Warning: Rated T for now, but may change later to M for darker subject matter.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel belong to their copyright holders, I own nothing.

Chapter 1: Goodbye Lover

The office was dark. Not a single light was on, despite Giles having the objective of researching. Books were spread open on the table he was sitting at, and a glass of wine was in his hand. He didn't like this wine, not really, but it was all he had left, for the moment, from a gift given to him a long time ago. All his other drinks were gone.

He took a sip. It wasn't very good. It was actually disgusting. But it helped. That was all that mattered, wasn't it? That the pain was being masked.

Giles couldn't help but think: When did it all begin? He thought back to his Ripper days, but that wasn't the answer. The true answer was that it begun with a certain woman named Jenny Calendar. He pictured her in his head. She was beautiful. When she died, things got rough for Rupert Giles. He couldn't allow that to destroy him, though, and he tried to remain strong. Then, years later, Buffy died and he went back to England, alone. Of course, then she came back to life, but Giles couldn't stay around forever, so he left alone again. And then he went back to Sunnydale again. It was really a vicious cycle. The First was a real threat, though, and they had destroyed Sunnydale. Now he and almost everyone else had spread out around the world, either looking after the other Hellmouth or training the new Slayers. He, Dawn, and Buffy were in England and staying together. When they moved back here was really when the drinking started. All the things he'd seen and people he'd lost…it just turned into too much. Drinking was just a temporary way to rid of all the horrid things he'd seen.

He truly did his best to hide the drinking from Buffy and Dawn, though. In all honesty, he wasn't sure if they knew about the problem. Did they even care?

They did, they always would. Giles was just too wrapped in his turmoil to see it.

Right now, Giles was supposed to be researching a new vampire that had recently started to cause a lot of pandemonium. He claimed to be some kind of vampire master, and Giles was looking for anything that would tell him about this new big bad. So far, nothing had come up. Then again, he hadn't been researching for very long.

Before he could take another sip out of his glass, a phone started ringing. He fumbled around the table, flipping over books, searching for that stupid phone.

There! He picked it up and pressed the answer button.

"Hello?" he said, clearing his throat. Luckily, his voice didn't come out in a slur.

"Hello, Mr. Giles?" another English voice came through the phone. Giles recognized the voice, surprisingly. "This is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

"Wesley!" Giles spoke. "How very good to hear from you. How can I help you?"

"Well, we have a certain…" There was a heavy sigh. "There's a situation over here," he continued finally. "An astounding woman and friend named Fred Burkle has fallen incredibly ill. We believe she is being taken over by Illyria, a great warrior of the demon age. I-I know the attempts may be futile, but I was wondering if you could possibly help us research any ways that we could save Fred from being taken over by an Old One. I can't seem to find anything in any of my resources." Wesley sounded incredibly distraught.

Giles shook his head slowly, but said nothing. An Old One? How was that even possible? It didn't matter. Wesley wanted help, and that meant Angel wanted help too. All Giles would have to do was get Buffy and Dawn later and they could research and look for anything that-

"What's going on?" a different, distant voice that Giles also recognized asked. It came as quite a shock, especially when he expected never to hear the voice of Spike again because he was dead for good this time. Buffy had specifically said that he burst into flames, basically. And yet Giles just heard his voice on the phone. "Has he said anything? Hand me the bloody phone."

There were some fumbling noises on the other end. Giles thought back to all the memories before Spike's "final" death, how miserable he'd made Buffy. He made her hate her life, pretty much. But then he went and got a soul and, what, that suddenly made everything better? In his opinion: no, it didn't.

They'd gotten along just fine without Spike so far.

"Hello, Giles? This is-"

"William the Bloody," he interrupted. "Better known as Spike. I thought you were dead for good this time?"

"Yeah, well, as it turns out, not everything went as planned. Listen, we could really use your help. I thought maybe if you knew I was alive you'd be a little more interested."

"And Buffy doesn't know?" Giles was concerned.

"Well, no, not yet. You could tell her if you'd like." Spike sounded hesitant. "So about Fred-"

"It's late here," Giles told him. "We'll start researching, if we can. Give me a number and I'll get back to you guys tomorrow."

Once Giles had the number, he hung up. There was just something weird with the fact that Spike was alive. It felt too…wrong. If there was one thing Giles didn't want, it was for Spike to come running back to Buffy. They were happy, content, without him. To keep things the way they were, he couldn't tell Buffy about Spike still being alive.

He took another drink.

The next morning, Buffy got up and attempted to make some breakfast. Unfortunately, everything she tried to cook winded up being burnt to the point of no return.

Dawn walked into the kitchen and immediately sniffed at the air. "Why do I smell burnt pancakes?"

"Because I burnt the eggs," Buffy admitted. "Then I tried to cook pancakes. It didn't work out so well. I guess I'm just not destined to be a cook. How about some orange juice? I'd offer something to eat, but unfortunately…" She trailed off.

"Sure," Dawn shrugged. "And it's okay. Some women cook, some slay vampires."

Buffy made her way over to the refrigerator, grabbing a glass on the way. As she was pouring some orange juice into the cup, the phone started ringing. Buffy put the orange juice and glass down and picked up the phone that was closest to her on the counter. She recognized the caller ID and grew excited.

"Willow!" she answered ecstatically. It'd only been a few days since she'd heard from her best friend, but it was always great to hear from her. Willow was in South Africa looking after many new Slayers. It sucked immensely for her to be so far away.

"Buffy, hi!" Willow responded just as excitedly.

"How are you doing? Is everything alright?" Buffy asked.

"Everything's fine, Buffy, stop worrying," Willow told her. "In-in fact, that's why I called. I was bored. How goes the search for that new supposed vamp master?"

Buffy groaned. "Nothing yet. But hey, how are things with Kennedy? Have you talked to her yet?"

While they all were going their own ways, even Willow and Kennedy went their separate directions. Willow was in South Africa and Kennedy was in Rome with Faith. Still, they were trying to do some long distance relationship thing. From what Willow had told Buffy, though, it wasn't really working out too well. Actually, it was going so rough that Willow had told Buffy that she was thinking of ending it with Kennedy. A long distance relationship just wouldn't work out.

"Not recently. I called her yesterday but there was no answer."

"Oh, Will, I'm sorry. Everything will work out, though, I'm sure."

"I tried calling Xander yesterday also, but he didn't pick up either. Is it that hard for everybody to answer a phone call every once in a while?"

Xander had been the only one out of all of them to stay in the US. He'd trained to become a detective, working under cover. When a supernatural death occurred, he'd alert some Slayers and cover it up the best he could. As far as Buffy knew, he was happy. He still mourned the death of Anya, but he was okay. They all kept in touch pretty often.

Buffy had talked to Xander about a week ago. He was dealing with some crazed vampire going on some sort of killing spree. It was strange that he wouldn't answer Willow's call.

She and Willow talked a little longer until Willow said that she should actually get going. They said their goodbyes and promised that they'd talk again real soon.

The moment Buffy put the phone down; Giles seemed to enter the kitchen. He stumbled in a little, and then stood up straight. Buffy noted that he looked extremely exhausted. Had he not been sleeping well? Or was he just up all night looking in to this new vampire "master"?

"Good morning," he greeted.

"Good morning," Dawn said back. She was sitting at the table, sipping her orange juice.

"Did you sleep okay?" Buffy asked.

"What?" Giles seemed fazed. "Oh, yes, fine." He was still thinking about the phone call he received last night and if he wanted to tell Buffy about Spike.

"I heard the phone ring late last night," Buffy frowned. "Was something wrong?"

"Oh, no," Giles shook his head. "Just those damn telemarketers again."

"That late?" Dawn questioned. "We should call somebody about that."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. She eyed Giles strangely. He wasn't looking her in the eye, like he was keeping something from her. What was going on with him? "We definitely should."

Later on, back in the office, Giles dialed the phone number to L.A. The whole morning he was thinking about the call last night and what he was going to say. Obviously he couldn't just tell Spike that he didn't want Buffy to know about him still being alive.

"Giles? Did you find anything?" Spike answered quite quickly. Giles detected mass amounts of worry in Spike's voice that told him that Spike must've really cared for this women named Fred also, just as Wesley did.

"I'm afraid I can't help you guys, Spike. There's nothing we can do."

"The hell there's not. You see, all you have to do is read through some stinkin' books and look for-"

"I said no, Spike."

"Give me one good reason why not. We need to save Fred, Giles."

Giles panicked. "Buffy doesn't want to help you, Spike. She refuses to help you or anyone you're associated with, including this Fred woman."

Shock swept over Spike. "What? Why wouldn't she want to help?"

"Because she wants to forget about you, Spike, as we all do. I suggest you leave us alone and don't call again." He slammed down the phone.

"We need to find another way to save her," Angel informed Spike. "I guess we have no choice now but make that trip to the Deeper Well."

"I guess," Spike shook his head angrily. Who was Buffy to say those things; that she didn't want to help him? This wasn't even about him, this was about Fred. How could she be so selfish to ignore the rising of an Old One just because he was involved?

Well, fine. If she wanted nothing to do with him, he didn't want anything to do with her either. It was insane to think that he'd done so much for her, including put his soul back in, and now she was acting like this. After their last talk, when Spike died again, he thought for sure she'd at least be a little happy that he was undead again. If this was how she was going to be, though, then fine, he didn't want her help anyway.

Angel couldn't believe she refused to help also. It was ridiculous and petty of her to not help just because of Spike. It also saddened Angel. A friend was dying and he felt like he was running out of options. Now, all he could do was go to the Deeper Well and hope they could save Fred.

As they got ready to leave for the Deeper Well, Spike thought a little more about Buffy. The whole situation was terrible. With her acting that way, Spike was beginning to think that the Slayer that he (and Angel) had fallen in love with was replaced by some uncaring, selfish person. If that was how she acted now, he didn't want to be in love with her.

Whatever, Spike thought to himself once and for all. Goodbye old lover, Spike sent one last thought Buffy's way, prepared to forget all about his and Buffy's past because of this issue.

Angel and Spike left for the Deeper Well.