Seeing Red

Buffy was making Dawn pancakes when the younger girl came into the kitchen.

"So," she said, idly, "If the beastie staking out the house isn't Spike…"

"What do you want?"

"I just thought, maybe, you'd need some help with the patrolling?"

"No."

"What?" Dawn pouted, "That's so unfair."

"Maybe," Buffy agreed, and Dawn's face lit up for a millisecond, until she continued, "But that doesn't change my answer."

Dawn stomped her foot, then, and turned her back on her sister to leave the room, not before shouting over her shoulder. "Spike would have let me!"

"Yeah," Buffy admitted, under her breath, "Don't give me another reason not to like him." Then she sighed and tossed the burnt pancake in the trash.

Willow had the afternoon off, so Buffy got her to try and trace the camera feed.

"You're sure it's not Spike?" the witch asked, tentatively.

"I'm sure," said Buffy, sighing.

"Things aren't going so great, huh?"

"They were," said the Slayer, "Until a couple of words from Xander brought on the doubt parade."

Willow frowned, "Xander's a lovely guy, but you shouldn't pay attention to most of what he says."

"Wasn't his fault, really. I should have known better. I did know better, but…"

"It's done now," Willow interrupted her. "You just gotta find a way to fix it."

Buffy sighed again. She'd sighed so much in the past twenty four hours it was irritating her.

The witch looked at her, "You do wanna fix things, right?"

"I do," she admitted, "But I don't know if I should. I mean, I was wrong, and I hurt him. And I think I'm gonna keep messing up, and keep hurting him, and I don't want that."

"So, what? You're gonna just not try and hurt him anyway?"

"Ugh! I don't know!" she said, wringing her hands. "Can we just focus for a bit? I don't wanna think about it right now."

Willow nodded, and returned to her task. "Bingo!"

"Bingo? Already? Right, who I gotta pummel?"

The witch's face went pale as she turned her laptop screen so Buffy could see. "Trio. They've been spying on us all."

"Damn them!" Buffy shouted, standing up, "Can't even kill them. Bloody humans."

Willow's eyebrows shot up at how much Buffy sounded like Spike. She didn't mention it, though, because the Slayer hadn't seemed to notice.

"Got an address for me? I'll have to shut them down the non-violent way."

"Uh, yeah, sure," Willow said, scribbling it down.

Buffy arrived at the Trio's house to find a suspiciously familiar van sitting outside.

She broke the front door down and started looking around – smashing things up, once she found no-one was in. Taking out all her Spike related frustration she broke apart computer equipment and was about to lay waste to some comic books when heard a whimper.

Turning around she traced the source of the sound to a closet, in which she found Jonathon.

She pulled him out and shoved him against a wall, demanding, "Where are the others?"

"Not here!" he said, emphatically, "I swear."

Buffy glared at him for a moment, then relaxed her stance. "I believe you."

"What are you gonna do?"

She shook her head, "I don't know." Then sighed, and got annoyed, "Why are you with these guys?"

Jonathon shrugged, "It was fun at first, to have friends? Then we got in trouble, and I couldn't get out."

"Well, at least you're honest. Want a way out?"

He nodded. "Okay. Grab your stuff and we'll go. Will get Xander to let you crash at his – he kinda owes me one. And you can help me take down the other two."

Jonathon smiled, "Thank you."

"Yeah, well, I'm in the mood for second chances. If you double cross me, though? So help me I'll find a way around the no killing humans thing. Probably set Spike on you," she mused.

He gulped, "Uh, Buffy. About Spike…"

The slayer glared at him, "What?"

He looked at his shoes, "I'm sorry. You seemed happy."

Her shoulders slumped, and she admitted, "We were."

Feeling genuinely bad for her, and partly responsible, Jonathon decided to try and cheer her up. "Wanna know Warren's plans so you can foil them?" he asked.

A wicked grin appeared across her face, then. "Tell me."

After dropping the boy off with Harris, Buffy triumphantly made her way into her own house- arms full off all the things vital to Warren's evil schemes. Her happiness faded, though, when she realized she had no-one to share it with. Dawn was spending the night at Janice's house, and the witches seemed to be out.

She frowned, feeling sorry for herself, until she heard a noise upstairs.

"Maybe not out after all," she mumbled, setting down the stuff and making her way to the foot of the stairs, shouting up, "Will? You're gonna be so proud of me."

To her outright surprise, Spike appeared at the top of the stairs holding her bathrobe.

"Buffy," was all he could say, before she ran up to him and threw herself in his arms.

Pulling back, they said in unison, "I'm sorry."

"What? No," said the Slayer, "You have nothing to be sorry for. It was my bad. Totally my bad!"

"Can we…" he said, quietly, "Can we pretend it didn't happen?"

"No," Buffy replied, and he looked hurt. "No! No, not like that! I mean, we can't pretend; can't forget, because I wanna learn from it. Need to learn from it. But, if you're asking- if you want… to make up, and give me another chance. I wanna take it. Can't say no to you, remember?"

He opened his mouth to answer her, but suddenly there was too much to say, and he just pushed it all down and kissed her needily. "Can't say no to you either."

After minutes of kissing and touching Buffy finally registered a thought and pulled out of the embrace.

"Umm, why do you have my bathrobe?"

"Oh, uh..." he laughed, nervously. "Was gonna run you a bath. Try and make things up to you."

"Aww!" she said, hugging him close again, before untangling herself and leading him by the hand to her bedroom.

"Rather make things up in he-" see continued, but the rest of the sentence died on her lips as she opened the door to find the room full of candles and hundreds of red roses.

"Spike, this is amazing!"

Ducking his head he asked, "You really like it?"

"Yes!" she shouted, "I love it. I… I love you."

They stared at each other in shock, then. It was the first time she'd admitted it out loud.

Spike was speechless, but eventually Buffy spoke again, reassuring him that she meant it.

Once more they kissed, and held each other tight. Not even noticing when someone started shouting outside.

That's when the single bullet flew through the window, shattering the glass, passing through Spike and embedding itself deep in Buffy's chest.

To be continued...