Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, California, 2000
Stolen coat draped over the open car door, Spike sat smoking through "Mood Indigo" in his shirtsleeves, watching the slowly emerging stars through the paint-smeared windshield, a waxing gibbous moon barely over the jagged horizon.
Inside the Center, the hijacked Junior High Jazz Band was now attempting "Serenade in Blue." The brunette giving it her all behind the mike wasn't half bad.
As "Serenade" eased into "String of Pearls" Spike flipped the butt of the menthol onto the asphalt, where it glowed unheeded as he stood up, slid back into his coat, gritty ash and broken glass lining the bottoms of the pockets, and slammed the car door shut behind him before walking in the back door of the Center.
Where, with thorns and broken glass in his hair and Buffy glowering at him from beside the punch bowl which now only held punch, in a stolen suit that made him look like the lone survivor of a brutal moth attack, Spike defiantly took Dawn by the hand, teaching her the steps of a dance he'd have rather led her older sister through, tossing her high, catching her as she spun, inches before hitting the floor to yet another request of "In The Mood".
Just as he once had a small, lively redhead with a voice like Betty Boop's, in a place never to be found again.