“Me? No! I—I didn’t do anything,” babbled Willow.

Giles continued to stare at her, unconvinced.

“I swear! I just came in and he was here,” Willow insisted.

Before Giles could respond, Kennedy flared up. “How can you say that to her? You know she’d never do anything like that—Willow is more careful than anyone!”

The silence in the room was painful.

“What?” Kennedy demanded after a moment.

“Honey, no,” whispered Willow faintly, color staining her cheeks.

“No, what? That was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!”

“You know that’s—you know that’s not true, I’ve told you—”

“That was a long time ago that you abused magic—and besides, bringing back the dead—”

“Is actually been there, done that,” observed Xander with grim humor as he came down the stairs.

Kennedy squinted up at him in disbelief. “What? Come on, you can’t tell me that—”

“Not now,” said Willow, her voice gaining strength.

“What? I just—”

“We’ll talk about it later,” said Willow quickly, although she knew talking would be useless. She’d told Kennedy, again and again, how badly she’d misused magic, but it never seemed to register. Kennedy patronized her and acted like she knew better, and she didn’t know anything. She thought that when Willow was trying to get Buffy back through the portal that the Slayer artifacts had opened, and had slapped a hand against Kennedy and Anya to absorb a little of their energy, that was as bad as it got. And that was nothing. But if Kennedy didn’t see things for herself, she didn’t believe them.

It wasn’t going to work, Willow thought suddenly. It. Them. They weren’t going to work through anything, and it didn’t matter how well she explained things to Kennedy. They weren’t going to be together in a year; they wouldn’t even be together in a month. They hadn’t broken up yet, but it was over.

But Willow could tell, from the frustrated expression on Kennedy’s face, that she hadn’t realized that. It was going to be a complete shock to her.

Willow’d never ended a relationship. They left her, Oz and Tara. They left her twice, both of them, and ripped her heart out each time. Willow wasn’t the kind to get rid of the people she loved; she’d do whatever she had to in order to hold onto them. That was why Tara had left her, the first time. The time she hadn’t left on a gurney. Because Willow could feel her pulling away and wiped Tara’s mind to make her stay. It was wrong, Tara told her later. A violation.

Willow would have done it again if it would have brought Tara back to her.

She’d driven away Tara, and she’d lost Oz. Kennedy she would have to give away.

***

It was not a comfortable dinner, Spike thought, though he really should have been used to that. Although Bit seemed happy enough as she stuffed her face with potstickers. Personally, he thought the slimy things were overrated. The garlic pork, though? Brilliant. He thought he might switch to an all-garlic diet. Had a few years to make up for.

“How long have you been in town, Spike?” Giles asked coolly. All protective papa, Spike thought dryly. Although the man seemed to pick and choose when to hover protectively, and when to be somewhere else entirely. Like, say, another continent.

Spike shrugged. “Few hours.”

“What made you decide to come to Santa Rita?”

“Seemed as good a place as any,” Spike said casually. Pissant knew perfectly well why he’d come; he just wanted to see Spike squirm. As if he’d ever give Rupert the satisfaction.

Giles studied him. Buffy had been involved with this … creature. She’d told him so herself. If she hadn’t told him, Giles would never have believed it; it was beyond reckoning, Buffy with an insolent juvenile delinquent like William the Bloody. They’d never discussed the topic further, because it wasn’t worth mentioning. Spike was behind them.

But then a few months later, Spike was ensconced in her house, and it was only he who shared her confidences. Buffy had become responsible and businesslike, as Giles had always urged her to be, but at her side was her vampire of the moment. The one who eschewed duty and goodness, who lived only for the fight.

He was like the unliving embodiment of all that Giles had turned his back on—youthful rebellion, unrestrained passion, joy in destruction. Nihilism. The things Giles had rejected when he left behind Ripper. He’d tried to bring Spike out of the dark, the way he had left the dark so many years before, and Spike had laughed at the idea. The chip in his head was not an opportunity, he said. It was a curse. He had no desire to do good.

He didn’t change his mind until he imagined himself in love with Buffy.

“Where are you staying?”

Spike shrugged.

“How long are you staying?”

Another shrug.

“When do you—”

“For god’s sake, stop cross-examining him,” Buffy exclaimed, managing with some effort to hold on to her temper.

Giles looked at her in irritation. “I was doing nothing of the sort,” he said in annoyance.

“Sure. Pass the mu shu,” she said to Dawn.

Dawn passed the cardboard container without a word. Beside her Andrew stirred. “We have a spare room—actually, we have a bunch of spare rooms,” he offered. “You can stay here.”

Across the table Giles choked. “Are you okay, Mr. Giles?” asked Andrew, worried. “You didn’t eat one of those dried chiles, did you?”

“No, Andrew, thank you,” said Giles shortly, glancing at Buffy to gauge her reaction to the invitation. He couldn’t help noticing that Spike was doing the same.

They were both disappointed. Buffy didn’t look up as she spread hoisin sauce on her Mandarin pancake and shoveled a healthy amount of pork and vegetables on top.

Finally she glanced up. “That’s a good idea,” she said calmly. “No reason to go to a hotel.”

Andrew perked up. “Oh, good! It’s like old times,” he said happily. “Except for about three dozen Potentials and—” Andrew broke off abruptly. He always tried not to mention Anya, to spare Xander the pain of hearing his lost love’s name.

Spike forked up the last of his slightly greasy chow mein and started on his ginger-garlic chicken—ugh. Foul combination, he thought. Heh, fowl.

“So do you all live here?” he asked, indicating the big house with a wave of his hand. It was strange to think of Buffy living in such a manse, after the cozy home Joyce had made for her girls and the way Buffy’d had to fight to keep the place. Working herself half-dead at that grease pit, then coming to him for comfort, sticky and stinking, knowing he wouldn’t turn her away. Knowing the only thing that mattered to him was that she was there, even if part of her, the part he loved best, wished she wasn’t.

“Yeah, all of us,” replied Buffy automatically before thinking. No, not quite true, was it? “Everybody but Will,” she corrected herself. “And Kennedy.”

“You birds got your own place?” Spike asked, turning to Willow. He was a little surprised when she nodded. Seemed a little peculiar to him, Andrew living with Buffy while Willow lived elsewhere. Like something out of Bizarro World.

“I’m kind of like the new Willow,” Andrew piped up helpfully, as if he’d read Spike’s mind.

The other turned to stare at him. Andrew regarded them blankly for a minute before deflating a little and holding up his pork bun. “Hey, round,” he observed weakly.

“It’s okay, Andrew, we know what you meant,” said Xander kindly. Andrew smiled at him gratefully. Xander was the best; Andrew didn’t know what he’d do without him.

Xander turned to Spike. “So, how you enjoying the whole—breathing thing?”

“It’s, uh, not bad,” admitted Spike cautiously. He wasn’t really sure where he stood with Xander, who’d gone from trying to kill him to treating him pretty decently before his whole fiery death thing.

Admittedly, Spike had tried to kill him one or twelve times, so it wasn’t like Xander didn’t have provocation. Still, a man liked to know where he stood, right? Preferably not under the blade of an axe.

“What was that?” said Giles sharply.

“‘Not bad?’” repeated Spike.

“About breathing,” Giles rapped out.

“Oh, that. He’s alive,” said Buffy, as if the explanation made perfect sense.

“Alive? As in alive alive?” said Willow in surprise.

“Yeah, that kind of alive,” agreed Spike dryly. Scary to think she was the brains of the group, really.

“And how did this happen?” demanded Giles, studying Spike.

“Demon that gave me my soul brought me back,” answered Spike succinctly.

“Why?”

“Dunno.”

“Anya would say it was a gift with purchase,” observed Xander with distant amusement. Willow looked at him for a moment and returned his smile encouragingly. Xander seldom mentioned Anya; it was good that he was beginning to refer to her now … right?

Giles ignored him. “And you have no idea why this demon brought you back and made you human?”

“He said it was what he’d agreed to when I got my soul, and he was fulfilling his end of the deal,” Spike said shortly.

Giles simmered. That was the most singularly half-assed explanation he’d ever heard in his life. “That doesn’t really sound like the entire story,” he pointed out.

Spike shrugged. “It’s all I know.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Giles muttered under his breath. Then he added, louder, “I didn’t hear much about this demon last year.”

“Didn’t seem very interested, mate,” Spike returned bluntly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Buffy stir, and knew she was uncomfortable with the conversation.

“Why are you so surprised that he’s human?” asked Kennedy. “I mean, he was toast, so why would he be brought back as a vampire? That would pretty much defeat the purpose of being brought to life.”

Nobody answered for a minute. Finally Willow stepped in. “Well, when Angel came back, he was still a vampire,” she pointed out a little gingerly. She could hear Spike snort at the mention of Angel’s name.

“Who’s Angel?” asked Kennedy, frowning.

“Great git who needs a twelve-step program for his hair gel problem,” muttered Spike.

Across the table, Xander smothered a laugh. Okay, he’d never liked Spike, but there was nothing like mutual loathing of an acquaintance to bring the snark; he could listen to jokes about Sir Broods-a-Lot’s hair all day. And possibly his big heavy brow—that was a whole area of big happy fun waiting to happen.

“He’s the vampire Buffy dated before Spike,” Dawn answered serenely, earning a glare from her sister.

“You dated two vampires?” blurted out Kennedy. “Were you a Slayer then, too?”

“Well … yeah. I mean, how often do you meet vampires if you aren’t a Slayer? Or at least Slayer-adjacent. Or about to be killed, of course,” Buffy amended.

Kennedy turned to Giles. “And what were you doing?”

“I was there,” he defended.

“Doing what?” she demanded. “It sure doesn’t sound like you were following the Watcher’s Handbook!”

“Hey, Giles was a good Watcher,” protested Buffy. “In fact, he—wait, Watchers have a handbook?”

“I beg your pardon,” Giles snapped. “Was?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Buffy said after a minute. Giles didn’t respond, and an uncomfortable silence followed.

Ah, more enjoyable silence, thought Spike. Nothing like silence to make you wish you were still dead, or at least heavily sedated.

He decided to help Buffy out. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he told her.

To his surprise, Dawn snickered. Spike cocked one brow. “I heard you say that before,” she told him.

“What?” said Buffy and Spike together. They looked at each other, and Buffy smiled a little.

“The first time you came by our house with Buffy, when the police were looking for her—you were in the living room with Mom, and you said, ‘Nice place’.”

“Well—I don’t remember—” Spike began, face heating a little.

“You’re blushing!” exclaimed Dawn, pointing to the flush crawling up Spike’s face.

“I was just being polite,” Spike mumbled. “What’d you want me to say? ‘Too many windows for my taste?’”

“Yes, very polite for a vampire,” agreed Buffy dryly, although she didn’t recall the remark at all. He must have made it when she’d called the hospital to check on Willow, but she didn’t really remember much of the non-essential chatter. Except, inexplicably, she had a clear memory of him telling her mom that Buffy played the … triangle?

“Wait a minute,” Buffy said to Dawn. “You weren’t supposed to be listening!”

The mood at the table began to lighten, and tongues slowly began to loosen. Only Giles remained silent as the young people began to tease each other.

Looking at them talk and laugh, he envied them their ease. They had youth’s gift of taking things lightly, and it had been years since he’d felt that. It had begun to leave him years before, after the involvement with Eyghon and Randall’s subsequent death. Jenny’s murder had only increased it.

When Buffy leapt from the tower, the last bit of his youth had died. Even her return couldn’t spark it back to life.

He watched them at the table, and they seemed impossibly young, all of them. Even Spike, the eldest of them. Maybe him most of all.

That wasn’t right. It wasn’t the way of things, the young dying before the old. Tara dead, and so many Potentials, and their Watchers, and still Spike walked the earth. It was outside of the natural order. Obscene.

And something inside Giles told him that nothing good could come of having Spike back with them. Nothing at all.

***

They were really, really loud, and Dawn wished she had earplugs. Everyone else could sleep in late the next day if they wanted, but Dawn had school, and why couldn’t they be quiet?

Andrew was playing video games in bed, which he wasn’t supposed to do, and Xander was talking to himself or had the TV on. It seemed like it took forever for everyone to quiet down, but finally Dawn fell asleep. It was a deep, dreamless sleep, and she wasn’t sure what woke her up hours later. A noise? She was still for moment, heard nothing, and then relaxed, eager to drift off again. At least everyone was quiet now, she thought groggily.

Then she turned over in bed, and saw him. He was sitting on the chair closest the bed, watching her.

Dawn managed not to jump. “What are you doing here?” she asked, unnerved.

Spike leaned in closer and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, and she shivered.

Down the hall, Xander jerked out of a deep sleep. Something was wrong, he just wasn’t sure what. And then there it was again—Dawn screaming. Not like the capable young woman she was becoming, but terrified. Helpless.

It made Xander’s blood run cold.