Chapter 4

Faith was like nothing he had ever seen before. She was a woman full of sex and rage, and a love of life that was unmatched. But more then that, he saw a connection. Buffy was always the good one, she never needed to redeem herself. Angel had redemption thrust upon him, and spent hundreds of years brooding and making up for past mistakes. But Faith, well she was a whole different story. She was just like Spike, both traveling down a path of evil and both making a conscious decision to seek redemption and fight in the side of the angels, no pun intended. Spike felt a little more at ease around Faith, and he felt that feeling was mutual.

" So how long have you been back?" Faith asked.

" Not to long." Spike replied, " Just a few months or so."

" Why keep it a secret? Thought the first thing you'd do was catch the first flight right back to Buffy's bed?"

" Can't say I didn't think about. Hell I even tried, but I was all ghosty for a bit."

" Well you sure aint all ghosty now?"

" Did you come to chat or to fight?"

" Hey, just making small talk. If the big bad don't wanna talk, I'm cool."

" Sorry. Buffy is still a sore spot for me. An' I'm still not much on sodding emotional stuff."

" You're preaching to the choir here man. That's why I never really paled around with the scooby gang."

" I feel a "but" coming in there somewhere."

" Well after we left Sunnydale, me and B started hanging. And you know how she can drag all the heart to heart crap outta ya."

" Yeah, used to think it was some kind of slayer power of some kind."

" If it is, I'm glad it skipped me. But anyways we started getting closer. So she would tell me how much she was hurting when you were gone. So I know for a fact that she would have wanted you to look her up when you came back."

Spike was starting to feel bad. Hell even he knew he should have made some contact to let them all know that he back. But it just felt like it was the right move to start working on building his own life. A few minutes passed before Spike finally said something again.

" I wanted to." Spike said with a shy kind of voice. " I just felt that I needed to work on my own life. Buffy was so important to me, but when I went out the hero, and she told me she loved me, it seemed it best to leave things as they were. She moved on, cried, loved, lived. Now it was my turn. I knew I would let everyone now sooner or later.

" Fair enough." Faith said.

" What's that up ahead?" Spike asked as he point to something in the distance.

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Buffy and Angel sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Angel knew he was going to have to tell her about Nina, and he had no idea how Buffy was going to take it. He couldn't delay it any longer, he took a deep breath and he left it out.

" I'm seeing someone." both Buffy and Angel said at the same time.

Both of them just stared at each other for a second with mouths hanging open in shock Then with out warning, both of them just started to laugh uncontrollably. Once they both regained they're composure they began to talk again.

" What's her name?" Buffy asked.

" Nina." Angel said. " She's nice, a werewolf, but a nice girl."

" That's good. I'm happy for you."

" What about you? You doing alright?"

" Yeah, he's a good guy. His name is Marc, his the older brother of one of the newer slayer's."

" That's good."

Buffy and Angel just sat back in silence. Again.

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Illyria was standing in the middle of the ally; she was surrounded by mangled demon corpse's. Spike and Faith approached the little blue god.

" Workin' out some aggressions eh blue?" Spike said

"Spike." Illyria said, " I was..."

" Concerned?" Spike said cutting her off, " Yeah I know, Buffy told me. Looks like you're becoming more human everyday."

"The emotion sickens me. Makes me feel weaker."

" Wouldn't know buy looking at your handy work." Faith interjected.

" You are one of those vampire slayer's." Illyria said, cocking her head and staring at Faith " Those demons were from the army. They're deaths brought me little pleasure."

" It brought them none." Spike muttered.

" I feel Fred's memories and feeling's slowly bleeding into me. I want them to stop...but.."

" At the same time you don't." Spike said, cutting off the blue haired goddess, " Being more human is not a bad thing luv, infact it may end up helping you."

" So many feelings flooding into me. I need time."

" We were about to head back to the hotel. You should come, get some rest. It will give you the time you want."

" I will except your offer." Illyria finally said.

The three of them headed back towards the hotel. Spike had a lot on his mind the whole walk home. Faith was right earlier, he should have at least called or something to let Buffy know that he was back. He decided that he should man up and let her know that he was sorry for keeping it a secret for so long. Now he just had to figure out why he was starting to feel a growing attraction for Illyria. But before he could mentally go down that road any further, they arrived back at the hotel. As the walked in, Spike saw her standing there by the front desk, like she was waiting for him. He knew he was going to get another ear full, no way was Dawn going to let him off the hook for not calling.