Giles had always enjoyed walking. In Bath, of course, it was necessary; much of the ancient city was inaccessible by car. He’d found when walking that he noticed things that he’d just speed by otherwise. It also provided him with a certain peace of mind, and that was something to be prized.

And yet, strolling on this fine autumn afternoon, he felt no peace. He thought about Buffy’s decision to allow the new Slayers to disperse, and knew that it was dangerous. They needed training, guidance. Things only a Watcher could provide.

But at the same time, he felt an unmistakable relief that they had gone. Because, walking now beside Kennedy and listening to her constant stream of criticism, he knew that an entire city of Slayers would have driven him mad.

“No, I do not feel that opening an antique shop will take up all the time that I ‘should be spending acting like a Watcher,’” he told Kennedy shortly. The girl really did put things in the most insulting manner possible. Acting like a Watcher?

“I’m just trying to be careful,” Kennedy insisted. Making his teeth grind.

Contrariness, he now felt sure, was inherent to a Slayer’s nature. It had been bad enough, all of them together in Joyce’s house, when the girls were merely Potentials; keeping such close quarters now was unimaginable. Buffy and Kennedy were at each other’s throats constantly, and Giles felt less like a Watcher than a babysitter. Except, of course, for the small fact that his charges could throw him through a wall without exerting themselves.

“Thank you for your concern, but I’ve been balancing an outside career with Watching for a number of years now,” he returned reasonably. “I’ve never run into any trouble with it before.”

“Well, yeah, but you were a lot younger then,” pointed out Kennedy.

Giles winced. Next to Kennedy, Anya had been the model of tact.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. But Anya had centuries of demonhood to insulate her from realizing the impropriety of her remarks. Kennedy had only indifference to others to excuse her, and as excuses went, that was a poor one.

Kennedy gritted her teeth. It was the same thing with all of them. Like she was running into a brick wall, a wall that had been there for years, maybe forever, and everyone knew where it was but her. They stepped around it and jumped over it, but every time Kennedy moved she smacked right into it.

They didn’t like her. She didn’t care, really, but it hurt Willow. She wasn’t sure why Willow cared—she was just the low man on the totem pole to Buffy, a handy little tool to have around when she needed a little magic. If Willow weren’t there, Buffy would have someone else take her place. They were all wrapped up in themselves, and Willow didn’t realize that. Whatever friendship she’d had with them in the past seemed to have stayed in the past.

Of course, she didn’t say that to Willow. She’d never say something like that to her; she loved her too much to upset her. No matter what she thought of Willow’s “friends.”

Kennedy had tried to convince Willow to go back home with her. Her parents would love Willow, and they could live in the artist’s studio out in back; it hadn’t been used in years. It was out by the tennis court, and had a gorgeous view of the ocean. There would be no tension there. No walls.

Willow said no.

So now they lived in the same town as the others, saw them every day, lived in the same house with them until Kennedy persuaded Willow to move, so that they finally had room to breathe. And still Willow disappeared when Kennedy wasn’t looking, and Kennedy always knew where she’d find her.

That was where they were going now. It was where they always ended up—all roads in Santa Rita seemed to lead to the house on Laurel Drive. Like a puzzle where you always end up where you started. And they sat in there, and pretended they were all good friends, yadda yadda yadda, and nobody said anything honest to anybody else, because then things would fall apart.

“—but thank you for your solicitude,” Giles concluded. She hadn’t really been listening to his explanation. Why bother? She knew what he’d say. No, Kennedy. You’re wrong, Kennedy. We already know how to do things, Kennedy.

They’d decided exactly how things were supposed to be done years ago, and it didn’t matter what she said. It didn’t even matter what she did. Things were set in stone, and they weren’t changing. Willow was the only one of them who cared what Kennedy said or did, and even she would rather be with them. She’d never say that, but Kennedy could tell.

She was supposed to let Willow go, right? If you love someone, set them free, or something equally lame. The thing was, Kennedy wasn’t built like that. She was a fighter. She always had been.

She’d fight to keep Willow. If she lost her, everything would seem pretty pointless—staying in town, getting bitched at by Buffy and disapproved of by Giles. Being the new Slayer on the block.

But it was more than that. Without Willow there was just no point at all.

***

“And you didn’t go to hell?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I already told you that, Snacksize.”

“So it was just a cave?”

Spike nodded, exchanging a glance with Buffy. Dawn was like a dog with a bone.

“How do you know it wasn’t a cave in hell?”

“He said he wasn’t in hell, Dawn,” cut off Buffy, tired of Dawn’s cross-examination. Spike had adjusted to being alive before he found them, more or less, but he still had to get used to being back in the fold. “Let him eat in peace.”

Spike grimaced and took a stab at eating the sandwiches Buffy had made, although he didn’t feel a bit hungry. He really shouldn’t be surprised by Niblet’s behavior, but he hadn’t given a thought to his reception. Except from Buffy, of course. Dawn hadn’t welcomed him with open arms, but then she hadn’t been particularly warm since he tried to rape her sister.

He wasn’t really in a position to complain.

The thing was, he had no idea how to get past it. Oddly enough, she hadn’t found Crazy Spike endearing the previous year, and once Spike left the school basement he’d been wrapped up in his newly-acquired guilt. And Buffy, yes. Went without saying, didn’t it?

God, he really was a liar. He didn’t just let the Bit down by attacking Buffy; he’d been letting her down for months before that. It was like he’d forgotten about her, about everything other than Buffy. He’d been so absorbed in Buffy—back from the dead, and no longer hating him—that he’d barely given Dawn a thought. He’d searched for her when she went missing or got herself into a scrape, sure, but their Little Bit/Big Bad sessions were over. They didn’t hang out anymore, didn’t talk. Spike had only gone to the house on Revello to see Buffy, to hear her voice, to try to imagine there was a little spark in her eyes when she looked at him.

Dawn had just been somebody else in the room.

“It’s good,” Spike mumbled around a mouthful of shaved ham and bread, feeling guilty. Dawn cast him a look of distaste and shuddered, as if he didn’t know she took bites out of chocolates and put them back in the box until she found a filling she liked.

He was relieved when the door swung open and Andrew came in, clutching his bag of comics to his chest. “They were all there,” he announced in relief. “I can’t believe nobody took them!”

He paused for a moment and took in the plate of sandwiches on the coffee table. “I thought you were going to hold dinner!” he protested.

“It’s just a snack. A returned-from-the-dead snack,” Buffy assured him. On the other side of Spike, Dawn snorted.

“Oh. Okay. You do know that, um, it’s almost five,” Andrew pointed out. Buffy looked at him blankly. “We are going to eat tonight, aren’t we?”

“Oh. Yeah, we’ll just order Chinese,” said Buffy.

“Can we have orange chicken?” asked Andrew hopefully. Like he didn’t already have it twice a week.

“Sure.”

“And mu shu pork?”

“Yeah.”

“Ooh, and sizzling rice soup?”

“Hey, can we get some Tsing-Tsao?” put in Spike, perking up a bit. “Haven’t had that in an age.”

Dawn looked at them in amazement. Spike had come back from the dead and they were all just acting like it was nothing! Talking about dinner, like that was really important! Instead of questioning Spike or hitting the books, they were arguing about whether to get spring rolls or paper-wrapped chicken!

And they were forgetting how much she loved potstickers! “Potstickers,” she blurted out. They all turned to look at her. “Um, can we get potstickers? Two orders of them?” She never got more than one measly potsticker if they only got one order.

Buffy smiled. “Sure, Dawn.”

Dawn had no idea why she felt more cheerful; it was just food. Was she becoming cynical? Or was she just becoming used to people returning from the dead?

Either way, it felt like progress.

***

She shouldn’t just walk in, right? It wasn’t her home anymore. Buffy hadn’t asked for the key back or anything, but she still didn’t belong there. So she really should ring the doorbell. Or knock! Because doorbells sound so harsh. Knocking was less aggressive. Good. Knocking.

Of course, she wasn’t expecting Spike to open the door.

“Hey, Will,” he said absently, glancing over his shoulder at Andrew, who was still yammering on about the cancellation of Farscape. Or maybe Babylon 5, Spike hadn’t really been listening.

Willow gasped and jumped backwards, clutching the Splexis charm she wore as a pendant and muttering an incantation against evil spirits.

“You coming in?” Spike asked, opening the door wider and ignoring Willow’s little display. Couldn’t really blame her for being surprised, although the incantation she was muttering sounded like pure crap to him; he doubted it would roust a fruit fly.

“It’s okay, Willow,” called Andrew. “It’s just Spike back from the dead!”

Willow peered past Spike at Andrew and relaxed a little; Spike hadn’t killed the others, apparently. She slipped past him, still tense. He looked all right, but she’d learned her lesson about resurrections.

“It’s not like it’s a big deal,” pointed out Andrew, who’d absorbed much Scooby history while living with them. “I mean, do you know anyone who’s stayed dead?”

Spike stopped breathing for a moment when he saw the look on Willow’s face. Yeah, she could think of someone who hadn’t come back.

“Wh-what happened?” asked Willow after a long moment.

“Demon brought me back,” Spike answered succinctly.

Willow frowned. “Why would he do that? Are you doing his bidding?”

“Dunno. Does his bidding include eating ham sandwiches?”

Willow blinked. “Well, that—that would be kind of an odd bidding,” she admitted. “So why’d he bring you back?”

“It was part of him getting his soul,” answered Buffy, coming out of the kitchen with Dawn trailing after her. Buffy had gone ahead and ordered dinner to placate Andrew, who had a morbid fear of not being fed in a timely fashion.

Dawn had changed out of her school gear, and looked more like herself now, Spike thought. If she and Spike were on better terms, he would have teased her about her prissy uniform. Although come to think of it, that prissy outfit would look pretty hot on Buffy. Maybe he could mention it to her sometime.

Eh, if he was lucky. Wasn’t precisely throwing her arms around him and proclaiming him her great love returned from the dead, was she? And why should she? They’d been together and he’d tried everything to comfort her, to make her forget heaven, but only ended up making her feel worse. Then later she felt sorry for him, all scurrying around the basement living off rats, mad from his soul, mad from the First.

She only told him she loved him out of pity. Out of kindness.

Bollocks, he thought suddenly. Like Buffy ever said anything she didn’t mean. She  meant it when she told him she loved him, just like she meant it when she told him he was a thing and couldn’t love. She was wrong about that one, but said what she thought. Didn’t give a damn about how what she said made other people feel; that’s why they kicked his girl out of her own house, because she wouldn’t pretend for anyone. Not for the Potentials, not for her Watcher, and not for him. Like hell she didn’t mean it.

Telling her she didn’t mean it had hurt a damn sight worse than the whole burning to death thing. That hurt for a minute. Well, more than a minute, but it was still transient. Refusing something he’d wanted for years? Wanted so much he would have killed for it, wanted so much he changed everything he was? That was world-class hurt.

But he hadn’t wanted her to bury herself mourning him. He wanted her to be free.

“How long’s he been here?” asked Willow, still looking startled. Addressing the question to Buffy, not Spike. Bloody Scoobies, always acting like he was too stupid or too insignificant to talk to unless they wanted him to do them a favor. Hell if they ever thanked him, either.

“Just an hour or so. He came in with—”

The door opened suddenly, and Giles walked in, Kennedy trailing after him. She was talking to Giles, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. He’d come to a dead stop, and was staring at Spike, his face unreadable.

Then he turned to Willow and whispered, “What have you done?”