Buffy had dozed on and off for the rest of the night. At some point, Spike must have picked up a bottle of bourbon, or maybe there'd been one in the jumble of bottles in the back of the car, and he'd been steadily drinking for the last 100 miles or so. She kept shooting him little glances, trying to decide if it would be better or worse to say something. She decided worse, since he stalwartly refused to look at her.

Eventually, he took one of the exits in North Platte, Nebraska, of all places. A glance at the clock showed her they'd been driving for almost 24 hours straight. Hopefully he was ready to pull over.

"'M bushed," Spike confirmed, slurring his words, as he cruised the town checking out the motels. He settled on the seediest, most deserted one he could find, and after a few moments in the lobby, returned to the DeSoto, driving around back. The second-floor room they were in faced an open field cornfield, and the entire parking lot was deserted except for a small cluster of motorbikes at the complete opposite end.

He barely allowed her a moment to stretch before patting the only bed in the room. "C'mere," he mumbled. "Need to get you tied up. Can't have you bein' a bad girl while I sleep".

Seeing the state he was in, Buffy tensed to run, sure this was the opportunity she'd been waiting for, but he was on her in a flash, pinning her to the bed. "Said can' have you bein' bad," he repeated as he efficiently tied her wrists behind her back and her ankles together. "You're mine. My pretty li'l Slayer. You stay with me. Always stay with me".

Buffy wasn't sure if he even knew what he was saying, but his incoherence didn't seem to extend to his thorough securing of the room. He ripped the phone out of the wall, rendering it useless, tossed the spindly chair outside and over the balcony (there go my stakes, she thought), shut the blinds tight, and then collapsed next to her, pulling her into his embrace and holding her tightly, one leg thrown over her for good measure. Buffy was completely trapped.

"Buffy… stay…" he said into her neck as he nuzzled her closer and fell almost instantly into a deep sleep.

How long am I going to be stuck like this? she wondered under his dead weight. Before long, however, his grip on her relaxed, and she was able to worm her way out from under him. She lay on her side, panting from the exertion, carefully considering her options.

This was the moment she'd been waiting for, she knew it. Since he was unrelentingly determined to kill her, she had to make a break for it. Although tied up, she wasn't secured to the bed in any way. If she were careful, she could move about. Spike had never looked as dead as he did at the moment. She could probably blow a trumpet in his ear without waking him. Nevertheless, she remembered the last time she'd thought him fast asleep. She had to be very cautious.

Okay, then. Things to take into account. She was as weak as any woman, thanks to Spike impassively administering another injection of Cruciamentum drugs during a pit stop earlier in the day. Her hands were tied behind her back, and he'd tied them somehow so she couldn't slip them down over her legs and to the front. That restricted their usefulness, plus her ankles were also bound, guaranteeing she'd have limited mobility. And he still had the ring, making him invulnerable even to the blazing afternoon sun.

Even if she could get out the door without waking him, how far away was she likely to get before his predator senses woke him up and had him after her? With his pesky new tolerance of the sun and sharp pointy bits of wood, she didn't have a chance.

First order of business: try to slip the ring off his finger. Without that bit of jewelry, her options for evading him or killing him increased dramatically. Luck was on her side; the ring was on the hand that was next to her body. All she had to do was flip over and slip it off from behind her back. Easy peasy!

Several frustrating minutes later, the ring was still on his finger. She'd managed to glide it to the first knuckle, but it was stuck there. It needed lubricant to slip off. Steeling herself, she flipped back over and wormed her way down the bed, then spit on his finger. She did it again for good measure. When she'd repositioned herself, this time the ring came off with a few twisty tugs. She froze as Spike muttered and reached for her, wrapping his arm over her, but within moments he relaxed again.

She tucked the ring inside her back pocket. First step achieved! Now what? Could she kill him? In her weakened state and with her hands behind her back, she didn't see how. She hadn't the strength to either rip a piece of wood off the furniture for a stake, or to plunge it in. And was this cheap motel furniture even wood? She couldn't be sure. Better to not attempt it. She ran through the other methods for dusting a vamp. No way to decapitate him. Even though he'd closed the blinds, the sun wasn't actually shining in this window. She was fresh out of holy water. So dusting him wasn't an option.

She heard herself sigh with disgruntled amazement. Did she actually feel relieved she couldn't kill him? Ridiculous.

Since killing him wasn't likely, running away seemed like the best bet. This could be done. Hop to the door. Open it. Hop outside, down the corridor. Slide down the stairs, and into the sun. He wouldn't be able to reach her there, not now that she had the ring. Surely she could get that far before he realized she was gone.

She set to it. Wriggle to the edge of the bed. Check. Prop yourself upright. Check. Hop quietly to the door. Check. Opening the door backwards proved to be a challenge, but she managed it. Despite being weaker than normal, she was still agile and athletic. The door creaked a little, but Spike didn't stir.

She glided silently through the crack she'd created, using her weight as a ballast to keep the door from slamming shut behind her. No waiting now to see if he'd woken, no need to be quiet. Her legs quivered as she hopped as quickly as possible to the staircase, then she sat down and scooted down the steps one at a time, like a baby learning to go down the stairs.

Just as she reached the bottom, a door opened on the far end of the motel, next to the motorbikes. A scruffy, greasy man stepped outside, but he didn't see her. His unkempt appearance made her nervous, but she consoled herself with the thought that he couldn't be any worse than the demon she was fleeing.

She wrenched herself upwards and hopped away from the building, into the sun-drenched parking lot. Hop hop hop. Scruffy saw her. He didn't say a word, just watched her. "Help?" Buffy ventured.

"Hey! Donny! Mal! Lookee what we got here!" Two other men stepped out of the door Scruffy had exited. They made him look positively dapper.

Buffy had a bad feeling. An out of the frying pan and into the fire feeling, based on the way they were looking at her. Hop hop hop. She headed the other way. "You know what guys, I think I've got things covered," she called out. "I don't need help after all".

A glance over her shoulder told her she wasn't going to be so lucky. "That's not a very nice way to treat your rescuers," Scruffy said from behind her.

"She's like a pretty little present, all wrapped up for us to open up and play with," Scruffier added, his predatory smile showing off a mouth full of blackened stumps for teeth. "We gonna have some fun! Who d'you think left her here for us?"

"She's not for you!" a voice roared, and abruptly Spike was at the second floor walkway in full game face, snarling bestially. "She's MINE!" The men, who had been about to close in on Buffy, backed off as Spike vaulted to the sunlit railing, but paused in their retreat when he fell back, screaming in agony as his flesh began to burn.

"SLAYER!" he howled in indignation. "Where is it?"

Her newest captors, realizing the beast was trapped by the light, had taken hold of her and began dragging her, thrashing and flailing, towards their bikes.

"I have your ring!" she screamed to Spike.

"Hush, cunt, or we gonna fuck you up!" someone snarled in her ear, fetid breath washing over her, and she realized in that moment that these humans were far worse monsters than the vampire she'd escaped from.

"Spike! Help!" she called to him. "I'll give it back to you, please, just – owww!" she cried out as one of them punched her in the mouth.

Suddenly, Spike was there, shiny threadbare motel comforter over his head, bellowing a war cry and knocking down bodies. "In my back pocket!" Buffy gasped. The comforter blanketed her in darkness, and sizzling, smoking skin pressed up against her face as Spike thrust his hands into her pockets. She could feel the lump of the ring slide out, and then the comforter was thrown away and Spike stood there, legs spread apart, hands on hips.

"What part of mine didn't you understand?" he asked dangerously, yellow eyes gleaming with an unholy light. Buffy was so relieved he was there, she didn't even care about the disturbingly possessive statement. The terrified men began to flee and Spike laughed, a chilling sound.

Then he was after them. She closed her eyes, unwilling to witness the carnage. She tried to bring herself to care that there was a vicious vampire slaughtering humans before her very tightly squeezed eyes, but she couldn't. As the sounds of screaming died away, the terror she'd felt washed out of her, and her whole body shuddered and quaked, tears streaming down her face.

Before she knew it, strong arms were scooping her up, holding her close to a body that smelled of smoke and blood, and she sobbed limply in his arms. "I don't want to die! I don't want to be raped and I don't want to die! I want to live and I want to see my mom and my friends and Giles," she blubbered. "Is that really so unreasonable?"

There was no answer. She felt Spike carry her into the motel room and ease himself slowly down onto the bed, holding her tightly and stroking her hair. Buffy continued crying, aware of the paradox of taking comfort from the one who was holding her against her will.

Her crying slowed, and she grasped the elusive thought that Spike had saved her. Still limp against him, she asked, "Why did you rescue me?"

She could feel him shifting uneasily beneath her. "You're mine to kill, aren't you?"

"Is that all?" she hiccupped.

He held her tighter. "No". He lowered his lips to her brow, placed a soft kiss on it, left his mouth resting there. "You're just mine," he said against her skin.

"I'm not," she protested weakly. "Not yours. I won't belong to you".

"I know. But it's my fault you can't protect yourself from garbage like that. Makes you my responsibility".

"Oh". She shivered as their leering faces loomed over her again. "I didn't care that you killed them," she confessed into his chest, feeling like the worst Slayer ever.

"Don't. They'd given up their humanity long ago, luv. If monsters like that have souls, they're as black as the deepest hell and not worth anything". She shivered again at his words.

Spike placed her upon the bed and undid the ropes binding her, rubbing her still-bandaged wrists tenderly. He lay down next to her and pulled the remaining blankets over them, then tucked her into his arms and stroked her hair soothingly, trying to calm her shaking. Buffy yawned, overcome with adrenaline letdown. "Thanks. For saving me. You're not such a bad vampire," she murmured sleepily.

She quickly fell asleep, so she didn't hear him say, "For you".


Spike woke hours later to find the Slayer still sleeping, cuddled in his arms. He bit back a smile. The Big Bad didn't smile like a foolish git because his mortal enemy was warm and pliant in his arms. Warm and pliant and safe and alive.

He gave an involuntary growl and tensed as the memory of what had happened earlier returned to him, then forced himself to relax with a tortured sigh. He knew he was well and truly buggered. He'd told the Slayer she was his, his to control, his to protect, but the truth was, he was hers now. Any lingering misconceptions that he intended to kill her had flown right out the window when those fools had tried to hurt her.

He smiled coldly as he recalled his retaliation. The disquieting feelings he'd been fighting all night had left him spoiling for a good fight and a good kill. Those ill-begotten tossers had provided him with both. They weren't his usual sort of prey, but fresh hot blood was fresh hot blood, and he'd felt no twinge of guilt at making a meal of them.

He hadn't killed since Tahoe, despite having taken a few meals on the way. Thinking of Joyce despairing over her daughter had led him to wonder about other mothers who might feel grief over their children, the ones he might have made meals of. He didn't feel remorse, or guilt, not at all, but he did decide he didn't mind saving them from that grief. He had a bit of a soft spot for loving mothers, truth be told, even if he'd never let it affect his demonic nature before. It wasn't something he would readily admit to.

Not killing was just another change in the fantastic sea of transformations that had been happening to him in the last week. Spike had no idea what it meant, or if it was permanent, but he decided at that very moment to stop fighting the strange urges to change and see where they led him.

The question was what to do now. He had no intention of taking Buffy to Drusilla. He didn't want to just let her go, either. There was something happening between them, he felt sure of it, but he suspected that if she returned to her life in Sunnydale, her mates and her Watcher would poison her mind against him all over again, and whatever this was would be over.

What terrified him and exhilarated him at the same time was the knowledge that it wasn't lust he felt for her any longer, but more, and he hoped she might feel it too. His earlier plans of getting her to beg him to shag her seemed laughable. He had a much loftier goal to shoot for.

He wanted her to love him.

He knew it was a pipe dream, but he was as much love's bitch as ever and he couldn't help but try for the impossible.

So he had to keep her with him. Would she stay voluntarily, or did he need to keep up the charade of keeping her captive? He didn't know. She'd said she wanted to travel, see the sights. Would she let him take her?


"If you could go anywhere in the States, where would it be?" he asked over an early morning breakfast in a small diner the next day.

"Hawai'i," came the answer.

"Anywhere we could drive," he amended.

She gave him a curious look, but quickly rattled off, "New York City. The museums in Chicago. Graceland. The Grand Canyon. Yellowstone. Mardi Gras. Cape Canaveral. A big amusement park".

Spike chuckled, his blue eyes flashing in amusement. "Given this some thought, have you?"

"I used to plan family vacations," she admitted sheepishly, trailing the pancake on her fork through a puddle of syrup. "Back when I still believed Dad would take us on one". She studied him. "Why?"

"What if took you on one? Did a bit of sight-seeing like you want?" he said carefully, neutrally, keeping his eyes on the pancake he was currently dousing with hot sauce.

"Another detour? A Make-A-Wish gift to the soon-to-be-dead girl?"

"Summat like that," he replied casually. "What would you say?"

Buffy gave an incredulous laugh. "I'd say you were the strangest vampire I'd ever met and a whole heap crazier than I thought". His face closed off, and she added, "But if you were serious, I wouldn't say no". She waved her unbound hands in his face. "Especially if I can stay rope-free girl".

He gave her a severe look. "Only if you swear not to try to run away again. Or stake me. We can have fun, like I promised you before".

"You mean, if I pretend you're my friend and not my captor?" Spike shrugged. "And again I can't help but wonder, why?"

"Feel bad you've never gone anywhere when you so obviously want to". She cocked an eyebrow at him and he said, "S'true. A girl shouldn't die 'till she's seen a bit of the world".

"Well, by all means, make me your charity project and soothe your troubled conscience. Where do I get to go?"