A/N: I wrote this awhile ago when I was half way through the series. I'm a loyal BA shipper and also BAus if it's written well, so through the entire show from season four 'til the end, I waited for a spark of BA. However, in this piece I've chosen Spike to be friendly and supporting, something I didn't like in the show (and no, I haven't seen Angel more than season two/three yet).

Anyway, I like this and I'll add more in pieces. This is part one and please review to let me know if you like it or not. If you hate it, let me know. I just want a response! I crave it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel or any or the characters. They belong to Joss Whedon.

"What a party, huh?"

He flinched, not having seen, sensed or even scented her behind him. He grew annoyed but his facial expression and mood changed when he saw the look before his eyes.

She was wearing a ruby-red satin dress that was elegant and somewhat bizarre in its style; the torso was clad in the bloody color that constantly changed and adapted to its new light from the dim room. The skirt highlighted her tiny waist and reached just below the knees in a subtle waterfall of flames. He noticed that she was a few inches taller than usual and eyed the black, discrete stilettos on her feet.

He looked up to roll his eyes at her appearance, but stopped breathless and a bit ashamed.

Her normally pastel eyes were smoky and made his head spin, because they were so absent and yet weighting their gaze at him. He felt like he'd just underestimated her and growled inside. She wore a mysterious look, and it amazed him how supernatural she seemed just in the silky fabric. Her blonde hair – which had just recently been dyed, he noted, when they were in Chicago – was sat in a nice bun, leaving a straightened lock to rest along her jawline.

The Slayer grinned as she saw his stunned expression. It was a cover-up for something else, he knew, but pretended to see the false nature of her intended face. Her lips were painted, he noted, too, something she did rarely, but had started more recently to do. She was still in denial except for the times, she were sober enough to see through the lies, she kept telling herself.

He sighed. The incident at the Holiday Inn last week she might have forgotten, but he had been the one to flee from the scene with a stumbling, drunken Slayer in his arms. The thought still bothered him, but seeing her like this – socializing, even if it was just to gain information and possibly, booze – was somewhat calming.

"You got something, love?" he asked her as he allowed his eyes to travel over the big crowd in the room; their appetizing scents – everything he couldn't touch, except for hers, and he couldn't do that either – and their moody nature. Humans were more difficult than they'd ever been and part of it was their new sophisticated arrogance.

"Not yet," Buffy reported, her eyes skimming the room again, among the walls, the bar, the dance floor and the tables. Her vision stopped short at the stairs where a small group of people were coming in. Spike had sensed them, too, and knew that not everyone in it was human; at least two were out of place and belonged somewhere else. He could feel their tension and their emotions throll.

She mumbled something under her breath that wasn't audible enough for him, took a glass of champagne from the waiter passing without even flinching or stepping out of her confusion, drowned in one second and spoke to him: "Gotta get a new one," she excused herself and left his side.

He nodded, but she was already gone. Angry of himself for not being able to keep a conversation with her for more than a few seconds when she was like this. He tasted a glass himself and wrenched his face in disgust; the alcohol was high-leveled and plausibly spiked.

They'd be stumbling home at dawn, he decided, and looked at the group again; they had upset the Slayer and he considered them therefore a threat. They had resolved, but the remaining figure made him groan loudly into his glass, gulping the liquor.

What were Angel doing here?

Buffy felt disorientated already; maybe it was the alcohol on her breath – no, she told herself, frowning, she hadn't had that much already – or maybe it was the way the room made her dizzy. Her balance seemed graceful to anyone else, but years from Slayer training – a memory she painfully putted away – had taught her to walk, fight and slay as a feline and sharped her senses. Maybe it was a spell of some kind...

No, you just want it to be. Admit it, you have reached your limit! You can't continue to do this to yourself. They wouldn't have wanted this –

She forced herself to trail off the thought. The memories were too hard for her to go through and instead she focused on her sixth sense. They – she and Spike – had arrived here to slay demons and vampires, not to party; although that was what they were doing.

A song played throughout the room and she tensed as if it'd been an enemy. The past haunted her – quite literally – but she wasn't ready to face Gru'zil yet. He scared her, although she'd never admitted that, to the bone. He made her teeth clench, her spine shiver and mouth stutter. She wasn't scared, no, she was terrified.

Not a worthy feeling for a Slayer to have, the voice in her head said, just as Gru'zil had predicted. If he wasn't the one to find and destroy her, it would be things as fear, fright and terror that would be the ones to end her. That was why she kept drinking even if it meant horrible hangovers and suicidal thoughts: simple fear of fearing, fear of being useless and helpless.

She kept her facade up, according to her fake ID they'd made in Chicago: the 22-year-old Marcy Grimoire was able to protect herself, had a small reputation as a combat instructor and expert in a few martial arts, and, the most important thing: unaware of the demonic and vampiric activities. She smiled ghostly at the name; Marcy had been the name of a girl she once sent to a government program for being invisible.

She wouldn't admit it, but she'd chosen the name of the invisible girl because she wanted to be invisible herself. No more evil than necessary and they had no change of knowing that the Slayer was the one to put a stake through their heart and not just some young woman who'd read an article on the Net about vampires.

So, Marcy Brooklyn Grimoire looked at the crowd and smiled emptily. Grimoire had been a name, she'd chosen to honor her fallen friends and keep her aware of the threat that was constantly tearing her a part; Gru'zil had killed Willow and Tara without blinking because they were her friends and witches at the same time. He had executed them as people had done in Salem during the witch trials and left their corpses for her to find.

Yes, the Grimoire book had been the book, Willow had read aloud to her when she was weak from one of Gru'zil's first attempts to kill her, when he was still weak and vulnerable.

Disguised, she still felt like a walking target for Gru'zil to hit at any time. This was the only way to distract herself. Only difference from her past was that she was running away, the one being chased. She felt lonely and had multiple times been unable to resist herself and almost kissed Spike. That couldn't happen, so she had sought alcohol instead and what a nice, old temptation. She was tipsy during the day and drunk by midnight; she survived, it was cool.

She was ever on the watch for Gru'zil though; never allowed herself to fall in some trap by sleeping with a stranger that would turn out to be one of Gru'zil's minions. This was why her heart now raced and not only because of the liquor on her tongue.

Buffy had seen him. Not him like Gru'zil, but him. The only other existence that made her head spin and her heart rest, feel safe and completely surrender without a fight. She'd seen him, she was sure, but he couldn't see him now. He didn't know she was here and she would like to keep it that way; too many questions. Too many unanswered questions that didn't have any response and would paralyze her and possibly make her cry.

Out there he waited. She could feel him nearing. Angel.

Once a hero, now a coward,

Once a protector, now simply erased

Afraid of being overpowered,

Hoping to flee without being traced.