Disclaimer & Author's Note: The usual.

Previously: Tucker attacked Siggy, Spike killed Tucker, Buffy was conflicted, Buffy and Siggy talked. It was more than that, really, but that's the best I can summarize. ~_^

Buffy sat back with a sigh and watched everyone else argue about how to get the ritual to work best. Since she seemed like the only person in the room who didn't know a thing about magic, it gave her way too much time to think.

Spike had been distant all day. That much was obvious. And, given that she'd threatened to stake him the night before, she could understand why he was a bit anxious. Hell, she sure as hell would be suspicious if someone promised her sweet kisses one minute and then threatened to kill her the next. So Spike's reticence made a frightening amount of sense.

That didn't mean wasn't sick of it, though. It seemed as though the vampire had been spending all their years apart perfecting the art of driving her out of her mind. She was confused enough about her feelings for him without him doing his impression of a hot-and-cold running faucet to complicate things further.

He sat beside Dawn now, brow furrowed in concentration at the plan she and Siggy were forming. Occasionally, he'd make a comment or flash at smile at Veronica whose hand seemed to be 'unintentionally' bumping his leg far too often, but he didn't throw a glance Buffy's way once.

"Okay, so this is the summoning spell?" Dawn inquired, pointing to a section of the text Siggy had spent the afternoon perfecting.

"That seems to be the case," Siggy agreed, scanning the lines.

"Why do we care?" Veronica asked in a bored drawl. She re-crossed her legs, and her foot brushed Spike's thigh lightly.

"Because," Lena retorted in the best 'duh' voice she could manage, "this might be how the Haunting got here in the first place, am I right?"

Dawn nodded. "It looks like it."

Lena flashed Veronica a triumphant look and primped her antennae.

"But the book came from Eustacia Collins," Xel pointed out, coming to Veronica's defense much to Lena's annoyance. "She tried to destroy the Haunting. Why would she have the book that summoned it in the first place?"

Dawn groaned. "I have no clue," she admitted, "but our priority is getting rid of this thing, so why don't we save those questions for later?"

"Spell to kill it s'not easy," Spike commented off-handedly. "Think you can handle that, Bit?"

"It'll require a circle," Dawn agreed with Spike's assessment. "Who here has enough magical experience that they think that they could handle it?"

Siggy and Veronica's hands shot up, as well as a hesitant Xel's. Spike didn't volunteer, of course, but Dawn was used to his healthy fear of magic by now.

"That's more than enough," she concluded. "We just have to get some decent practice in, a few supplies..."

"Well, that certainly was simple," Veronica pointed out.

"I doubt it will be anywhere near as simple as it seems," Siggy agreed, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "We shall have to work from the original language, I think. The German text," she gestured to Spike and Dawn's recitation of the old spell, "is an attempt at translation, I believe. It was obviously not fully successful."

"Who's up for a crash course in ancient Demonic Kassite?" Dawn joked.

Several groans, most prominently from Veronica.

"Do we have to do this now?" she complained. "I mean, honestly, we're the only ones left for the Haunting to bother."

"Yeah, and we're not slowly dying off or anything," Buffy commented sarcastically, fully fed up with the whiny woman.

"Besides, the sooner we kill this thing, the sooner we can get paid and go home," Lena concluded with a defiant cross of her arms.

Veronica bit her lip, debating the pros and cons of that argument. On the one hand, the money was nothing to scoff at, but on the other all chance of bedding Spike would vanish the instant they went their separate ways. Ah well, if nothing else, she could just get him drunk tonight...

"All right, I'm in," she sighed wearily.

Siggy gestured for the potential spell-casters to gather round, leaving Buffy, Spike, Rick, and Lena to their own devices.

"Well, I'm going to make sure that Ms. Danvers character is ready to pay," Lena announced. "If she hasn't run off as well, that is..."

"She was here this morning," Rick provided, "although she refused our offer of breakfast."

Veronica shook her head. "That woman is insane," she concluded. "Why doesn't she just run for it? It's not like she's shown any interest in what we're doing here. The only good her staying is doing is giving us another potential victim to worry about."

"Especially since she never shows her face," Xel agreed, giving Veronica a hopeful smile.

Her attention was too riveted on Spike to notice, however. A disappointed pout turned her lips down when she saw that he was getting up to leave as well.

"So long as she's got our money, I don't care one way or another," Lena said with finality, casting one last warning glance in Xel's direction before she strutted from the room.

"Well, no one can say she does not know how to make a exit," Siggy commented good-naturedly.

Xel ventured trying a leer on her. It failed miserably since she was too busy shuffling through her papers. He redirected the look at Veronica instead, who was still watching where Spike stood by the doorway with a pout. Buffy was also unavailable given that she seemed to be watching Spike's every move as well. He turned to Dawn...and Rick's eyes glowed a threatening red behind his glasses. With a defeated sigh, Xel turned back to the matter at hand.

Satisfied that the other demon was perfectly aware of what would happen to him should he make any unwelcome advances on Dawn, Rick rose as well. "It is getting late," he provided in a soft voice when she turned to look at him. "I will see about making us all dinner."

Dawn flashed him a grateful smile at that and reached up to brush her lips across his. "Thanks," she said with a slight blush.

Rick's cheeks were reddened as well at the extremely public display of affection. "Right, then...I..." He trailed off and, with a shrug, vanished in the direction of the kitchens.

Dawn coughed deliberately and turned to Siggy. "Let's get cracking," she insisted.

Spike trailed out of the room at that, Buffy close on his heels. Veronica sent the pair a nasty look.

"Spike..." Once they were out in the hallway, the thousands of words she wanted to say to him vanished in an instant, leaving only his name.

"Yeah?" He turned hesitantly back to look at her.

She gulped. "I was just...I mean...you said you'd have that music for me today," she stumbled upon the first thought that came to mind.

He nodded curtly. "Yeah, sure, can write that out for you. Let me just get the notes from my room an' all." He headed swiftly for his and Dawn's room, Buffy following close behind.

"With any luck, we'll be able to get rid of the Haunting tomorrow," Buffy commented casually, fingering a curled up edge of the wallpaper as she watched Spike shuffle through his belongings.

"Haven't been havin' much of that, though, have we?" he countered, pulling a sheet of paper from a notebook and writing on it.

"What?"

"Luck," he clarified.

Buffy bit her lower lip and ventured further into the room. "I don't know about that," she countered. "I mean, you, me, and Dawn meeting up again... That was a good thing."

He looked her in the eye then, for the first time since he'd killed Tucker. "Was it now?" he asked curiously, head cocked to one side.

"You don't think so," she said defensively and a little hurt.

His face softened at that. "What do you want me to think, Buffy?" he countered. "You say you've changed and you want...somethin'," he glossed over with a wave of his hands, "and then five minutes later you're back to tryin' to stake me. What'm I s'posed to believe, exactly?"

Buffy sighed. "Can I sit?" She gestured to the couch.

Spike waved her in and watched with a curious tilt to his head. Something had obviously changed in the intervening years; he couldn't read her as easily as he used to do. He was surprised how much he missed the connection. And yet there was something within her – the very complexity that confused him – that somehow seemed encouraging, made him almost willing to trust despite the promises he'd made to himself just the night before...

"What did Dawn say?" she asked tentatively.

He sighed at that. "Verdict's still withheld."

"Oh." She looked down at her feet. "Siggy's quite something, you know," she offered.

"Yeah, my own personal therapist," Spike agreed with a roll of his eyes. "What theories has she been spinnin' off you lately?"

Buffy shrugged. "She accepts what you did unquestioningly."

He snorted. "No, she understands what I did unquestioningly. Never know what judgments that woman makes on her own."

"Well, it's nice to know there's at least one thing you don't share," Buffy muttered under her breath. Oops, she had forgotten about vamp hearing.

"You're jealous!" he accused in disbelief.

"Am not," she shot back childishly.

"You get married, and you're the one who's jealous?!" he demanded.

"Divorced," she corrected, "and that was so your fault anyway."

"My fault? What about the poofter?"

Buffy blinked in surprise. "How did you...?" she began.

"Oh, I heard all 'bout his triumphant return," Spike groused, arms crossed over his chest defiantly.

"How?" Buffy blurted out incredulously.

"Think I didn't still have my contacts back in Sunnyhell?" Spike retorted. "Wasn't even gone six months before Wonder Gel's poster boy gets his soul anchored."

"I—" Buffy shook her head. "You're jealous," she accused.

"Am not," he retorted in virtually the same manner she had earlier.

"God, I'd forgotten how infuriating you can be sometimes..." Buffy rolled her eyes heavenwards.

"Yeah, well, tomorrow you can run back off to your Hellmouth—"

"Former Hellmouth," she corrected.

"—And not hafta worry 'bout me annoyin' you ever again," he concluded angrily, blue eyes flashing. He hadn't meant to go off on that Angel tirade, really he hadn't. But something in him just wouldn't let the topic rest.

Buffy sighed. "Yeah, that sucks," she concluded.

"Really?" Foolishly!Hopeful!Spike was back for a brief guest appearance.

"Well, I don't know if I'll ever see you again. Or Dawn. And both of those things really do suck," she explained. "If it weren't for the whole psycho-Haunting with the surround sound blood-filled dreams and the intentional creation of human misery, I'd miss this place."

Spike chuckled at that. "Sounds like how I felt about Sunnyhell," he added.

Buffy groaned. "You thought it was hell before? I'd welcome some vamp attacks, just to break the monotony."

He cocked his head to one side thoughtfully. "You're exaggeratin'," he concluded.

"Okay, so maybe a little," she conceded, "but I seriously need to take more vacations."

"Some things never change," he agreed with a small smile.

"And then some things do..." She trailed off. "I'm not going to stake you, you know." The words came completely out of the blue.

"Then I obviously haven't been succeedin' in pissin' you off well enough," he shot back, hiding his surprise behind clever remarks out of reflex.

"I'm serious," Buffy insisted.

"Well, good. Wasn't exactly lookin' forward to the fight to death..."

She shook her head. "You don't think this is colossal?" she felt obliged to inquire.

He sighed. "Don't know what to think anymore," he admitted, flopping down into the armchair across from her in a dramatic flurry off black leather.

"Sure you do." A strange inkling was tickling the edges of Buffy's mind, an insight of such surprising clarity that it seemed inconceivable that she hadn't thought of it before. "Have you ever felt like," she began carefully, the words coming quickly and feeling as though they'd been chosen with careful precision at the same, "like there's just something inside you that you can't explain, can't justify? You have all these feelings, and you logically know that you shouldn't have them, but you do anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop them? L-Like there's something changing inside you, that's viewing the entire world in a different light all of a sudden, and it's kind of scary because you aren't quite sure that you want to change, but then when you start to accept it, you realize that it's not really that scary after all? That it's exhilarating instead? And it's, like, 'where has this been all my life?' But there's just something – someone – that makes it all seem worthwhile in the end, even if the road's complicated and confusing and sometimes you wonder whether you should even be on it in the first place?"

Spike's attention had honed in with sharper and sharper intensity, frank disbelief at her words stunning him one instant and recalling long-forgotten memories of his own first feelings for the Slayer. Feelings that the old world was slipping away and... "Yeah." The answer was so simple and yet so much more.

"Then you should think that that's the way I feel because it's true," Buffy concluded. "And that I'm no less confused about what it all means – or should mean – than you were. I mean, I'm not perfect, and I change my mind, and I don't always make the right decisions the first, or even the second, time. But it's slowly starting to look clearer..."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, sounds familiar."

She ventured a soft smile at that, still as confused as ever but reveling in the knowledge that the similarities at their seams ran even deeper than she had dared imagine. "How about this one?" she offered. "Have you ever just completely lost hope? Have you ever been hurt so badly that you just feel like it's not worth it anymore? And you kind of try to go on, but everything feels superficial, and you never really invest yourself because the risk is too great? And it makes you close yourself off to the point where there's something wonderful right in front of your face, but you refuse to even look at it closely because doing so would mean that you could get hurt again? And that you'd have to move beyond something really painful in the past, even what the other person has done to you before?"

"Yeah..." He felt himself growing slowly mesmerized by her words, like she had somehow gotten inside his head, inside his heart. God, was this what it had felt like to her when he had sprung all those insightful comments on her in the past? Because he could see now; it was tantalizing to be sure, but some part of him just wanted to run back to the ways things had been... "Maybe. Got any advice to someone who feels like that?"

"It's worth it," she said simply, smiling at the way he seemed to be leaning into her now, the surprise and understanding in his eyes. "Denial just adds to the pain, and..." A gasp escaped her lips when his hand came forward, and his fingers brushed the hair back from her cheek gently. "...It's worth it," she repeated breathlessly.

"H-How do you know...?" God, his voice was shaking. Literally. Half of him screamed that this wasn't how a Big Bad behaved, that he'd gotten over all of this, that no one would ever make him weak and vulnerable again. How was she doing this? How did she know...?

"Because, while you might have been full of bullshit most of the time, you were right about one thing – we are alike. From different worlds, maybe, but both trapped in the same place between them."

"No," he shook his head. "I was wrong. You don't—"

She brought a gentle fingertip to his lips. "No one else ever cut through my façade the way you did," she insisted. "And the way I feel now... It's just like...it all makes sense. I can understand you because you're me, just at a different place."

He let out a deep breath at that and closed his eyes. "It won't work."

"What won't?"

"This. Somethin's gonna come up again, mess everythin' up, and we'll be back to square one. Used to have these fantasies where it was all rainbows and sunshine between us – or more like blood and fangs," he amended.

She smiled. "Same difference?" she teased.

A quick chuckle. "But 's not gonna be like that. So, why...?" He left the question open.

"You're right," she agreed softly, hand reaching over to cover his where it rested on his knee. She could lean forward now, and their foreheads would brush, but she held back. "It's always going to be hard. Two steps forward and one step back. And sometimes it will be even harder than that."

"Why, then?" he repeated.

"Because something inside me really believes that it'll all be worth it in the end," Buffy said simply. "That, while I might tire of the effort at times, in the long run I'll be glad I did it. I know you felt the same way once; you must've."

A deep sigh. "Maybe." His eyelashes fluttered open.

Buffy smiled. "Music?" she inquired curiously.

"Huh?" He looked at her blankly.

"You were going to write that music out for me?" she reminded him with a little laugh.

"Oh...right." He shook his head and rolled his eyes at his own distraction. Several more notes were penned into place before he handed the paper over to her. "You don't need me, right?" Furtive eyes flitted around the room.

"I do," she said sincerely. "But not in the 'you can't watch your soaps' way," she added with a giggle.

Mock-innocent eyes looked up at her. "No idea what you're talkin' about, luv," he insisted.

"You just did the clock-remote-TV glance," Buffy informed him. "Read: 'Spike wants to watch some crappy TV show.'"

He huffed and snatched up the remote. "Bloody irritatin' chit," he decided, changing the channel.

She laughed. "I'll see you this evening, Spike. When we'll hopefully kill this son of a bitch once and for all." She headed out with an extra spring in her step, feeling revitalized in an amazing way.

"Luv?" His question cut her off at the door.

"Yeah?" she asked curiously.

"'S really worth it?"

She smiled softly. "Yeah," she assured him. "Even if everything else sucks, you occasionally get these little moments. And those are all worth it, whether or not you get anything more."

His own mind flashed back through a series of seemingly random events – Buffy crying when her mom was sick and letting him offer whatever clumsy comfort he could, a soft kiss after he'd been tortured by Glory, a trusting invitation and an elicited promise..."I'm counting on you to protect her," the feel of soft hands in his, still bleeding from crawling out of the grave but alive and so warm...

"Tend to forget those sometimes," he commented.

"Yeah," she agreed, "but, in the end, that's what it's all about. And if you don't let yourself have those moments..." She trailed off. "It's a trap, a sort of living death."

"Tonight, then?" He was watching the TV screen now, although Buffy could tell his mind was miles away from the flashing images before him.

"Tonight," she agreed with a smile before shutting the door behind her.

And taking a deep breath. Because that had definitely been one of those moments...

"Bored, bored, bored."

Dawn and Siggy exchanged a look, both thinking the same thing: Dibs on killing Veronica.

"This is tiring," Xel agreed, shooting a hopeful look Veronica's way.

"Perhaps we could take a break," Siggy conceded. "Rick must be—"

"Right." Dawn visibly perked up at the mention of Rick's name. "Maybe I should go check on dinner, and the rest of you can take a break, and then we'll get back to it tomorrow morning?" she suggested.

"Oh god, yes," Veronica agreed with a sigh that bordered on orgasmic.

Xel licked his lips.

Siggy was grinning evilly at Dawn as they rose to get up. "If you must have sex," she whispered teasingly to her friend as they exited the recreation room, "try not to do it near my dinner."

Dawn's face flushed a deep purple, and she whapped Siggy on the shoulder. "Evil woman," she declared.

Siggy merely laughed and returned to her notes, pleased with their progress that night. Six more hours' work at the most, and they should be able to cast the spell.

"It really is just dreadfully dull, isn't it?" Xel was inquiring of Veronica, following after her and looking for all the world like a hopeful puppy-dog.

Siggy shook her head at the unusual crowd at the inn and went back to her decipherment. There were still some parts about a 'host' that didn't quite make sense to her...

Veronica was a woman with a purpose, and that purpose lay dead ahead. An extra sashay entered her step, and she checked quickly behind her to make sure she'd ditched Xel completely, before she sauntered up to her prey, seductive smile out in full force.

"Hello, lover," she practically purred, sidling up the hard, leather-clad body of the vampire.

Spike blinked in surprise. It wasn't often that someone succeeded in sneaking up on him, but the conversation with Buffy earlier that evening had left him preoccupied, pondering the wisdom of her words. It only took him a second to respond to Veronica's obvious mood, however.

"Well, now, where've you been hidin' yourself, luv?" he replied in a husky whisper.

Veronica let out a distressed little whimper. "That secretary of yours," she whined, "she's so...boring."

Spike chuckled softly at that. "Has her moments, true," he agreed, flashing back to Siggy's five-hour lecture on the sociology of human/vampire cohabitation back in Stockholm.

"Makes a girl all...tense..." Veronica rolled her neck around with the last comment, flashing bare white throat and long crimson locks for him seductively as she did so. Her hand caught his larger, colder one, and she gave him a coy smile. "Such strong hands," she cooed, thumb rubbing small circles into the now-still pulse-point of his wrist. "I don't suppose you could help me work the kinks out..."

Before he even had a chance to respond, she'd guided his hand to the taut muscles of her neck, guiding them in their massage. The sensation was...curious for him. Flashes of his conversation with Buffy flitted through his mind, reminders of the faux relationships he created solely in an effort to be a part of, yet closed off from, life at the same time.

"Mmm," Veronica moaned, quite probably unnecessarily. "Don't suppose you'd care to stop back in my room? Allow me to...return the favor?" Her eyelashes fluttered enticingly.

Yes, this was exactly the sort of thing Buffy had been talking about. It was so simple – just a quick seduction, pleasure, and then a parting of ways. It wasn't messy or complicated. It wasn't real. But it was so easy, comfortable, safe, and...

Veronica had managed to guide him halfway down the hall to her room before he finally fully absorbed what was being offered to him. He flashed her his usual seductive leer, and she smiled back at him. There was no doubt whatsoever that she desired him, just like all those before her. Hell, he was good-looking. Plenty of women were drawn to him, the attractive exterior all that interested them. It had sustained him for years, too.

Not sustained. Weren't alive enough to be sustained, mate.

He couldn't deny the truth in his own mind. But he had tried to be alive once, and didn't that way only lead to pain?

And then Veronica pushed him back against the door, and her lips were on his, and his time for speculation had run out...

Buffy rubbed her right hand, her fingers worn out from hours of practicing. She hadn't remembered her fingers tiring so easily, but then she'd been a little kid back then. Also, she was confident that she'd never been this involved in learning a piece before.

But this felt like a piece of Spike she was learning, memorizing, ingraining into her mind and body, and that meant it didn't feel like work at all. In fact, when she'd looked up at the clock, she'd been surprised at how long she'd been at it.

Dawn had probably left the others to their own devices by now, and she desperately wanted to catch her sister. She felt an overwhelming urge to tap Dawn's brain, to learn how she dealt with the confusing issues surrounding vampires and morality, and... Just to learn. Because, even after all the changes she'd gone through back in Sunnydale, there was still so much about what Spike was that was just...alien to her way of thinking. And she wanted to understand it all, not just what they shared in common.

Folding the sheet of music up neatly in her pocket, Buffy left the sitting room and wound her way back to Dawn and Spike's suite. A good first place to search for Dawn, her mind reasoned. Yeah, right, you sooo know you're just looking for another chance to talk to Spike... She didn't quench the errant thought; after all, it was true.

However, as she rounded the corner, she saw something that puzzled her. The door to Spike and Dawn's suite had been left ajar. She approached hesitantly, wondering if something else had happened, if the Haunting was up to its old tricks again...

And then she heard it.

A definite, female moan. Coming right from Spike's room.

Buffy froze for a second, unable to believe her ears. Surely, after their discussion that evening he wouldn't... No. Maybe Dawn and Rick had taken over his room, and – hey – major squick factor for having to hear her sister have sex.

But the next cry broke her heart in two because there was no question whatsoever that Veronica was the one screaming out in ecstasy...

Dawn pulled back to gasp for breath, and Rick took the opportunity as well, the pair of them panting heavily and still leaning back against the wall of the kitchen.

"Is the food burning?" Dawn felt obliged to ask, fingers gently tracing the smooth line of his jaw.

"I made sandwiches," Rick shrugged. "I am no Four Star Chef."

"Oh," Dawn nodded. "Good." And she pulled him back in for another toe-curling kiss.

And a shot rang out through the building.

They pulled away reluctantly. "Where did it come from?" Rick asked anxiously.

Dawn shook her head. "Back by the lobby?" she guessed.

He nodded. "You know, this really is the worst place to fall in love in the world," he decided.

A small smile flitted past the business attitude Dawn had taken up at this newest disaster. "We'll just have to finish up so that we can leave, then," she concluded before dashing out the door.

And Rick ran after her, feeling guilty that his prayers favored those Dawn cared about so that the woman who had taken his heart could be spared the growing grief the Haunting forced upon them...

The sight within Spike's room made her blood run cold, and she felt a thousand screams all building up inside her head, all shouting out the same, desperate word: No!

And then, as a balm to the agony that passed through her, a red hot rage filled her blood, seeping deep down into the marrow of her bones. Blinded by her murderous anger, her hand snatched up the rifle they'd retrieved from Tucker's room, and with shaking hands she aimed it at the couple on the bed.

"Asshole," she bit out, bile dripping from her words.

The pair in bed froze at that instant, noticing her presence for the first time. Veronica's eyes widened at the sight of the gun, and she moved to scream...

"Stop!" Spike cried out in horror.

But her hand was already on the trigger, and it exploded with a deafening blast, splattering the bed sheets with blood...

I am such a coward. I knew I would get flamed if I just left the cliffhanger like this, so I've got the next chapter as well. Read that before you judge, pretty please? ~_^