This was excruciating. He envisioned himself punching through the bulkhead, even as he sat loose-limbed on the edge of the bunk, hands curled around his kneecaps. "I think you're sorry about it. We don't have to do it again."

"I'm not sorry." She didn't look at him, though.

This didn't sound, Angel thought, like a ringing endorsement.

"Are you sorry?" she challenged.

"To make love to you again? God, no."

"Soul still firmly in place." She sounded ambivalent about it.

"It ... it doesn't get loose that way anymore. You know that." The kind of happiness, so damn simple—emphasis on the damn—he'd experienced that first time ... he couldn't really remember what it was. Like he couldn't remember how it felt to have a headcold. He'd experienced it, but all it was now was an abstract recollection.

Buffy stared at the wall. "In some ways, we barely know each other." She paused. "Most ways."

"Not most ways."

"I was your mother-in-law longer than I was ever your girlfriend."

It was all so far off. Jemima had lived long—supernaturally long, almost a hundred and fifty-eight years—and kept a semblence of youth for most of them. But unlike her unsinkable mother, she'd died finally, and never come back. Angel had long since stopped recalling Jemima on anything like a monthly, let alone daily, basis. He didn't think Buffy could understand, either intellectually or emotionally, how much time she'd lost to that magical stasis. She knew the number of years, she saw the changes in their world—worlds now—but she wasn't grasping the enormity of it. Perhaps it would make her insane if she really did. Angel suspected she was equally frustrated at the myriad ways that he and Spike—Spike especially, because of course he was the one who mattered—was removed from all that was so immediate to her. They must seem aloof, even while they were possessing her.

Hundreds of years since either of them had touched her.

Spike had assured her that for them she'd never really died, wasn't forgotten, was an eternal inspiration.

Words that had to be said to her. That would have to be said—over and over, until she believed them. If she ever would.

Maybe it was even true ... for Spike. But if it was, he hadn't talked about it. Prior to the uncanny quickening they'd jointly felt when Buffy's stasis ended, Angel couldn't remember the last time Spike had mentioned her name in conversation. Of course, once they knew she was in the world, all kinds of pent-up stuff came back—for both of them. They'd talked then—endlessly, enthusiastically, traveling towards her all the time; and they'd fucked like a couple of randy sailors months from port, and all the while with a sense that their lovemaking was somehow about Buffy as well as about themselves. Spike had found a way to express that in words, in a way that struck Angel to his heart, but he wouldn't have cared to try to explain it to her now.

And really, it couldn't have been true that Spike kept Buffy in the forefront of his mind all these centuries. He'd had other liaisons—some that lasted decades. The most recent, Neelia on Minerva, was certainly a love-match as deep as what he'd had with Buffy, and had broken his heart as surely as Spike's susceptible heart ever had been broken. Angel had envied as he tried to console him—the depths of emotion available to Spike, the luxury of loving so devotedly—seemed just out of Angel's reach, though he tried. Tried to care for Spike the way he wanted Spike to care for him. Because they did that. They had a connection growing broader and deeper over the stretch of time, as they united and parted and reunited again. That had nothing to do with Buffy. So long after her loss, how could it?

She had to be aware of that. That was at the crux of her distress right now.

"God!" Buffy said, following on from her last unanswered remark, "you must think I'm a babbling idiot. Mother-in-law." She frowned, as if it was a question she'd like to parse. "I'm not sorry about last night."

"Buffy—"

She dragged her gaze off the ceiling, and turned to him. "It was a little strange, with Spike there. I'm not used ... I'm not used to the three in a bed thing."

"We don't have to do that anymore."

"I'm not saying—"

"Buffy, nothing needs to be decided now. You're free to—" Angel wasn't sure what he was promising. He sensed she'd have liked him to volunteer to leave them, when they got to the next port. She must want Spike to herself. But he wasn't going to volunteer that, and he knew Spike wouldn't ask it of him, or want him to go. Spike would need, apart from anything else, all the help he could get with Buffy.

"What am I free to? Free to watch you two get it on?"

" ... I was going to say, free to—"

She interrupted again, throwing up her hands extravagantly. "This is dumb! I know I'm being dumb! I'm just fixing on this little detail, because otherwise ... so, has it been like that all this time? You two traveling together?"

"Not all the time. There were gaps."

"Gaps?"

"Separations."

"Do you like riding around on spaceships? I'm surprised you don't have one of your own."

"I have had."

"Really? And what about Spike?"

"For a while, before the war, about fifty years ago now, we—"

"Fifty years!" Buffy puffed out her cheeks as if to expel half a century of dust from her lungs. Then she knocked on the bulkhead. "Metal. Metalmetalmetal. So, you and Spike, the big romance. Of each other's unlives. Really. Because, taken year for year—night for night—"

"He's had other—"

She spun around. "What?"

"'Til pretty recently he had a wife." Angel knew he shouldn't be saying this. Spike hadn't instructed him to keep it a secret, but still, it was something Spike should've been allowed to reveal in his own time, if at all. He wasn't sure why he was telling it—maybe just to get a rise out of Buffy. Strike a little fire out of her. It certainly had.

"A wife."

"You should ask him."

"Oh, I will."

They were playing some kind of a game, with a ball, part keep-away, part shooting hoops. Buffy stood on the gangway above the cargo bay and watched. They were all in it, except for Inara, who didn't seem to be around, and Angel, whom she'd left in his bunk. Spike was showing off, using his vampire reflexes to cheat, but then handing off his advantages to one of the others to score, grinning all the while. They were all entranced by him, the women certainly, and the men too. The young doctor couldn't stop staring at him, and the big one with the girly name looked as if he wasn't sure whether he wanted to fight Spike or make love to him, but either way, he was obviously pining for her man's personal attention.

Her man. Of course she thought of him that way.

But he'd long since lost the habit of her, and in the hundred—hundreds!—of years that had elapsed since she'd last gone into battle with him at her right hand, he'd come to belong to Angel. And to others ... who knew how many. What would he be doing now, if she'd never come out her stasis? What was his life, his real life, that she'd so inconveniently crashed?

The captain scored a point, a cheer went up, and then Spike threw his head back and looked up at her in a way that showed that he'd known she was there all along.

"Come play, Buffy. You'd be good at this."

"I claim her for our side!" Kaylee said, gesturing up at her with a grin.

"Maybe later. I need to talk to my husband."

Her hand, when he took it, felt barely warmer than his own, but her pulse raced. "Well, love?"

"You left someone to come to me?"

He didn't understand the question; for a few moments, the words tumbled around in his head, and he tried to rearrange them into some sense.

Buffy looked at him wide-eyed. He must've been frowning. "Angel said you have a wife."

"You're my wife."

"I'm not. I was, but I can see that I'm not anymore. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying, Buffy."

"Who is your wife? Where did you leave her?"

Her tone, the blush burned along her cheekbones, and the papery feel of her fingers as she slipped them free of his own, reanimated so many deadened memories. Buffy's whole history of suffering. His love for her was born out of that ... and even more, hers for him. He was capable of forgetting that, even during their years together.

Cursing Angel, but careful to keep it from showing in his face, Spike said, "She was called Neelia. She died the year before last. I left no one to come for you." It occurred to him for the first time to wonder what would've happened if Neelia wasn't dead. Would he have walked away from her, to go to Buffy? Walked away and not wanted to return? In a blink, she returned to him, her leathery airy smell, her dry laugh, the way she had of squeezing the back of his neck, just a little too hard, as a parting gesture, how she'd hunch down and tilt her head to kiss him, and how though she was bigger and stronger than he was, she never made him feel he was anything but big enough and strong enough for her. He didn't like to think anymore about how, while he'd had her, he'd convinced himself he didn't love her. Maybe that was why she was taken away—because for once in his bloody unlife, he'd held something back. But he couldn't help but be relieved that she wasn't here, to make this complicated situation worse. "I would never have not come for you. We knew, Angel an' me both, the second you woke, an' from that second, we did nothing but look for you."

"She died." Buffy twisted her hands together. Tears came to her eyes. "Were you with her a long time?"

"Eleven years."

"Eleven! Oh Spike!"

"I would've told you eventually. Didn't seem like the thing, just now."

"So since then, you've been with Angel?"

"Yeah."

"And before? Before Neelia? How many wives have you had?"

"Buffy, love. What's troubling you? You think I don't want you?"

"I want to go home."

"Oh love."

"Do you have a home?"

"Not at the moment. Not since ... not since Neelia's."

"And that was hers, wasn't it. Your home is always with your woman, isn't it?"

"Uh ... guess so."

"We don't have a place." Her face darkened, and he could tell she was thinking about their places—the flat in London, their beloved house in Reykjavik, and Sunnydale, where her mother was buried. She couldn't wrap her mind around the whole planet being gone.

"Spike, I won't sleep with Angel anymore if you won't."

"Is that what it is?"

"I don't know." She wrung her hands. There were so many things, he knew that, too many. Too many for the sanity of most people.

"All right."

"All right what?"

"Won't touch Angel if you don't like it."

"But I have no right to part you!"

She was crying. He wished she'd be angry; there was something too reasonable in her despair, as if she didn't feel entitled to her own life.

"Sssh, sssh. You know I always do what you say, yeah? I like to. Slayer-whipped, that's what everyone always used to whisper 'bout me."

"I can't ask that of you. I can't ask it of him. It isn't right. What was Neelia?"

He kept up with her sudden turns. "Her people ran cattle. You should've seen me, Buffy, I was quite the cowboy, when I was with them. Out in the light an' all. Turns out I don't freckle, though."

Her lips curved in answer to his smile, but the glimmer didn't reach her eyes. "I keep feeling it'll be all right, when you tell me, when you hold me, when we eat together. But then when I'm alone again I know it isn't, it can't be. I have the creeps all the time, like I can't breathe. I don't know what my life is now."

"I can think of a lot of times when that was the case. We've always gotten through."

"Who is the slayer now? Does the Council still exist?"

He shook his head. "Not as such. Dunno who the slayer is either. I believed Neelia was a slayer, she was so uncommon strong, but she only laughed at me when I tried to tell her about it. She didn't believe in demons."

"But didn't you—"

"Show her what I was? ... no. No, I never did."

Buffy stared at him then, stared for so long that he felt something strange slip between them.

"For eleven years. That's ... that's not like the Spike I know ... knew."

Buffy set the stopper back in the last bottle. She was almost reeling from the array of scents, the richness of the colored silks that festooned Inara's dressing table. "So ... doing what you do. Are you self-taught, or—"

"There's years of formal training, actually. Tests. Certificates. Licenses."

"Would I be too old to learn? I think I need to change careers."

"What was your career?"

"I'm the slayer."

"I heard him call you that. But I don't know what it means."

"Back on earth, there were vampires. And demons. Lots of them, lots of different kinds. There were hellmouths, and sometimes there were hell gods. And there's always a girl—except that after a while, there were two, me and another one—whose job it was to slay them. To save the world. The slayer is called, she's given the strength and the resources—some of the resources—to do the job. The fate of the whole world's on her shoulders."

In the mirror she could see Inara regarding her with a slightly alarmed, slightly incredulous attention.

"But now the world I was put in charge of saving isn't there any more, so I'm thinking I should pursue other opportunities. My skill-set is maybe a little specialized. But I'm really really good at fucking. At least, I was good at fucking my husband. But I get the sense there's more to this companionshp thing than sex."

"There is," Inara said. "Sometimes sex is the least of it."

"It's never been the least of it for us." Buffy saw herself in the mirror, her skin waxy, chest almost scrawny in the shirt she'd borrowed from Spike, the tails twisted tight around her ribs and tied in the back. The pearl necklace looked out of place on her now. She wondered when Spike had taken to white shirts. "He always loved me—and our children—more than anything. I never had trouble keeping his attention. I was the center of his being. He's the center of mine. But in the five hundred-whatever years that I've been called away, Spike's been pursuing other interests. He tells me he wants me the same as always, but I'm not blind. I'm not stupid. Confused, yeah. Uninformed. Out of my depth."

"I can't imagine what you're going through."

"It's hard to believe. I sort of thought we'd lie about it, but I guess we're not doing that. Which is pretty much a relief. It's not easy being hundreds of years old and having your only so-called friends be two vampires, and it would be even tougher to pretend that wasn't the case. Especially since I have no idea how things work here."

"Your husband ... was always a vampire?"

"Well of course not always. Vampires are made, not born. But he was one when we met. I was supposed to slay him, he was trying to kill me, then shit happened, it was a thing." Buffy picked up a bracelet, an elaborate filigree piece that fitted over the fingers and the wrist. "A big passionate love thing. He subsists on love, Spike does. So I'm not surprised he's loved other people. Right now it's Angel. That's not really surprising either. They used to hate each other. I know for a fact that's how some of the best affairs get started. The fucking is incredible."

"Buffy—"

"I need to gain some weight." The filigree bracelet didn't fit right—it was meant for a slightly plumper hand. "But do you think if I put on fifteen pounds I could get this companion training? I'm not bad looking. You're not seeing me at my best. Is the money good? Because I like to have nice things."

"I think you should talk to the shepherd."

"Who? Mr Book? He's the religious guy."

"Yes. He's an excellent listener. He's very knowledgeable."

"You think I need spiritual advice?"

"I don't know. But you said you were confused, and he's good to talk to when you're confused, or lonely. I've talked to him myself. He's very discreet."

"I don't think that's going to help. I'd rather learn your dance of the seven veils stuff."

She couldn't find Spike, but Angel was reading in his bunk. Buffy realized, when she saw how slowly he looked up from his book, that he'd been running at something like half-speed since he'd first showed up with Spike to get her out of that hospital. His movements were contained, and efficient, and a little reluctant. Even when they'd fucked the other night, it was done quietly, without abandon. She'd put that down to Spike's presence and the fact that she, having been at it for hours, was tired herself. But she wondered about him now.

"Come fight me."

"Fight?"

"Train. I need to train. What have you got? Swords? Quarterstaffs. Staffs would be good."

He half sat up. "I've got staffs."

"Bring them."

There was no one in the cargo bay when she got there. Waiting for Angel, Buffy did some preliminary cartwheels and backflips, to loosen up. When Angel materialized, tossing her one of the long heavy staffs, she caught it neatly and charged him. Sparring made her feel like there was some sense to her world, it pulled her thoughts together, seemed to pull even the objects around her into a new, more manageable alignment. Wacking at Angel, lunging and ducking and coming around, she remembered what her body could do for her, where her strength and purpose resided. She was a little rusty; she'd have to fix that. She needed to gain weight, she needed to regain her flexibility, her inner focus. She wasn't perfect, but this was centering. Right.

Now she concentrated on making Angel trot. She didn't want him like a logy winter bear. The memory popped into her mind, sudden and vivid, of their sword fight before Acathla's maw. He'd been quick then, sharp and merciless.

Totally concentrated on her.

That was it. She didn't have his attention, just as she didn't have Spike's attention. Not like she used to have. If she wanted it, she'd have to fight for it.

She'd have to figure out if she really wanted it, still. For a second it occurred to her that it might be cleaner, lighter, easier, not to want anything.

She dealt Angel a blow across the shoulders that sent him sprawling.

A Chinese curse—of course, to her it all sounded like cursing—alerted her to the presence of an audience. Looking up at the catwalk, she saw the big man with the beard and the funny name, what was it? Gail? Jayne. And crouched, not near him, but just as attentive, the girl with the wild stare. River. Her stare was intense now, full of comprehension and yearning. Angel was getting up slowly; Buffy picked up his staff and wielded it towards the girl.

"Want a turn?"

She didn't come down the stairs. She swung herself neatly over the rail and dropped down at Buffy's side like a cat.

Took the quarterstaff as if it was a fishing pole, turning it in her hands, her mouth slightly agape.

Then proceeded to nearly demolish her with it, before Buffy adjusted her expectations, and compensated.

Spike said he didn't know who the other slayer was now, but Buffy was pretty damn sure they had her right here.

From above, Jayne was a one-guy cheering section. Hooting section, really. At one point, a peanut shell he dropped caught in Buffy's hair. She was coated in sweat.

"You girls're gettin' me hawt."

They stopped as one, and looked up at him. Angel was standing beside him now, but this Jayne made Angel look like a small man.

"You want in?" Buffy said. "C'mon down."

Jayne cracked open another peanut, and smiled. Angel glanced at him, and then at Buffy, and opened his mouth. But he didn't speak. Pulling her gaze from the big man, she faced River. For the first time she realized the other girl was barefoot. She'd barely broken a sweat. "Same time tomorrow?"

River smiled. It was like a sunrise.

She was scuttling from the shower back to her bunk, wrapped in a towel, when Jayne stepped out of a shadow and pulled her against him.

For a second, Buffy thought she might just be fantasizing this.

For another second, she thought of Spike, and what had happened the only other time she'd stepped out on him. But that was all in the time before, and while she'd been out, Spike had changed all the rules. Or—not changed the rules, because there can't be rules between a couple when one of them isn't there anymore. He hadn't resumed the old rules, that was the thing.

Well, he'd said he wouldn't sleep with Angel again if she didn't like it, but she didn't really believe him—it felt like a promise he wasn't really equipped to make. Jayne's breathe was hot against the back of her neck, and he was groping her breasts through the towel in a way that, were she in a different kind of mood, would've earned him a broken arm.

She wasn't in that mood, though.

They almost fell down into his cabin, hitting the bunk hard. Buffy scrambled from under his weight, straddled him hard. "I run this."

"You sure do."

He had a big cock, and big hands to go with his big body. He could span her whole rib-cage with them, and the width of her hips. Told her that he liked feisty little ones, told her that she was pretty. It was what she needed to hear. He admired her pearls, dangling between her breasts, as if they were as much of her as her nipples, which he flicked pleasingly with his tongue. He wasn't cautious with her, because he didn't know her. His ways were rough-edged, but considerate, and he was genuinely content to let her be in charge, until they'd been going for a while, and she wanted to cede control.

He was happy that she was there with him in his bunk. Her strength excited him; he exclaimed in Chinese when she took him in, and again—with a whoop of a laugh, when she rolled her hips, squeezing his prick with her secret muscles.

"Ain't you fine," he said, grinning up at her, his eyes glittering with lewd appreciation.

"Ain't I?" She found she was grinning back. This day was picking up.

She'd planned to get up and go when they were finished—Jayne, so crude and energetic, didn't seem like the type who'd want to bask in the afterglow—he struck her as more the instant snorer type, or the get-up-and-forage-for-food kind of guy. But after they'd gone twice, he settled her against him with a tender gesture, his big arm around her, and she was content to rest her head on the furry slab of his chest. His heartbeat was loud and strong against her ear.

"That was what I call quality ruttin'."

"It was good, yeah."

"Those men of yours had better not come after me. I'll show 'em Vera if they do."

She didn't know what show 'em Vera meant, but they all had such strange ways of talking here, half of their idioms went right over her head.

"They won't. I'm free to do what I like."

"Who learned you to fight like you do?"

"I had a teacher, a long time ago. But most of it's innate."

"Who's Nate?"

Buffy laughed. "Innate. Inside of me. Part of what I am."

"Doctor's sis nearly had you down an' out, though. Was somethin' to see. She's crazier'n a bug in aspic, but elsewise she's kinda like you. You know her before?"

"Nope." Buffy yawned. "But I feel a kinship with her, I think. She is similar to me. And maybe I'm crazy too."

"Not you."

"Why not? Because I like you?" She got up on one elbow so he could see her smile.

"She's touched in the head. You don't know. An' she's a fugitive, her an' her brother both. The gummint wants 'em."

"What for?"

"She's some kind of bloomin' genius, supposedly, when she's not nuts. Supposed to be workin' for them, but she doesn't want to."

Thinking of the Council, and her own long-ago attempts to escape its influence, Buffy nodded. "Don't blame her."

"Hell, no one blames her. All anybody in their senses wants is to be free."

"So I guess she isn't really crazy after all?"

Jayne frowned. It was funny, watching him try to chase this apparent paradox around the shadows of his mind. Jayne wasn't stupid, Buffy could see that, but he was, in some ways, simple. Not used to complex thinking.

"She stabbed me once in the mess."

"Well, looks like your mess healed up all right. And I suspect you deserved it, didn't you?"

Jayne rolled across her, parting her thighs with one hand. "You women—"

Buffy grabbed his beard before he could kiss her, and forced him to look her in the face. "You women what? We're all alike? We're all good for just one thing?"

"Good for plenty. An' hoorah for that. That's what I always say."

His fingers, as he said these words, ghosted with surprising and effective lightness across her clit; Buffy gasped and let her legs fall open.

Jayne kissed his way down her body, but when he neared her mons, Buffy sat up fast. "Don't—I don't want you to do that."

He looked up, perplexed. "Never met a woman didn't like gettin' her gem polished. I do it real good, too." He wriggled his tongue at her.

"I'm sure you do. But ... I keep that for someone else." She wasn't sure why she was saying this—it was a distinction of fidelity Spike wouldn't have acknowledged. The Spike she used to be married to. If he cared now that she'd slept with Jayne, he wouldn't care what she'd done with him or how many times, it would all be one to him. She didn't believe he'd really care.

She just didn't want anyone else's mouth on her but his. Whatever Spike thought about it, or didn't think. She just didn't.

Jayne said something else in Chinese that sounded annoyed and incredulous.

"Fuck again," Buffy offered. "Nice and slow, if you like that."

"I like it," Jayne said, taking the hand she held out.

He wanted to take her from behind, lying on their sides, but Buffy didn't want that either. If she couldn't look into his face, she knew she'd think about Spike while they were doing it. She was already imagining what Spike might say and do when he realized where she'd been, and Buffy was afraid it wouldn't be anything. The idea made her want to cry.

"You one of them girls that gets all sad-like when she's been screwed?"

"It's not your fault, Jayne. We're having a good time, aren't we? C'mon." She pulled him to her by his cock, pushed her hips up to take him in.

They were doing it again, but he was watching her now, and the mood was altered. She wished he'd be more indifferent to her emotions—he was supposed to be a big randy lug, this was supposed to be something to pass the time.

Jayne hesitated.

"What?"

"Don't want no unwillin' woman."

"I'm willing. I'm very willing. C'mon." She did the thing with her hips—the thing Spike liked—and smiled into Jayne's eyes.

It was all right after that. But a quarter hour later, when she'd resumed her damp towel and starting up the ladder out of his cabin, Jayne said, "You should make it up with that man of yours. Anybody's got a sweetheart, ought to make it nice with 'em, and not go lookin' for trouble elsewise."

She didn't like having a cabin to herself. She knew why Spike and Angel had arranged it like this—when they'd picked her up at the hospital, she'd obviously needed a lot of space. They'd taken three berths on every transport since. But now she wanted to be with Spike, to have his things strewn around, to have him in her bed as a matter of course. It felt like a long time—not the hundreds of years that she'd been in stasis—she wasn't conscious then. The long time was the months after she came to, while she was confined to the hospital as a madwoman; added to the weeks leading up to that battle she'd so sorely lost, when anything resembling normal home life was already a source of nostalgia.

They'd found, in those weeks, only a couple of occasions to make love—hurried explosive sessions snatched at odd moments in odd places, without benefit of a bed or a chance to savor the afterglow—but apart from that, she'd barely had a private talk with him, let alone lain in his arms for a long sleep.

She wanted that now, his consoling presence, his familiarity. A couple of nights ago—was that all it was?—it seemed longer—she'd had that, or almost. And when Angel came in and joined them, it had seemed all right. They were both there, they were all together, she wasn't alone anymore.

But her mind couldn't work it, somehow. Not in these strange surroundings. Not knowing where she was headed.

Why not, she asked herself, as she lifted her face again to the shower spray, washing off after the hours with Jayne. Why couldn't she adjust to the way things were now? She'd always been strong. Always been able to cope with reality—or bend it to her will. And she'd seen worse in her time than Serenity.

This time as she walked along the corridor, her wet hair dripping down her back, no one accosted her. When she was dressed again, in the cheongsam Kaylee had given her, she went to Spike's quarters.

He and Angel were seated at either end of the made-up bed, playing cards for money.

She hovered in the doorway above their heads, long enough for them to note what their olfactory senses could tell them. Both men stared at the cards for a long moment, then glanced at one another. Buffy couldn't see Spike's face full-on; Angel's stayed expressionless, but she was sure there was something there that Spike could read.

They were thick as thieves now, those two.

After another eye-blink, Angel set down his hand. "We can come back to this."

Buffy started to climb down into the room. "Don't go. We should ... you're part of this too."

"This what?"

Spike craned around to look at her. His face was mild, opaque. It was nothing like the face he'd confronted her with after she'd been with Saleem. Her courage dipped; this wasn't going to work, it was already too late. As she came near, he reached out to draw her in close to him. His touch was gentle, and his gaze, too. "Did he please you, love?"

She wasn't sure if his directness was a good sign or not.

"Yeah. He's not ..." You." ... he was all right."

"Good, then. As long as he was nice to you."

"He was nice to me. He was appreciative."

"Course he was."

"Is that all?"

"Is what all?" Spike said.

Angel rose. "I'll go."

"No!" Buffy caught at his sleeve. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone with Spike. She didn't want to be alone with his indifference, which he would try to disguise as kindness. He'd been nothing but kind to her since he found her, and at that moment she didn't think she could bear any more. "Stay. I wanted to know ... I wanted to know if it matters to you. To both of you."

"Buffy, I think this is between you and him."

She shook her head. "It wasn't right for me to tell Spike he had to give you up. That's ... I withdraw that. I don't want to be your rival."

They were both regarding her now with interest, with attention. She still had no idea what they felt, about her, about what she'd just done, or what she was saying. They were waiting for her to explain. She wished they'd jump to conclusions. She wished Spike would be hot and quick with her, the way he used to be. She missed his flaring anger.

Angel glanced at Spike again. "So, you, uh ... you went with that crewman so we'd know ... that you're not trying to split us up?"

She shook her head wildly. "We have to start again. All right? I want us to be together, like you two said the other night. I need you both. But I have to know if you both need me. Because right now it feels like you barely even remember who I am." Tears sprang to her eyes as she said this; the idea of it, of being forgotten by Spike, by Angel, contained a powerful horror. It was horrible to her, to try to imagine the thousands and thousands of days and nights they'd passed without her, among people she didn't know, living their demon existences in a world she wasn't in any way a part of. That all that time could've erased her, so that now she was a stranger to them, an obligation they had to fulfill, was unthinkable, and yet it seemed to be what was happening to her.

She wanted to catch at Spike and howl; she wanted to curl against him like a little girl, like Sophie had done when they'd had to send her off to be kept safe before the final battle broke. Since she'd awakened into this nightmare world, she'd barely been able to think of Sophie at all, and couldn't bring herself to mention the name to Spike. Spike seemed to have forgotten that they'd had a daughter of eight, back when the war began, back when there was a planet Earth. He hadn't said a word to her about their child, or anybody else from that time, since he'd come for her at the hospital.

"I don't care if you're lovers! I don't! But if I'm just an obligation to you, if you don't feel anything about me even if I go with another man—then ... then ... I'd rather face up to the facts, I'd rather go my own way."

The same kind of gusty terrified despair that had come over her at the sight of that birthday cake surged up now. She hated feeling so out of control; she wanted to be masterful, not inspire their pity with a tearful tantrum. But she wasn't used to living in this kind of emotional limbo. Being near Spike and feeling that he was so far away from her.

Spike pulled her into his arms, down onto his lap. She was crying now full-on, couldn't stop, or moderate, could only cling to his shoulders, gasping and sobbing. Dimly she was aware of Angel moving slowly up and out of the cabin, closing the hatch quietly on them. Spike stroked her hair, held her close.

"... I want to be your wife," she murmured, when the sobs let go enough to speak. "But I feel like you've forgotten me. You've forgotten me and you don't need me anymore to be your wife. I know there's too much time, there's too much time ... but you know there hasn't been any time for me, I never stopped. I never stopped, and now I can't catch up to where you are."

"Sssh, sssh. 'M right here. Right here, love."

"No."

"Not no. I'm here. I understand what you mean. Maybe I did forget ... you do, you know, when someone you loved more'n life is gone, and you've got to go on alone. If you don't forget a bit, you go mad. Angel'll tell you, I did go mad for a while. Blamin' him, blamin' everyone for what I thought happened to you. Whole order of my bloody unlife was swept away. But we had to press on, yeah, and yeah, had to live with what was, what was left."

"I know," she sniffed. "Oh Spike, it must've been so hard for you."

"Was a long time ago now. The pain of that's all gone for me. But I know it's not for you, I know it's fresh. Didn't mean to make you feel forgotten, sweet. We'll remember ourselves, won't we? Day by day an' night by night, we'll remember. You'll help me, remind me, tell me all the things you're thinkin'. We'll be Mr an' Missis Grieves again like we was, yeah? An' if you don't want Angel, I'll tell him we have to part. Parted from him enough times before, he won't die of it."

She hated herself for wondering if he was sincere, or if this was smooth Spike telling her what he guessed she wanted him to say. She never used to have to calculate like that.

"We can't leave him alone. He's not like you, he'll be alone."

"It's you I'm worried about."

"I wish I knew if I believed that."

"Oh Buffy. Has it really come to that? You think I'm lying to you?"

Threading her fingers in his hair, she tugged his face towards hers. She wished she could look him in the eye while she said what came next, but she couldn't. "Spike ... I wanted to be with him, I just wanted to, you know, forget about things for a little while. But I didn't let him suck me off."

She waited, her nose just brushing his cheek, her mouth near his. Of course he wouldn't flush, she wouldn't be able to feel his reaction in the pulse he didn't have. But if he pulled away, she'd have her answer.

Spike moved his hand to her bare knee, and a thrill shot up through her, something more than sensual—like the narrowest rescue. A sob escaped her. Spike was whispering too. "You keepin' that for me, then?"

"Always."

"You go with that blighter again, I'll wring his fool neck."

"Will you?"

Spike's hand crept up the inside of her thigh. "He helped you remember who you are, yeah? 'Cause I reckon much's you thought I'd forgotten, you forgot too. You didn't seem to like me much, since I came to fetch you, nor Angel either."

"I got lost."

"Found yourself then, lyin' with that git?"

"I want you to make me belong to you again."

His fingers slipped between her cunny lips as she spoke; he pulled her tight against him, burying his face against her neck.

When he bit her, she cried out, in pain and surprise and the pleasure of being taken at her word. This was the one thing that really was only for Spike.

She'd always liked it best when he claimed her without asking or warning. It was the most intimate of their intimacies.

He fed deep, not stinting himself, and fucked her with his hand until she shuddered and wept. Suddenly he was kissing her, and it wasn't like the kissing they'd done up until now. The old fire was in it, the demand. She felt also the gratitude that always used to engulph him, when he'd drunk from her. Her slayer blood made him drunk with love, made him rampant; she felt all that with a resurging joy. It was still there, the demon passion, it was undimmed. Buffy pulled at his clothes, tore them, as they sucked each other's tongues. When her hand closed around his cock, she tugged on it, worked it hard, until Spike broke their kiss to gasp out loud.

Fucking Jayne had made her think about Spike. But when Spike went into her, she forgot all about Jayne, and everything else that had worried her. She rode his lap, feeling full, throbbing on him, and after a few minutes he pulled her in close and bit her again, on the other side.

"Yes. Yes." She held his head, combed and tugged at his hair. Her heart was a fountain for him. It felt mighty in her chest, pumping as she pumped on him. His hands possessed her breasts, skimmed her arms and back, and pulled through her hair. When he lifted his head, the golden eyes seemed to her the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She kissed the fanged mouth, tasting her salt on his tongue. "My Spike ... lover ... my husband ...." They fell back across the bed; he rolled her beneath him.

"Should've done this from the first. That was my mistake. Should've bitten you an' fucked you 'fore we left that hospital, an' you'd have been all right, wouldn't you, my girl?"

"You were afraid of me. You'd forgotten what we used to be like."

"Got it now."

"Yes. Oh God. Oh—!"

He withdrew before she could come, and hovered over her, game-faced, grinning his most wicked grin. Looking at him, at his hard tight body, his glistening erection, and the demon eyes that glittered so dangerously, something in her gave way, relaxed completely. She was utterly and entirely safe.

"Eat me up."

She was already satisfied, even before he brought her slowly up to her first orgasm. Whatever else she'd have to face in this strange new life, she'd found her lost friend again. The one who helped it all make sense. She went liquid in his mouth, sobbing, and afterwards he consoled her in his arms for all the terrible pleasure he'd put her through.

"So I'm going to ask you some things, and I want you to tell me the truth."

"I always tell you the truth, Slayer."

She was done crying. Spike had bandaged her neck and given her a drink of water before returning to lie beside her. She'd slept a little, and now they were cuddled together in her warmth, under the blanket. Something that he had indeed forgotten about was reawakened in him; the deep hunger to be touching her, taking care of her, looking at her. He couldn't understand how he'd managed to hold off from all that—why he'd believed it was necessary. He should've known better. Should've known right away that she needed him to assert himself with her. After all, hadn't he won her in the first place by breaking through her near-catatonic despair when Willow brought her back from the dead? He should've recalled that, instead of being so hinky.

Her pale face still bore the washy look of her tears and panic and then her helpless ecstasy when he'd devoured her. The edges of her lips were bruised from his sucking kisses. He could still smell Cobb on her skin, but he was certain she'd forgotten all about him.

"But I mean, the unvarnished truth. I just want you to tell me the way it is. Because I need to understand things, so we can go forward."

"What things?"

"I want you to tell me about you and Angel."

"Tell you what? You see how it is."

"Maybe I do. But so we're sure I'm not misinformed, I want to hear it. Are you in love with him?"

"Not like it is with you. There's history ... you know it. What we have goes deep, an' its indelible. We're comrades, we talk to each other, rely on each other, an' we fuck."

"You talk,you rely, you fuck ... that does sound like how it is with us. And he feels the same way about you?"

"You'd have to ask him, shouldn't put words in his mouth. But ... he doesn't try to rule me like he used to do once upon a time. He lets me go when I want to go, but he always welcomes me back when .... yeah. He treats me ...."

"Like an equal. Finally."

Spike nodded. "We're old old friends. We trust each other. We help each other bear up."

"It sounds cozy when you put it like that."

"Can be. But ..." He grinned suddenly, with that wolfish appetite he showed when he was about to go into what promised to be a good fight, or was recalling some atrocious thing he'd done back in the days before he exercised his conscience. "We fuck like the demons we are."

She eyed him blankly for a long moment, then all at once she smiled too, and her skin flushed, so that she warmed him all along his flank where he held her against him. "I can imagine. I ... I know."

"You do."

"So where was he while you were with that Neelia?"

"Here an' there, I suppose. He never fills me in much, 'bout what he does when we're apart. He's not much of a talker. He's got various associates. He does business. He keeps tabs on things."

"Things?"

"The mission."

"I've been waiting for someone to mention that."

"We keep it up," Spike said. "When we can. Things're different now. More spread out. Sometimes there's long periods go by when we don't meet up with any but human beings. Plenty of evil men do, but they're just men."

"I think the doctor's sister is a slayer."

"Angel mentioned that to me."

"Did he? What do you suppose the odds of a coincidence like that are? That I wake up after all these centuries, an' find myself a few weeks later on a teensy ship with the one other girl in all the worlds? What do you think?"

"Think somethin's afoot?"

"Well, duh. Do you have any idea what it could be?"

He shook his head. "I'm game for it, when the time comes."

"Good." Buffy sighed, and stretched, making sure to curve against him again as soon as she relaxed. "I want to talk to her. I want her to be prepared. Did Angel say anything to her?"

"I don't think so."

"So, what are we going to do? About Angel."

""What d'you mean, what're we going to do? Waitin' for you to tell me."

"I mean—I'll share you with him. That is, if he'll be content to share."

"You—"

"The threesome thing, that's an interesting idea, in the abstract. Except I don't think it's me he yearns for. In bed. In his heart. All of that is so long ago, it's burned itself out. It's you."

"You might be surprised."

"Whatever. The point is, I'm not going to be weird about it. We'll work it out. Like you both said the other night."

"You think there's enough of old Spike to go around?" he joked.

Again that smile came to her, that made her look girlish and strong. "Oh yeah. Always."

"Because it really will be like you say. You say 'no Angel' an' I'll send him off. He'll understand. You bein' my missus."

"We shouldn't talk about him like this behind his back. And for the last time, I don't want him gone. I need you both. My friends. My ... anchors."

"We know you."

"Yes."

She burrowed her face against his neck. "Just promise me ... promise me we can have our alone time. Some nights when I get you to myself. I want to sleep with you. I want to lie down with you and chat like we're doing now. Can we share a cabin?"

"'Course we can. An' what about Angel? Don't you want to chat to him in bed too?"

"Sometimes I will. We'll work it out. We'll just have to."

A burst of happiness came over him, simple, almost childish. She was once more reasonable, no longer entrapped so completely in the throes of grief-tinged confusion that he couldn't reach her. She was Buffy and she loved him. Miracles never did cease. He'd have to be sure to always remember that.

When they went looking for Angel, they found him in the cargo bay, sparring again with River Tam. She was looking gleeful, taunting him to show her his other face.

"I know you have one. I've seen it. I see it when I sleep."

Buffy glanced at Spike when they heard that.

It was Spike who changed, showing River his fang array in a snarl. She lit up at the sight, and began to laugh, as if at a puppy who'd done a trick.

Buffy had seen a lot of slayers react to their first sight of the business end of a vampire, but none of them had ever done that.

Then she came up to Buffy, too close, and sniffed at the scarf she'd bound around her neck to cover the bandages. Surprised, affronted, Buffy stepped back. River looked at her, with her head on one side. Buffy could see her thinking, as if the thoughts flitted by at great speed deep in her eyes. "You feed him. Does that make you stronger too? Will I feed this one?" She gestured at Angel.

Four voices barked "NO!"

The doctor, aghast, rushed towards them, pulling River away. "What are you talking about—what are you doing?"

"We should talk, all of us ... " Buffy began. But Simon was dragging River towards the exit.

"She's a vampire slayer," Buffy said. "She knows she is. I can teach her. We all can. We might not have a lot of time. I'm pretty sure something is going to happen soon, something that will require both of us to stop it."

Her brother went on pulling her, scolding that she was to leave these passengers alone, that she wasn't supposed to be fighting, even for exercise. He didn't seem to want to hear a word Buffy said.

But River heard. She craned around even as she continued to let herself be marched off, her gaze connecting with Buffy's. She broke into a beatific smile. And she was gone.

Author's Note: There will probably be more of this fic sometime in the future, so keep an eye out at my fic livejournal, Herself_nyc_fic.