us, she thought, dragging a few wooden pallets in front of the hole she'd made and giving her handiwork a second's smug regard before dusting off her hands and heading toward the command center.

She entered perkily but stopped midstride in the middle of the room as all eyes turned her way. It was only then that she remembered the bite on her neck. She feigned a casual movement to check the collar of her coat. Her collar was up, and her hair was down, and she smiled at her friends self-consciously, unsure just how much of the night's events were covered.

"Good--" Xander paused ostentatiously to check his watch. "--morning, sunshine." His voice brimmed with the kind of cheery that wasn't. "I thought you were turning in for the night. Help Dawn with her homework, I seem to remember you saying."

"Took a walk instead," said Buffy with short defiance, skimming a glance around the table to take the collective temperature. Dawn thankfully absent, Tara sleepy, Willow only slightly frowny, Xander...Xander. She relaxed a notch. "What's the what?" she asked, approaching the table.

"We're going over the plans you brought," said Tara.

"Since when did we become the night shift?" Buffy wondered, sitting down on a crate slightly distant from the rest.

"Tuesday," said Willow, checking with the others.

"Tuesday," Xander confirmed while Tara nodded agreeably.

"Oh." Sitting down had been a mistake. Buffy felt the waves of tiredness begin lapping at her sense of perk. So much for the second wind, hello suckage of blood loss.

Willow was smiling faintly at her. "This is the fuzzy Buffy. As in fuzzy headed," she added. "Not fuzzy wuzzy."

"This is the very fuzzy Buffy," Buffy said.

"Fuzzy Buffy want a look at the new badness?" asked Xander dryly. He pushed the thin piece of paper her way, and Buffy reluctantly dragged her crate closer and smoothed out the paper's folds. It was a blueprint, larger than she'd expected. After a moment, she turned it clockwise. "Okay. Tired me, but--what am I looking at?"

"Well, Spike said it was plans for a weapon, and I recognize some of the symbols." Willow leaned across the table and traced along lines of print. "These are runes, part of an incantation to the dark powers, specifically the demon Kespet. I'm working on a translation now. The rest of the writing is some kind of demon language I don't know, but mixed with Latin--what I've been able to make out so far are standard spell ingredients for black magic. Verbascum thapsus, achillea millefolium--"

"Gesundeit," said Buffy. "So, do we know what this thing does?"

Willow and Xander exchanged a glance, and Willow sat back down next to Tara.

"We think it go boom," said Xander. "And put heap big hurt on humans."

"We, uh, we don't really know," admitted Willow. A touch of hope lit her eyes. "We thought maybe Spike had more information."

"He said he was on the outs for this. Some secret cable--"

"Cabal," Willow snuck in gently, like Giles used to do.

"--acting inside the Reich. I don't think he knows anything more than what he told me." She glanced around. "I could ask him," she suggested, careful to make it sound like she didn't care one way or the other.

"That's probably a--" began Willow.

"Unnecessary," broke in Xander. "A big unnecessary."

"A good idea," Willow said, giving him a pointed look.

"I'll ask him," said Buffy, smoothing her hair down over the left side of her neck.

"You feeling okay?" asked Tara kindly, tilting her head.

Buffy started at the sudden question and felt her cheeks pink under the other woman's direct, witchy gaze. Naturally the others were looking all too interested. "Me?" Buffy squeaked. Get a grip, girl. Do not squeak. "Great. Fine."

"You just look a little..." Tara hesitated as if reconsidering whether to finish her observation. "Pale," she offered apologetically, giving a half-shrug.

Buffy gave a rueful half-smile in return. "My winter complexion isn't exactly helped by our new subcontinental lifestyle."

"It isn't exactly helped by this either," said Xander sharply, reaching out and twitching aside her hair before Buffy could stop him.

She knocked his hand away and covered the wound instinctively.

"You gonna tell me that's frostbite?" Anger had darkened Xander's face.

Unable to answer, Buffy darted a look at the women. Willow looked stricken, Tara shocked.

"I should have staked that walking cadaver years ago." Xander leaned in and stared Buffy down. "And next time I see him, I will."

Buffy's face hardened, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Tara anxiously swing her gaze back and forth between the two of them. "Xander," said Tara. "I-I'm sure that Buffy--"

"Sure that Buffy what," Xander interrupted, not breaking eye contact with Buffy. "Sure that she let herself be a tasty juice box to a bloodsucking fiend? Sure that she gets off on being kibble for the undead?"

"Don't," whispered Buffy.

"What's wrong, Buffy? Too close to the bone? Well, somebody's got to say it. Because I'm only saying what the rest of us are thinking. This whole six-feet-under philia was hard to take when it was just Angel--and I never thought I'd say just Angel, but at least he had a soul."

Willow's voice was a hollow reed. "Xander--"

"And you can just save the my-boyfriend's-a-freedom-fighter rebuttal, because as far as I'm concerned that Nazi uniform he's wearing is exactly what he should be buried in. Except he won't be buried, he'll be dust, and I'm guessing the uniform too, but that's not the point."

Buffy stood, and Xander moved to block her. "Don't," she warned.

"At some point you're going to remember you're the Slayer," said Xander, mere inches between them. "Or he will. And I wouldn't take odds that you'll be the one to remember first."

She stared at him, stony-faced, while he searched her eyes. "Back off," she said deliberately, "or I'll back you off."

Xander didn't move, and Buffy shoved his chest hard enough to send him flying several feet. He landed flat on his back, and before he could get up she leapt and straddled him and pinned him down by the neck, ignoring the alarmed cries from Willow and Tara.

"If you hurt him," she said, leaning forward, "You will never see me again. Any of you. Any of you," she repeated. Her voice was cold and shook with fury. She let go of his neck and stood as Xander gasped in air.

"Buffy." She turned and Willow was in her face, angry and appalled. "You can't just knock around your friends every time you hear something you don't like."

"Something I don't like?" Buffy snapped back. "Try threats of homicide against the man, the, the thing I--" She stopped, exhaling with frustration.

"The thing you what?" Willow stared at her. "Buffy, Xander's right. I mean, we've all been pretty supportive if not actually understanding about Spike. And, okay, he kind of grows on you, in a twisted creature-of-darkness way. But if it's more than just kicks on the side, then--"

"Then what?" Buffy challenged.

"Then you need to let it go." Willow's regret was obviously real, but the voice of moral authority left Buffy dry-eyed and cynical. "You need to get over him."

Buffy turned away, arms crossed. After a minute, she turned back. Willow was unbudging, Xander was standing a few yards off to one side behind her, face still clouded with dangerous feeling, and Tara looked on with concern.

"There's something I need to tell you," Buffy said.

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