I have decided that I want my fic to use the same villain of season 8 however I want to create different emotional story lines for the characters, different scenarios. Let's just see how it pans out shall we?

* * *

Buffy had been listening through the door, rather than making an entrance she chose to be covert. She was confused, unsure if she was remaining in LA or going back to Rome, when she heard Giles exiting the room she made herself scarce. She wasn't entirely sure if she was going to confront Angel or just wait. In the end she decided to retreat to her room, she didn't really have much to add to their conversation anyway. She was ready to just stay away from everyone, especially Spike. After so many months of pining after him he was back, and they spent the night together and she was so confused her head felt as though it was full of bricks. Buffy had never been good and deciding what she wanted, her brain and heart always had conflicting opinions, and it was even worse when it came to the loves of her life. None of her relationships had been simple, not even what she had been doing with the Immortal. She had been laying on her bed staring at the ceiling when she heard a knock at the door. Looking towards the door she watched as Willow entered the room. Her best friend had blood over her clothes, she assumed from Gunn and the other wounded.

"How is he?" Buffy asked sitting up, Willow joining her on the bed.

"I was able to heal the most fatal of his wounds but everything else is up to him. He almost fully drained me" The red head said as she slumped against the wall looking exhausted.

"Everyone has seen better days. So I was thinking, maybe it's time I see the operation that is going on in Scotland, oversee it, train them" She hadn't thought about it for more than a second when she suggested it to Willow. She had barely just arrived back in LA and already she was thinking of leaving, running more like it, Buffy never had a good handle on what she wanted.

"Buffy we just got here...plus I don't think we're done here yet...and isn't Faith in charge of Scotland?" Willow said looking concerned, she had battled alongside her best friend and she had seen the look on her face when she saw Spike. Willow had to admit it was a shock to her as well, she had no idea he was alive but she didn't expect Buffy to run off so quickly.

"Faith moved on to Germany, something about the party scene being better" Buffy hadn't really been involved with the various slayer operations that were going on around the world unless Giles or someone else made her aware. Rome is where she had initially set up and she didn't want to go back there.

"Oh, I don't know if you've thought this throught, I mean...if this is about Spike–"

"It's not!" She quickly interjected even though they both knew it was.

"It so is, tell me, what's up?" Willow said patting her friends back, encouraging her to share.

Buffy wasn't going to be able to avoid this one, Willow was becoming tougher and tougher with the not letting her bottle things up. Which was fair considering Willow wasn't necessarily always around these days. In fact LA was the first time she had seen her best friend in person in about a month. Magic type business taking her across the world frequently, as well as Kennedy.

"It's nothing, really. We kind of spent the night together" She said averting her eyes and finding her hands suddenly interesting.

"There is nothing wrong with that, I mean you're two consenting adults, well he's more like an ancestor but you get what I mean" Willow rambled, she never really grappled how to handle the Spike and Buffy situation.

"No, not like that...he just held me and we talked and I didn't know how to feel. Everything is still so confusing, I finally knew how I felt about him then he died...and now he's back and those feelings haven't changed but things have become more complicated."

"Wasn't everything with you guys kind of complicated? First no soul, then a soul, you constantly fighting evil and your own demons. It's not like you two were ever going to be Mr and Mrs happy family"

Buffy took a deep breath and looked back at her friend. "Believe me I know that, he knows it, we both know it. It's not like I can ask him to just follow me back to Rome so we can be together"

"He would though"
"He's like a puppy dog that way, a blood lusting puppy, he has a life here and it's a life I wasn't meant to be in" It was a painful realisation but he had also came to the same conclusion in regards to her and her new life.

"You can't know that, and do you really think going to Scotland is going to help?"

"I don't know, but I can't stay here this isn't my town, it's Angel's"

"One city and the only two vampires you've ever loved. Maybe you're right, maybe leaving is a better idea" Willow said acknowledging the complicated nature of Buffy's predicament.

"I think, I need to find somewhere I belong, Sunnydale was that but now it's a crater and Rome, just I don't know didn't feel right. So I'll just go to all the mystical hot spots around the world until I find somewhere I fit" She concluded with a firm nod of the head.

"You belong places, you know wherever we are, that's where you belong"

"So does that mean you'll come with?" She said hopefully.

"If you decide this is what you need to do then I'll come"

"Thanks Will, I knew I could count on you." She reached to hug her friend.

"You can always count on me, you should get some rest." Willow left her friend alone, hoping she'd sort her issues out but she knew Buffy too well and she didn't work that way. So she was going to tell Xander he was going to Scotland.

Xander Harris was not a complex man, in fact he was quite simple when it came down to it yet some how he always found himself in amongst the most complicated situations. He loved his friends, there was no denying that but he always wondered what would have his life been like had he befriended the high school jocks rather than the slayer and the most powerful witch. None of that was his concern right now because he was busy dreaming a heroes dream, well not so much heroic but it involved several slayers clambering to get his touch. Willow couldn't help but smile when she found Xander asleep, he was clutching his pillow tightly and drooling slightly. If she listened carefully she could hear him mumbling in his sleep, she always wondered what exciting dreams he was dreaming, sitting on the edge of his bed she gently began to coo his name in an attempt to wake up. Instead the only reaction she got was him mumbling something and rolling over. Sighing she knew she'd have to go back to the old way of waking him up.

"Xander there's a demon in your bed!" She yelled.

Immediately Xander's eye shot open and he was up, looking for the demon and ready to fight. When he noticed there was no demon and only Willow he scowled at her. "It's not funny to play witch who cried demon" He said sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eye.

"It is pretty funny though, especially to see your reaction" Her cheeky grin was still on her face and Xander couldn't stay mad at her.

"Is that blood? What's going on?" He said studying Willow's clothing a bit harder, had he missed something since their battle, he wasn't sure.

"Oh? This? It's Gunn's blood, remember mortally wounded, save the world, battles and all that jazz" She said looking down at her dress which was now completely ruined.

"Oh that old song and dance, it's like I have it on repeat." He adjusted his shirt and sat up a bit more to face Willow. "So what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"Oh you know the usual, Buffy crisis" She said flippantly, it wasn't the worst thing they had faced but it was a formidable foe.

"Crisis and Buffy in the same sentence, how unusual" He said sarcastically, the amount of times they had been saving Buffy from personal crisis lately had increased exponentially. "So what is it this time? Can't find her favourite top? Someone made fun of her hair?" Xander had completely blanked on the Spike factor, he was still half asleep.

"More like she saw Spike and now she wants to move to Scotland" Willow said seriously.

"Scotland? Haggis, kilts and bag pipes Scotland? Has she gone insane!?" Xander said waking up quickly.

"That'd be the one, I think Buffy has been insane for a long time" She concluded.

"Why Scotland of all places...couldn't she have picked somewhere...nicer? Rome, Rome was nice. Sunny, had women, and pizza, lots of pizza"

"I don't think Buffy can go back there, she kinda ran out on the immortal to come back here"

"Aw poor immortal, he made good pancakes" Xander wasn't best friends with the guy in fact he was always weary of someone who couldn't die but it wasn't as though he was a bad guy. "We need more guys in our gang" Being surrounded by females all the time wasn't always bad and Andrew was no substitute for an actual guy friend, something Xander hadn't had in a long time.

"Sweetie we'll find you a boyfriend" Willow said with a small smirk as Xander slumped his shoulders and frowned.
"So basically Buffy is avoiding the problem as per usual and not talking to Spike?"

"That would be it"

"Scotland huh, she better not make me wear a kilt"

Buffy was trying to rest, but every now and then she'd roll over and one of the ribs that was cracked would cause her pain. Finally as she had found a position where she was in the least amount of pain she could hear someone bursting into the room. She kept her eyes shut and hoped whoever it was would realise this room was taken and walk back out. When she didn't hear the door reopen she covered her eyes with her arm. really not wanting to get up. Everyone had told her to rest and she couldn't if people were going to continue coming in and out of her room. "Whoever it is in here can you please go, I'm sleeping"

"That wasn't very nice you know, leavin me there in a sunlit building"

"Spike" Buffy groaned, removing her arm from her face to look at him. He looked slightly dishevelled and the bruises from the battle had only got worse.

"Yeah it's me slayer, can't just run off like that, not now that you came back" He straightened out his leather jacket and pulled a cigarette from a crumpled packet.

"You're the one that came back, you know from being dead"

"Was already dead love, for the record we're on par you and me. Died twice, heroes deaths" He lit the cigarette and inhaled.

"Do you have to do that...in here?" Buffy said exaggerating the effects the smoke was having on her by coughing.

"I got to keep up appearances, bad boy image you know" He said walking closer to the bed.

"Pretty poor excuse for a bad boy" She said as she sat against the wall.

"You take that back" He said inspecting her belongings, she still was the same. Same clothes, same attitude, she was still his Buffy.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well last time I checked I lived here, so I should be asking what you're doing here" He sat himself on the edge of the bed and took another drag. "So, we just going to forget about last nigh, go back to this old game?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about" She lied, she knew exactly what he was talking about but she wasn't exactly ready to confront the issues.

"Can't just come back into town pet and sleep with a guy and expect him to ignore it"

"Most other guys would"

"I'm not most guys now am I" He stated looking at her over his shoulder.

"That's very true"

"I thought we were past games Buffy" He said seriously.

"You know I didn't ask for this" She really hadn't, she had just expected to keep mourning him until one day she no longer mourned him.

"You think I did? It was no stroll in the park for me. One minute I was dying a heroes death, in a hell dimension of sorts then next thing you know I'm back all see through and such but back. I really thought that was it for me. But you know can't let a bugger rest in peace these days"

"I know, this is a surprise for both of us...I just don't know what to do"

"You, the chosen one, doesn't know what to do? I'm shocked" He said with a smirk, turning to face her.

"If you hadn't noticed I'm not the only one these days"

"You're the original though, always be the only slayer to me love. So what do we do now?"

"Well rest and then see what's next, you know the usual, research, train attack, prevent the end of the world"

"I meant about us"

"I know what you meant, I was just avoiding it because nothing with us was ever simple" She said her tone changing.

"No it wasn't" He chuckled before continuing. "That's what made it great"
"It's not as though you and I can ever have the kind of relationship where we raise a small family and live the dream" She said trying to suss out what it was he wanted from her.

This caused Spike to laugh a little harder. "Sometimes you really don't know me at all. When did I ever give you the impression that's what I wanted?"

He had a point, he never lead her to believe he wanted a normal relationship, considering it was impossible.

"Look, I can't predict the future, and if the past is anything to go by there is pain in our cards. But that was us, that's what we liked, wasn't it? Fighting side by side, killin demons then hidin in the shadows til the next battle" He finished his cigarette and stomped it out on the floor. "If that isn't what you want then maybe you're right, maybe we should just get out of each others way but we have history and there's fire there you can't deny it. Not as though you're ever going to have a normal love life...being a slayer kind of changes things"

"You think I hadn't noticed?" She said arching an eye brow.

"Come to me when you know what you want, but I can't hang around until then. It hurts me just as much as it hurts you" He stood and looked at her sweetly before leaving.

Buffy sighed, it felt like old times, at least once a week she and Spike would have a similar conversation back in the day. She struggled to put a label on what it was they had and in all honesty she thought labels just complicated things, especially when you were trying to put a label on something with a vampire. Most of the time he was gone she wanted nothing more than for him to come back but she never really believed that he would. It wasn't as though there were people who wanted to bring him back, she was kind of the only one and she didn't know the magic or have the skill to bring him back so it was left at that. Except he was back and she was confused, she wanted him, she loved him that much she could deduce. However she wasn't sure if being with him was the right thing to do which is why she was looking at running off to Scotland. Buffy could already hear Spike's protests to the thought and now she was beginning to think she wouldn't even tell him, just leave. The blonde heaved a sigh and wished really hard that she would fall in love with someone normal. Shame it would be one sided, being the slayer always complicated things. At least with Spike he understood her loneliness and for the most part he understood her. In a huff she through her pillow at the wall. Sitting here and dwelling on things wasn't doing her any good, she needed to train. She hoped Angel had a sparring room.

* * *

"Is it ready?"

"Not quite, we have our best warlocks working on it but the amount of time you want us to track the slayer is impossible" A demon knelt in the shadows, talking to a higher power, unsure of what the plans were exactly but knew that he was on the right side of the battle.

"It is possible and you'll get it done. Wolfram and Hart could only keep up the charade so long, it is good that you attacked when you did. It bought me more time" The voice was deep and commanding.

"I don't understand what it is you want us to do, she has stopped the apocalypse three times now, what makes now the time to strike?"

"We aren't striking now, that would be foolish. For now we are just putting things in motion. The witch, have you convinced her to join our cause?"

"I have someone on the case now, shouldn't be too hard considering her relationship to the one they call Willow" He said with a smirk.

"Excellent, now leave me. I have much to prepare" The demon rose and bowed his head as he left the room. The figure remained shrouded in the shadows thinking to himself about the impending victory that he could feel in his bones. The first had set things up, well really given him the proper motivation to begin things. A year ago he wouldn't have dreamt taking down the slayer well slayers was possible but now it was just a matter of getting the pieces in place.