Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, or made a favorite, I'm sorry that this chapter is a bit later than I'd planned.

Betaed by All4Spike.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 25

"A little to the left. No, to the left."

"I'll put you a little to the left," Buffy muttered, stretching as far as she could without falling from the top rung of the ladder. With one foot firmly planted, and the other dangling in the air, she could only thank Slayer balance for the fact she hadn't fallen yet as she tacked up the last of the Winter Formal banners on the gym wall.

Buffy climbed back down and looked up to examine her handiwork. "I think it looks good. Not at all lopsided."

"It is kinda lopsided." Shelly Porter, student council president and head decorator, as appointed by Principal Stuffy-Pants, surveyed the banner with a critical eye and gave Buffy an apologetic shrug that really wasn't all that apologetic.

Buffy opened her mouth to protest.

"Shelly!" someone called from the other side of the gym. "You've got to help us with the punch."

"Be right there," she called back. Shelly looked the banner over one more time and turned to Buffy. "It's fine."

"Great, I really needed that confidence boost," Buffy said to herself as Shelly followed her friend away.

Buffy looked at the banner and compared it to the others, tilting her head.

"It's not lopsided," she said with a pout.

Well, her tasks of hanging banners and stringing twinkle lights through the basketball hoops were done. Everyone else was putting the finishing touches on tablecloths, snacks, and music, ready to have a dancing good time. It might have been fun, without the whole 'being ignored' situation.

Pair up social outcasts with those who mock them, Buffy thought, brilliant plan, Principal Williams.

Still, everything looked really pretty. Like, really. With different shades of blue everywhere, and snowflakes and sparkles decorating the walls. If this were Los Angeles, she would have been first in line on the fun train.

Maybe I should go. Dance with a cutie, and have punch, and speak to the living, Buffy thought.

Her immediate reaction was a serious 'no'.

But why shouldn't I? she asked herself. I know how to have fun at these things. Or, at least, I used to…

She had a dress, one that her mom had insisted on buying her to make up for her long months of absence, and she could have a good time without a date, not everything dance-like required a partner, and it wasn't like she needed a big group of people to be dancey and punchy either. The thought hit a few depressing buttons, but a few more that felt kind of hopeful.

Yeah, yeah I think I will…

It would be a celebration. After all, the papers were signed, the house was theirs, and all her mom had to worry about was moving. And finding a job, and selling their old house, and…

The ands weren't important, Buffy assured herself. Joyce had told her that she would be moved in by January, in time for Buffy's birthday. It was soon, so soon, and she couldn't help but be hopeful, no matter how often things seemed to go wrong.

Been getting a whole lot better lately.

Buffy stretched, retrieved her bag from the base of the ladder, and walked out and into the parking lot. There hadn't been any snow yet, something she'd actually been looking forward to as a perk of living in this city. Instead there was just a lot of cold sleety rain that made sludge out of the lawn and froze it into masses of ice by morning. Buffy bundled up even tighter in her coat and felt icy wind sting her nose.

She'd need to find Spike, to let him know to meet her for patrol after the dance.

He'd been on his best behavior as of late, something which Buffy was simultaneously thankful for and wigged by. On the only other occasion that he'd stopped by her mom's hotel room since Thanksgiving, he'd been beyond civil. Like a perfect gentleman. It was too weird, even if she was grateful he was willing to act that way in the presence of her mom, instead of like himself.

Then there was the whole—

He doesn't, you know he doesn't, she thought. But her mom's words invaded her thoughts at the last minute, tossed in with the mental image of a bunch of wilty white daisies. Daises that were currently residing on her dresser top back in Watcher Central. At least Ms. Davies was uninterested in where she'd gotten them. Buffy did not want to add that problem to the mix.

To complicate things further, Malum had death coming his way sooner than Buffy could stand. And after…

One way or another, she was going to lose the only friend she had in the world.

But he isn't.

"And I don't care," Buffy said firmly to herself.

"'bout what, pet?"

Buffy jumped, pulling the stake from her messenger bag. She relaxed when she saw who it was.

"Way to lurk," she said, tucking the stake away.

Spike took a drag of his cigarette; the glow was a single bright spot in the night.

"You're the one walking down the street, lost to the horrors of teenage moping," he said, falling in step beside her.

Buffy sighed, unable to look at his face. "I'm not moping. I'm thinking about troubling things. It's worlds apart."

"I see," he said, flicking away his cigarette. When she was silent, he added, "And what might those things be?"

Buffy stopped at the end of her street, keeping him safely out of Watcher-view. "I need you to meet me later than usual tonight."

"Avoiding the question, are you?" he said, putting a hand to his chest. "I'm hurt."

"Spike," she said in warning.

"Fine, fine," he said, grinning. "What's with the change, Slayer?"

"It's the Winter Formal," Buffy said.

"And that would be…?"

Buffy spoke quickly, as if defensive, "A dance. A really important dance in which I get to wear a nice dress and attempt to make social connections."

Spike shook his head, looking flummoxed and a little bit repulsed. "Well, that sounds like brutal self-mutilation. You're volunteering for this?"

"Yes. I am," Buffy answered. "So meet me at Terminal High School at ten. That's when it's over."

Spike started at her words, and covered by lighting up again. "How do you know I won't go pillaging and feasting on your neighbors in that time? Or did you forget the usual drill?"

"Oh right. That," Buffy said glumly. I didn't forget. Picture of remembrance here, she thought, even though she knew it wasn't true. "Change of plans. Meet me there by seven. But stay out of sight and don't talk to anyone. And not a single nibble on a single neck."

"No promises, love."

She shrugged and slugged him.

Spike laughed, his tongue darting out to taste the blood she had drawn on his lip in a way that had her staring. "Oh, all right. I won't eat your bloody mates."

Buffy stopped to consider at that. "Well, actually, they aren't really my—Forget I said that. No nibbling."

Spike smiled, eyes sparkling under the streetlights. He shook his head, as if coming back to himself.

"So, should we, uh?" He gestured back in the direction of the school.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "No. I have to get dressed and primped and styled. It's a thing. Beauty rituals are an essential part of the dance experience. Besides, I don't even have my dress on. Formal's kind of in the title there."

Spike tilted his head as he looked her over head to toe, and his tongue touched his teeth. She could only imagine what he was thinking. And she could imagine a lot. Especially when he was staring at her as if he wanted to lick her from head to toe. Stupid vampire with his stupid gorgeous face. Buffy felt her heart rate increase tenfold. What if her mom was right? What if this wasn't just Spike being his usual piggy self? What if—?

"I'll be back, okay?" Buffy said quickly, cutting off those thoughts from progressing further. "Just go to the school, don't touch anyone, and don't let my Watcher see you."

At the mention of Ms. Davies, Spike frowned. There was something going on behind his eyes, something that made Buffy stop.

"What's up?" she asked. "Everything okay?"

"I'll stay out of sight," he said. "Go on, get ready. Put your curlers in or…whatever it is you do. I'll meet you at the school. "

"I will. Thanks," Buffy said.

"Don't mention it."

"Nice night," Spike said to himself, or maybe just no one in particular. He was so bloody bored, flicking some ash over the edge of the school roof and trying to see where it landed.

It was cold, bitingly so, but he hardly felt the effect. He sat with one leg dangling over the edge, too far above the school lights to be seen, but close enough so that the music blaring from inside played loud and clear, and he also had the perfect view of Buffy's classmates. Prissy bunch from what he could tell.

Down below, he could see students walking in twos. Boys in button downs and girls in long sleek dresses stopped by a coat check at the door run by a bundled up bird in a beanie, scarf, and puffy coat. Spike wondered what would happen if he dropped a cigarette on the nearest girl's large bouffant. She would probably light up like a Christmas tree. Lovely thought.

Spike sighed, smoke coming out of his nose. Wasn't she very well ready yet? He wasn't going to sit up here all night like some kind of poof, just because she told him to. Did the Slayer really think that he'd just roll over and bark every time she—

Bugger.

There she was, dressed up in strapless midnight blue, golden arms exposed and her hair falling past her shoulders. A coat was slung over her arm. How Buffy didn't freeze in this air was a mystery to him, but the harder Spike stared, the more he noticed her shivering. Her nose turned pink and goosebumps rushed down her bare arms and the sweet warm scent of her was coming to meet him where he sat.

Spike's mouth went dry and he breathed raggedly, as if he was trying to pull her to him and keep her there, to shroud him in heat.

So bloody gorgeous.

He leaned over the edge for a better look, trying to drink her in before she disappeared inside amongst her spoiled peers. Buffy stopped directly beneath his perch and stared straight up at him, her eyes meeting his.

Spike's heart ached at the sight of her face, all lit up and hopeful, and at the small smile she gave him. It was all he could do not to return it. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

Buffy nodded his way and Spike saluted her with his cigarette. She smiled again, fleetingly, and more to herself than anyone else, then walked inside.

Buffy was only in the gym for about two minutes before she realized that, yeah, she still held that delinquent label. Even though she had snuck out through her window in a floor-length dress for this—something that really should be considered cruel and unusual, as far as sneaking measures go—for the first time in a long time, she didn't really care.

Her mom was moving back, finals were over, her GPA was still a solid two-point-five, and she and Spike had a fully-formed plan of action. Who cared about this school? Heck, maybe she could transfer.

There's something happy.

It wasn't long before Buffy found herself drifting away from where she had been swaying to the beat by the punch bowl, inadvertently scaring the other students away.

Big bonus of fear-induced isolation: always more for me, she thought and rolled her eyes. Run from my menacing Buffyness.

Instead of joining the crowd at the center of the gym, or sitting down at one of the tables, Buffy walked carefully to the back of the building, to the door labeled 'Equipment Storage'. She wriggled the handle, testing for a lock.

It was already loose and broken.

Past shelves of old uniforms and wire crates of sporting goods was the roof access.

Buffy climbed up a metal ladder set into the wall, as best she could in heels, and pushed open the loose grate at the top. She poked her head through and was hit by a shock of freezing night air. Spike sat at the roof's edge and started at the noise.

"Buffy."

"You're jumpy," she said.

"Wasn't expecting you for a while yet, love," he said, standing and walking over to help her through the rest of the way. Buffy gripped his forearms as he lifted her up and out of the building by her waist. She could feel the chill of his fingers through the fabric of her dress. "Thought you were having a gay old time. What happened to social outgoingness, and all that other crap?"

"It was boring," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Spike chuckled, probably at her harsh honesty, and she cracked a smile. Buffy released his arms and pulled away, rubbing her own skin in an attempt to warm up.

"So, how have things been up here? Did you pass the time?" Buffy asked.

"As a matter of fact," Spike answered. "Been looking for projectiles to launch down at those snobby twigs while they walk to their Bentleys. Care to join me?"

Buffy opened her mouth to tell him off, but instead all she managed to say was, "Nothing dangerous, okay?"

Spike smiled in a startled sort of way, which turned into genuine boyish awe at her approval of wrong-doing.

"Don't get used to it." Buffy returned his smile and felt her teeth chatter. "What did you have in mind?"

Spike frowned when she shivered, but didn't say anything.

It was probably better that he didn't.

"Um, got anything against an old toolbox?" he said, running his fingers through his hair and retreating to the roof's edge. "Filled with old rusty wrenches, it's brilliant."

"Big vote against," Buffy said.

"You're no fun at all, you know that, Summers?"

Buffy ran her palms down her arms and followed him. She sat carefully on the brick edge of the roof, trying her best to keep her dress from getting dirty, and let her legs dangle.

She could feel the tingles that meant 'Spike is here' run down her spine as he sat gingerly beside her.

"Could always kick a shoe, if you…" he stopped and leaned over slightly to see her face. "What's wrong?"

Buffy sniffed—her nose was getting seriously cold—and shook her head. "Nothing…Everything. I don't know."

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked her, pulling a new cigarette from a pack in his coat and lighting it.

That tiny speck of warmth near her cheek felt good, less good when he exhaled smoke.

"Every time you do that, you risk giving me lung cancer," she said, crossing her arms over her stomach and not turning to him until she was sure he wasn't looking at her face.

Spike stubbed the cigarette out and flicked it toward a couple making out on a bench below. It missed them by inches and they didn't look up.

"Oh come on!" he said.

Buffy felt the corner of her mouth twitch at his reaction. The music emanating from below switched to a frantic beat, the singer's voice loud and nasal.

"Things are actually going pretty good," Buffy said, looking to her hands in her lap. "But when they are…"

"You can only think about how they're gonna get worse?" he finished for her.

"Yeah," Buffy said quietly. After a moment she pulled back and stood, pacing to keep away the freezing chill. "I mean, look at my mom. I've been waiting for months for her to move out here. I should be over the moon, right? But, I can't help but wonder…what if she doesn't get a job? What if I never move out of my Watcher's house? What if I never leave this school?" She stopped and rolled her eyes, unable to look at him looking at her. "The answers to those are all a given. I know that. But I can't help but think…"

"The worst of it all?"

Buffy laughed, but it was dry and empty. Why could he of all people seem to see what she wouldn't even begin to admit? The laugh died off and she shuddered from the cold. It was hard and went through her whole body. Stupid Cleveland.

Spike stood, shrugging off his coat. "Here."

He draped the worn leather around her shoulders. Buffy pulled it tighter around her body and inhaled. It smelled like him. Leather and cigarettes, hair gel and soap, some kind of alcohol and something musky. Spike smell. That shouldn't have made her feel better, she thought, even as she felt comfort settling in.

Buffy looked over the thin red button up he wore over a t-shirt. "Aren't you cold?"

"Not really," Spike said. "Doesn't bother me."

Oh, right.

As Buffy felt herself warm up, draped in over-sized leather, the song changed to something slower and older.

"Finally you play something decent for a change," Spike said. "My brain's been addled by too much synthesized crap. I may never be the same."

"Yes, because that would be tragic," Buffy said. Spike opened his mouth to protest when she reached out and caught his wrist. His skin was dry and cool, more than usual from the night air. She wasn't quite sure what had possessed her to do it. Maybe it was because she seemed to hate him a lot less lately, or maybe she just wanted to make the most out of the evening, get something off her checklist.

Spike went deadly still looking from her clasping hand to her face.

"It's a dance," she said.

"Uh huh." He still looked more bewildered than anything else.

"So I want to dance," Buffy said, giving him a pointed look.

Spike moved faster than she thought he could, surprising her, and Buffy found herself pressed against a solid vampire chest.

His arm looped around her waist beneath the coat and the fingers of his other hand curled between hers. They had never been so close, except when they'd been fighting, and it startled her. Buffy's temple rested against Spike's cheek and she inhaled his scent in even greater doses than his coat held. He unlaced their fingers and settled his on her waist. Her own hands slid unhurriedly over his shoulders, taking in the texture of his shirt's fabric and the muscle underneath, before resting at the back of his neck.

Slowly, Spike began to shuffle his feet, and Buffy followed suit.

He wasn't warm, far from, but he soaked up her body heat like a favorite blanket and gave it back.

Buffy didn't want to talk, to spoil the tranquility of the moment. She didn't even want to look at him or see any emotions playing out in eyes that were too telling for their own good, afraid of what she might find there.

This was nice though. Really nice. It was just her and Spike and the softness of the curling hair at the nape of his neck, and the flutter of his unneeded breath against her hair, and touching someone for non-slayee reasons for what felt like the first time in forever.

Buffy closed her eyes and breathed slowly, leaning into him, enjoying the tracing of his hands from her waist up her back so that his thumbs brushed her bare skin, and sliding her hands down his arms and back up, letting her cheek rest on the solidity of his shoulder.

One of Spike's hands drifted to her hair, combing through a few times before stopping, as if he'd caught himself doing something he shouldn't have. He patted her hair once, awkwardly, in a gesture that was so entirely Spike-like that it almost broke the spell, before his arms settled back around her waist once more with a gentle squeeze.

The song ended and another, more lively one started up, and Buffy froze and tensed in his arms, unwilling to stop the incredible niceness of it all.

But Spike let go of her waist, taking his borrowed warmth with him, and she had no choice but to pull back and look at him.

His eyes were soft with awe, and dark with something else, as he raised a hand to her hair, brushing back the strands that had been trapped between her cheek and his shoulder. The rough pad of his thumb brushed once over her cheekbone and he was staring at her mouth. Buffy shivered and knew it had nothing to do with the cold.

Slowly, she pulled away. Spike dropped his hand, but still looked dazed. She didn't even want to consider those possibilities.

Because there was no way they were possible.

"So, do you want to go kill something?" she said quietly.

Spike blinked and cleared his throat. "Sure. Yeah, let's do that…"

Buffy refused to think about how nice it was to have someone to help her down at the foot of the ladder so that she didn't break her shoe, or to question why it had felt so good to see Spike shove Henry Jefferson into a nearby wall for commenting when they snuck out of the equipment room.

No matter how many times she tried to tell herself otherwise, Buffy knew that it wouldn't have been the same with anyone else.

That was what she tried to think of least of all.