I am so sick of telephone poles that I could throw up. Buffy glanced out the window, heavy with the nausea of on-the-road boredom. Oh, well. At least they break up the desert. The endless, endless desert. Searching for something in the washed-out landscape made her eyes water, and she closed the blinds. The RV ran over a stone, and lurched slightly.

"Sorry !" she heard Giles call out, muffled from behind the sliding door, and wondered when he'd taken the wheel. I thought it was Spi- and the lanky blonde himself pulled aside her plywood divider. One side of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

"Catching up on sleep or planning ?" he asked, without his usual sneer. She started to say something harsh, and stopped herself.

"Both." She said, and he nodded. Spike shut the door and slid into a seat next to her, far enough away to seem casual and close enough to be almost touching her. "Handed the driving over, I see. Thought you were having fun." He sat back and folded his arms.

"Things got a bit uncomfortable in the front. Best if I didn't stick around." She raised one pale eyebrow. "Xander's not feeling too well, and… me being there doesn't help." He grinned. "Plus, they were playing a dangerous game of let's open the blinds." She stifled a laugh.

"That famous self-preservation…" she muttered cheerfully, but caught a glimpse of an angry red mark on his palm as he shoved his hand into a pocket. He was hurt in that game, her brain remarked casually, and he didn't lose his temper at them… "So what's the mood of my troops ?" she asked lightly, leaning back into the bench. You're not the only one who can play it casual, her posture challenged. Spike shrugged.

"This isn't a vacation, and everyone knows it." He stated flatly. "Near-death situations don't make for the best road trips." He turned an ashtray over in his hands, and chuckled to himself. "How very considerate," he mused, referring to the previous owners. "The troops are holding up as well as can be expected." Buffy suddenly found herself staring into his blue eyes when he looked up at her again. "And you ?" he added. She snorted.

"I'm sitting in the back of a decrepit escape RV with a vampire, thinking dark things about my own very possible failure in the very near future." She sighed. "About normal." They grinned at each other, in a sort of grim camaraderie won through shared experience. It's easy to talk to him like this, Buffy realized with a pang, because we're in the same world. With Owen, with Parker, with Ben, and even with Riley, I always had to hold something back, try to protect them from what I really was. Spike's been on the wrong end of my stake a few times. I guess we both know the score. Spike watched her soft face cloud over in thought, and his heart gave an odd shudder.

"Buffy-" he began, but anything he might have said was cut short with the smooth motion of the sliding door. Dawn's face, framed with messy hair, broke into the room and pouted at the older girl.

"Buffy ? I'm really hungry, and Anya's going to make something for all of us." She glanced at Spike. "Um, well, for most of us. But you can have some, if you want." She stumbled. Buffy smiled at her slowly.

"Thanks, Dawn. I'll… we'll join you guys in a minute." She nodded obediently, shot Spike another look, and shut the door. Buffy turned to her companion, and before his face closed up again, watched the briefest flicker of pain cross his face. "You really care about her, don't you ?" she said softly. Spike glanced up swiftly, caught, and his shoulders slumped ever so slightly.

"It's just that… watching her… I can see you, what you must've been like. What you still are like. So full of love." His eyes, Buffy noted uncomfortably, were moist. "I couldn't bear for you to be hurt. I couldn't bear for her to be hurt." Something in his throat caught, and he choked it back down. "Lunchtime." He indicated with an inclination of his head. He made to rise, but her hand stopped him.

"You'll protect her," she said firmly, "you'll protect her even if I… can't ?" He looked at her like you'd look at a child who didn't understand what you'd just told them. Then, quite carefully, he bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'll protect you both." He said sincerely, and left the room.