I don't know why I asked her out. I mean, I knew the time had come to tell her that I knew she was the Slayer, to tell her that my mother had been one too, and that I wanted in on the upcoming fight, but there must have been a thousand ways to do that. A pause while I think about that- okay, maybe not a thousand. Possibly not even ten. But in any of the original plans, none of those possibilities involved my favorite French restaurant and feeding Buffy dessert. That's not the kind of man that I am. I don't, heaven help me, invite my barely twenty-one year old employees out to dinner. Plus, up until now, skinny white girls with no curves to speak of have never been my type.

But ask her out I did, because I think I'd been falling for her since I met her and it suddenly seemed stupid to pretend that I wasn't. I admired the seriousness with which she took the job that I made up for her, the way she tried so hard to be ordinary, never knowing that I knew she was extraordinary. It's not like I haven't heard that saying about men falling in love with women who are just like their mothers, it's more that I never figured it would happen to me. Hell, I never thought I would really meet another slayer, never thought I would work with one, day in, day out. She comes to work even when all hell is breaking loose. You gotta admire that in a girl.

I thought that it, the date, was going pretty well, too. I mean, it had all the elements I figured a good date with the slayer would have: random violence, excellent food, and Buffy making all sorts of whimpering noises as I fed her pears in brandy sauce. Maybe, I caught myself wondering as the evening went on, maybe I didn't have to be alone. Maybe here was a woman who would understand me. Understand my garage lined with crosses, the knives I keep in my office, the way I walk the streets on the nights I can't sleep, looking for things to kill. Maybe I could even share those things with her. I had never thought that anything like that would ever be possible. But now, with her, I started to think maybe they were. Crazy what you think of, when things are going well.

This craziness lasted about as long as it took for the pale as a ghost white guy with the platinum hair to show up looking for her. Good looking guy, short on words, only said that it was the boy, and she should come. So there ended our date, with me driving Buffy and her friend, Pale and Tough-Looking, in my car to the high school, where some other friend of Buffy's date was ending with ritualistic sacrifice.

Hell, sounded like more fun than how our date was ending.

Buffy's friend was hunched down in the back of the car, curled up, like he was avoiding the light. Skin that pale, he must have been avoiding a lot of light. Buffy had seemed to me a pretty wholesome girl, for a slayer, and this guy looked past not being her type. He was dressed conservative enough, sure, but he was a punk, the kind you don't see too often these days, the real kind. This was not the kinda guy who thought rebellion was a fashion statement; he looked like trouble from long back. There was an old scar on his face and something in his eyes when he looked at Buffy that I didn't even want to think about. Some kind of hunger. Something in this man was starving for Buffy, a deeper need than any of my own.

I wanted to know how they met, what they were to each other. Wanted to know, without actually saying it, if I should back off. Buffy said it was nothing, that they worked together in the fight against evil. White boy, Spike, grunted at that. I figured it was true as far as it went, but guessed there was more they weren't saying. There was about a thousand years of unfinished business in their eyes when they exchanged glances and his eyes were never off of her, not even for a second. Obsessive, sure, dangerous, without a doubt. I would have given a lot to know the history between these two. But neither of them were talking and my mama, while I had her, hadn't raised me a fool.

The drive was mostly silent, with me not being stupid, Buffy looking uneasy, and Spike just looking obsessed. When we got to the high school, things moved fast. Buffy and Spike were already real clear on where the Hellmouth was, moved there quick and fast. Buffy was a joy to watch as she moved, all attempts at hiding her true nature completely gone now. She was speed and strength and coiled tension. Made me forget that she was just a skinny white girl and remember why she caught my eye in the first place. Spike was behind her as she moved, and something in his face made me think she had caught more than his eye, and that it wasn't recent. They moved well together, fluid, practiced. It seemed all instinct between them, instinct and familiarity and I wondered anew at what past these two shared, what secrets they kept between. What was the story with these two? High school records mentioned an older boyfriend, possibly a bad influence. Came up during mandatory counseling after her expulsion. Was this him, her bad influence? He looked like he could corrupt a saint.

The basement was pretty much what Spike told us to expect. Good looking woman chanting something, youngish guy strung up from the ceiling, bleeding into a hole. Only in Sunnydale... I couldn't even be surprised. Same old, same old, another day, another demon sacrifice. Wish it weren't happening in my school, but that's what you get, setting up shop over the Hellmouth.

Demon chick saw us, turned on us as we came through the door. Buffy took after the demon, slayer speed and strength and damn but she was a pleasure to watch. She was fine. Then Spike came in, and it was like Buffy wasn't even there, demon was on him like white on rice and he was fighting her off. I spared a second to figure that this boy must have one hell of a rep with the demons, cause she was ignoring me like I was nothing, and I've been killing their kind since I got here. Spike must have been here longer and been somewhat better at it. While I watched the fight, not unimpressed with his moves, that's when I saw it, that's when it happened.

Spike's face... changed. It became an ugly mask of him, a mask I had seen before, and I was so surprised I said it out loud, like a fool. "He's a vampire."

I'd been watching this boy with Buffy since he showed up. He'd been staring at her like she was the only thing in his world, had been in her space, tight as a shadow. They had history. No way she didn't know, no way the relationship between them was sweetness and light, all innocent and pure. They had been... I struggled with the word, but there was no help for it, the truth was the truth; they had been intimate, and he wanted it again. Wanted her again. And for all that she seemed nervous and awkward around him, she didn't seem afraid, or reluctant. I was stunned, could barely do anything. I helped the boy down, watched the fight play out. Spike was hurt and Buffy was at his side, eyes all concern, the heat between them palpable, hot enough to turn me to ash, and I was human, and standing feet away. Why had she even agreed to a date with me, when there was this thing between them? Why hadn't she stayed home, screwing her vampire lover?

Buffy came to the boy when I called her name, helped him out. I heard the boy ask how her date is going, but when she looked at me, I was looking at the vampire and never heard her answer. The vampire who had had her, the vampire she let live, when she was born to kill them. He was staring at her, too.

After that, there was nothing to do but go home. I drove Buffy, the boy and the vampire to her place. Were they all living there? Was this even something that I wanted to think about? I didn't know why I was torturing myself like this, with thoughts of Buffy wrapped around that pale, evil body and liking it. Jealous? Of a creature that wasn't even human? The scar I had spotted on her neck took on new significance. I had thought a vamp had gotten the better of her, had created this whole elaborate story in my mind about how she had fought it, killed it even as it was trying to kill her. Whole new ideas were playing out now, Spike's fangs in her skin and her liking it, wanting it, asking for it. Was it the only mark he had left on her body? What kind of a slayer was she?

I couldn't go home. Sleep was useless. There was too much in my mind. So instead, I drove around, growing more and more crazy. My mother, she had almost been a goddess to me, and she was taken down by some monster. Buffy should have been like her, a force of strength against the evil in this world, and she was letting the evil in, letting it inside her body. They had been together, I knew it, I was sure. For how long? How tainted was she? How deep did the evil go? They didn't look totally together now, but I could tell they were not totally apart. Had she come to her senses, did he have some kind of unholy hold on her? Maybe, I started to think, maybe I could break her free from him. Be a hero, save her the way I could never save my mother.

When I went back to her place, I had this whole plan in mind. I was going to confront her with the truth, and she would be so relieved, so happy, she would come with me and leave him behind. I would free her from him, have the person I thought she could be in my life. I wouldn't have to be on the outside of the fight anymore, I could belong. With her. With the slayer. Where I was meant to be, where I was born to be, the place I had fought for all my life. With her I could be, you should pardon the expression, a white knight. The person who came in to save the day. Just thinking it made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

When I first drove up to her place, the living room light was still on. I crept up the porch quietly, not sure what I was doing, only sure that I needed to be there. I was going to ring the doorbell, I swear on my mother's grave I was, but then I heard them. Them. Buffy and her demon. Talking. The voices were muffled, but hey, principal. My job is based on being a good listener. So I stopped and stayed quiet, bided my time in the shadows, listened to the words.

I heard the vampire speak first, his voice low and unsure. A vampire? Hesitant? All a trap, I was sure, to lure her in, to make her weak. "Did anybody tell you about what happened around here tonight?"

Buffy's voice then, quieter, but still clear enough. "Willow did. The First is back in the mix."

After that, it seemed like a good idea to stay and hear what else new and awful was going down in the town. I wasn't spying on the girl, I was just there to hear the 411.

The vamp sounded concerned but I wasn't fooled. You can't trust them, they're demons in human skin. "It, uh, it talked to the little boy. Said it wasn't time for me yet. I should move out. Leave town before it is time for me."

I about cheered when I heard that. Yeah, man, leave so when I kill you, Buffy won't know. She shouldn't care, you shouldn't be anything to her, but you got in, I can tell. I could tell by looking at her, that she would care. Best to kill him some place she would never know.

Then she spoke again, her voice strangely upset, and I forgot about coming up with reasons to explain why I was snooping. "No, you have to stay."

"You've got another demon fighter now." What was this, what game was he playing with her? Bastard. It should have been marked on her, somehow, that she swung this way. A person ought to be able to look at another person, and see that that person prefers monsters to men. I hoped to hell she would just take Spike's bluff, let him leave, get him out of her life.

Buffy again, sounding upset, confused. "That's not why I need you here." No, no, no, no. She did not just say that. She couldn't have. I could feel the anger growing in me again, as my brain offered up a million reasons why Buffy might not want her demon lover to leave. There were those damn mental pictures again, clawing at me. Buffy moaning under Spike as he bit her. I shook my head, tried to dispel the pictures. Any attraction the woman might have held for me was gone now. She wasn't quite a monster, but I sure wouldn't be bringing any tender bits of mine near her. But somehow I couldn't leave, felt compelled to stay and hear every painful second of their conversation.

I strained to hear his response, his voice sounding strung-out. "Is that right? Why's that then?"

A long enough pause that I thought Buffy wouldn't answer him, and then when she did, I knew there was no reason for me to be standing here outside her door like a fool. He had not drawn her in as some kind of a plot. She had gone willingly and was staying willingly. "Cause," she said, some unreadable emotion in her voice, "I'm not ready for you to not be here."

And still I stayed a minute longer, just to see what the demon has to say about that, to see how he'd respond. "And the principal? How's he fit in?"

Good question. One I ought to be asking myself, instead of practicing my stalker 101 homework.

I must have stood there five minutes, waiting to hear what Buffy would have to say to that, what she thought of our aborted date tonight, how she thought things might have gone if Spike hadn't shown, if the boy's blood hadn't been offered up to the dark powers. I stood and I stood, waiting, but Buffy had nothing to say. She and the vampire lapsed into silence then, and I didn't have a good enough view to see if anything had taken the place of talking. Finally, cursing to myself, I left them to whatever the hell they had that held Buffy's attention better than a human man.

That was the first night the First came to talk to me. Even dressed in my mother's shape, I wasn't fooled, knew who it was. I was ready for it, I thought. Knew everything to say back. Knew not to listen to whatever the hell the face of evil said to get me to fight on its side.

Until she told me who Spike was. Then I started listening. Then I started planning.

Buffy might have thought I was a throwaway, but Spike was going to find out that I was anything but.