A/N: So I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue this or not, but it got a surprisingly good reception so I decided that it couldn't hurt to write a bit more, since I definitely love Spuffy!

Enjoy =).

She couldn't shake it off, couldn't escape the feeling that she was missing something incredibly obvious.

Her friends had noticed her distraction over the last couple days and had mentioned it, each of them offering a listening ear or whatever she needed. She appreciated their concern - or at least she felt she should appreciate it - but there was nothing they could do. They didn't understand. None of them had killed their first love, driven their second away, and then watched their third sacrifice himself to save the world. Sure, they had experiences loss, but there wasn't a one of them that had felt the same depths of loneliness and hopelessness that Buffy felt. They didn't understand - they couldn't.

Ever since...well, everything that had happened in Sunnydale, Buffy had been distancing herself. Sure, she worked with the new Slayers, training them and honing their abilities, but she was never fully emotionally present even when she was physically there. It reminded of her of how she had felt after being ripped out of heaven - only half alive, like she was a sleepwalker just waiting to be woken into real life again.

Spike had helped her overcome that feeling the first time.

After losing him, Buffy had lost the will to care again. What was the point in making more friends, in being emotionally vulnerable? She was the Slayer, and she did what she had to do, and suffered loss because of it. Nothing in her job description said she had to care.

A crypt loomed in front of her, the large building eerily familiar. It was the same one from a couple nights ago, the one she had found when she had been stabbed. On closer inspection with a brain no longer clouded with pain, the facade didn't look nearly as identical to Spike's dwelling in Sunnydale as she remembered, but there were definite similarities and she could see how she could have easily confused it in the moment. Besides, it wasn't like crypt architects were terribly creative with their work.

Absently, her fingers found their way into her pocket and brushed against the strip of black fabric that had covered her wound. It was soaked in blood - her blood - but she hadn't been able to throw it out. Everything she had seen and heard that night...it was all impossible. She understood that, understood that Spike was gone. But she couldn't deny that someone had taken care of her wound, and she meant to find out who. That was why she was here - her wandering had unconsciously brought her to the place that held so many questions and a tiny, itty-bitty sliver of hope.

She was sure it was just wishful thinking. The same wishful thinking that had transformed the crypt into the one Spike had lived in in Sunnydale had transformed the person who aided her into Spike. That was it.

Still, she hesitated in front of the entrance, loath to enter and have her suspicions confirmed. Hope was a rare emotion for her with her type of lifestyle and she wasn't eager to destroy this tiny shred. However, she didn't know which would be worse - knowing that he was still gone, or finding out that he wasn't and that he hadn't even told her…?

But she was the Slayer, and she wasn't going to back down that easily, no matter how destructive the truth could prove to be.

Buffy took a deep breath and strode through the entrance.

…

Footsteps.

Spike raised his head at the sound and inhaled deeply, allowing himself to drown briefly in the scent that he had both been anticipating and dreading at the same time. Buffy. She'd come back for him.

For the last two days, Spike had been in agony. Seeing her again for that brief, tantalizing moment had awakened his barely-buried desires again, and he had been unable to get her off his mind.

Part of him exalted in knowing that she had returned to try and find him. It meant she still cared, that there may still be a place for him in her heart. At the same time, though, he resented the circumstances that had made him reveal himself to her, forcing his hand. The reason he had sought her out was for her own protection, not to drag her back into the whirlwind of emotion that surrounded them whenever they were together. She couldn't afford that kind of distraction, that special kind of darkness he represented.

"Spike?" Buffy's voice called out as her cautious footsteps approached where he was hiding. The sound of his name on her lips nearly made him groan, but he restrained himself with difficulty. "Look, I don't have time to play hide-and-seek."

Though he couldn't see her, Spike could almost hear her put her hands on her hips and it wasn't hard to imagine how she would look - one hip out, steely eyes glaring into the darkness. The mental image made him smile despite his effort to stay stoic.

"In fact, I have so many more important things to do than hang out in a smelly crypt and wait for a twice-dead vampire to stop playing games and come out and talk."

Spike raised an eyebrow in silent irritation. Smelly crypt? Well sorry if I haven't had time to redecorate and do some spring cleaning.

"Look at me, I'm talking to an empty crypt," he distinctly heard Buffy mutter under her breath. "Maybe Willow's right. Maybe I am working too hard." Then, louder, she added, "I guess I'll just be on my way, then." The sound of footsteps resumed, and then there was silence.

Rolling his eyes, Spike didn't move. Who did she think he was? He wasn't some newly-born vamp who would fall for such a simple trick like that - he knew she was still there. Her scent alone would have alerted him to that fact.

"Fine. You win." This time he could tell that she was actually walking towards the exit and he breathed a sigh of relief. He had been counting on the fact that Buffy would want him to come out himself instead of her searching through every corner of the structure to find him, and his hunch had turned out correctly.

A scream split the silence. Buffy's scream.

Spike was moving before the sound had even cut off, his long black duster billowing out behind him as he dropped from the rafters, landed heavily, and rounded the corner at a desperate sprint. If something had made Buffy scream at that pitch, then it was bad. Bad enough that it scared her, and Spike wouldn't let her face it by…

He spotted Buffy standing by the doorway, a stunned look on her face. But she was looking at him. And there was no evil demon about to suck the life from her.

Spike slowed to a stop a couple feet in front of her. "That was a bloody dirty trick, Slayer," he forced out somehow, although he felt like there was a weight constricting his chest at the sight of her staring at him, hurt written all over her face.

"Spike," she whispered, disbelief colouring her voice. "I'm going to kill you."

He chuckled at her empty threat, born more out of her irritation for him than any desire for violence. "I missed you too, love."

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