The pretty little doe-eyed potential was writhing against Angelus's fingers somewhere near the front of the bars, the Aurelians had once again been ordered to give them privacy, and Spike was so very bored. "Why doesn't he just order the bint to free us already?" he muttered from his vantage point on the far bed in the cage.

Darla gave him a scathing look, but it lacked most of her usual punch, and he knew that she was nearly as fed up with Angelus's new pet as he was. Especially since Angelus seemed to be having his depraved needs satisfied by violating the baby potential and fucking Dru to the ground, leaving Darla cold and untouched. And nothing angered Darla more than being ignored. "This is art, William. Not the directionless brawling that you seem to consider a staple of vampiric life. Angelus knows what he's doing."

And you're much more like me than like him, Spike thought, but he didn't say anything, preferring to contemplate the corruption of Faith the Potential instead. The whole thing was distasteful, really, but nothing new and unusual for Angelus. And yet, Spike was disappointed by the regularity with which Faith returned to Angelus. He'd found out early on that she was a friend of his potential's, and he'd expected better of her by proxy. He couldn't imagine Buffy falling into a trap like this as readily as Faith had.

A fond smile crossed his face as he thought of his young protégé. Yes, he was glad that she was far from Angelus's clutches. Someone as full of life as Buffy had no place in the dank, unsavory underground of her school. She was full of goodness, so compassionate that she still flinched when she tried to stake him, and he hated to think of her stained with darkness like her friend. She was meant to be a slayer, and the very best one there was. He'd make sure of that.

She was still losing their fights, but she'd been getting in a few hits that he hadn't prepared for and he hadn't broken anything vital since their third match. Slowly, her fighting style was maturing and developing into an amalgam of her initial style and his own, so nuanced and skilled that he was certain that she'd be a challenge for any other master vampire, even without slayer strength.

He closed his eyes, mentally replaying the last fight they'd had. Buffy was growing more adept at covering herself while on the offense, but he'd noticed that she was unconsciously pulling her high kicks and mitigating their effectiveness. Next time he saw her, he'd have her practice a few on him until he could pinpoint the problem. It had started right…there. Buffy had gotten closer to him, had kicked upwards, and he'd grabbed her foot on descent and yanked until she'd fallen to the ground, headfirst. She'd smashed her head then, and there had been so much blood… He'd been concerned at first, had bent down to check on her, but she'd jumped up before he could reached her, kicking his face in the process and informing him primly that regardless of the fact that it had already left her body, her blood was not up for grabs.

He laughed aloud, earning a disapproving glare from Darla. That was his Buffy, hard to intimidate and even harder to keep down. At first, he'd been stunned to hear that she'd be fighting him regularly at the mere age of fifteen, but now he understood. When Buffy was determined to do something, nothing could make her give it up. Not the Academy rules, not Giles, and not even the violence he'd subjected her to in their first battles.

A distant set of footsteps echoed through the caves, and Angelus jerked away from his plaything. "Hide," he ordered her, and she took off, heading for the rooms at the other end of the basement. This wasn't the first time that someone had come while Angelus was entertaining a potential, and the Aurelians were prepared, drifting out of their back rooms to simulate their standard, everyday lives. Dru watched Spike oddly from her cell, and he strolled over to her and reached a hand through the bars, stroking her face with his palm. "What's wrong, pet?"

She gave him an odd smile, madness and wisdom all at once. "Poppies and sunshine my Spike dreams of. Fire consumes…" She frowned suddenly, a sadness passing over her face. "Fire consumes you."

He sighed. "Dru…"

She changed the subject abruptly. "Someone's coming now, coming to change it all. And man will be beast, and beast will be man, and then…oh! Flames! Fire consumes you! I shan't-" She shrieked a long, unending note before she fell silent, quivering with rage and terror.

"You shan't what, Drusilla?" The voice wasn't an unwelcome one, but Spike growled with annoyance anyway. Watchers had taken Dru during visions before, and even though Gunn had never been the one to summon her, he was still wary of the man's presence so close to her.

Gunn held up a hand. "Relax, Spike. I'm here for you, not her." He nodded to Collins beside him, who lowered the barrier and unlocked the cell door. "I have some free time tonight, thought we could get some sparring done."

"I could do with some sparring." He hadn't fought Buffy in three days, his only match recently having been with an average-level nineteen-year-old he could have beaten with his eyes closed, and he'd been getting antsy.

He exited the cage, watching with amusement as Darla directed cruel eyes at Collins as he slammed the door closed again. She was too prideful, too set on hurting the watchers somehow, and because of that, she'd never be able to intimidate someone like Collins. No, the special ops watchers reacted only to physical attacks, which was why, once they were free, he'd be the one to rip them apart in lieu of Angelus's mind games.

Gunn fell into step with him. "How's it going?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Well, we attended a marvelous party in Bath last week," he said, affecting a crusty upper-class accent. "Dru thought that the company was distasteful, but I found them quite charming and how the bloody hell do you think it's going?" he demanded tartly, reverting to his normal voice. "Locked in a cage, no one to eat or shag, coming out for air only to fend off whiny potentials? It's sodding heaven!"

Gunn waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, and if you weren't in that cell, you'd be killing them instead. Somehow, I can't bring myself to feel for you."

"I'm hurt, really," Spike said good-naturedly. He was long resigned to his fate, and at least Gunn gave him a measure of freedom. The watcher before him had only let him upstairs to fight, and even then, only against the very best students. Gunn had more reason to hate the vampires in the basement than most, but he'd always treated Spike well, and for that, he was grateful.

They reached the main training room and Spike frowned at the scent he suddenly caught wafting from the room. It smelled like…

"So I keep pulling my high kicks," Buffy was saying when they entered the room, stretching a long, lean leg up against her upper body.

One of Gunn's assistants was standing behind her, his hands holding her leg firmly. "It doesn't seem to be physical," Finn said, bending the knee and unbending it. Unbidden, a growl escaped Spike as he watched the man training with his potential.

Gunn gave him a sharp look. "Problem, Spike?"

He fell silent, watching Buffy darkly.

A girl moved into his line of sight, the slayer who'd been hired as one of Gunn's assistants after she'd graduated in the summer. "Try kicking at me now," she suggested. "Ri, keep her steady."

"Okay." Buffy chewed her lower lip in that way she did when she focused on her body's movements, and Spike took an involuntary step forward, stopping only when Gunn put a warning hand on his shoulder. He knew that he was being irrationally possessive, that Buffy was certainly fighting other vampires and humans when he wasn't around, but she was his protégé, and…

And…

And she was bloody beautiful when she fought, and some bulky hack of a watcher didn't deserve to be on the receiving line of that.

Buffy spun around to face Finn, moving with the dangerous grace and speed that Spike had come to expect from her, and nearly kicked him in the chin, retracting only at the last moment with a victorious whoop.

Spike grinned at her triumph. He stepped forward and clapped slowly, drawling, "Nice work, love."

She spun around, her eyes wide in surprise. "Spike! What are you doing here? School ended, like, five hours ago."

He jabbed a thumb at Gunn. "This one wanted to have a playdate," he said dryly, strolling across the room to where she was standing. Finn and the girl tensed, and he smirked, inhaling their fear with a level of glee. "Off you go, children," he told them, giving them his nastiest glare.

"Spike…" Gunn said warningly, but the two watchers were already on their way out, tossing back wary glances at him.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Are you seriously trying to be scary? You're wearing a collar and your name is Spike."

"Oi! I'm scary!" he said indignantly.

Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "Yeah, like a vicious Chihuahua."

He lunged for her. "Oh, that's it-"

She laughingly countered with a perfect high kick that he barely dodged before he was wracked with sudden, intense pain. "ARRRGH!" He was writhing on the ground in agony, clutching his sides as electricity shattered his body.

"Spike! Spike!" Buffy dropped down beside him, her hands struggling to calm him, to find out what was wrong, but he barely felt her presence, so overcome by the shocks coming from his collar that he couldn't think or focus on anything else. "Turn it off!" she was shouting, and he heard it from afar, his eyes blurred and his body twitching, until…

Silence. Blessed calm, the shock finally wearing off, and the last waves of pain slowly dissipating. He winced. "Bugger."

"Are you okay?" Buffy asked, and he squinted up at her worried face with a sort of vague fascination.

"He's fine." That was Gunn, his voice colder than Spike had ever heard it before. "Buffy, step away from him."

Her eyes flashed with anger. "He wasn't going to hurt me! You didn't have to zap him that hard!" Despite her heated tone, her hands were still rubbing a slow, soothing pattern down his chest, calming him gently. "You didn't have to zap him at all!"

Gunn spoke with cool purpose. "Spike knows that he can't attack students off the game floor, regardless of whether or not you thought he was a danger. That creature in front of you is an animal, one who'd use your trust of him against you if he weren't restrained, Buffy. He's a monster." He moved toward them, and Spike nearly quailed at his icy expression. "Spike. Turn."

He shifted to game face and watched with sad resignation as Buffy recoiled. She'd been fun to train, and he was going to miss their fights when she invariably asked Giles to give her a different vampire to fight.

But to his surprise, after the initial shock, she shrugged and settled back down next to him. "I know he's a vampire, Gunn. I'm not stupid. But he's not going to hurt me." Spike gave her a toothy smile that she returned, a finger moving to trace the ridges on his forehead.

Gunn let out an exasperated sigh, forcibly pulling Buffy away to stand beside him. "No?" He motioned for Spike to stand, and Spike stumbled to his feet, still a little woozy from the shocks. "Spike, what do you see when you're around Buffy? Student? Friend? Partner?" His eyes were dark, warning the vampire to say what he had to to keep Buffy wary.

Spike sighed. "Target. Food," he said blandly.

Buffy turned hurt eyes to him, and he felt like the world's biggest asshole. "Really?"

He nodded, keeping his game face on firmly as a mask. His human face was far too expressive for this lie. "Really."

She slumped. "Oh."

"Buffy, I think you should go. The training rooms should have been closed a half hour ago, anyway," Gunn said tersely.

"S-Sam said that it would be fine if I stayed a little late, since I missed training yesterday and today because I was sick." Buffy darted another chagrined look at him.

Gunn sighed. "It's okay. This wasn't your fault. Just check with me first next time, so I don't bring up any vampires while you're still here. Sam probably should have mentioned it, too." He shook his head.

"Okay." She glanced back at Spike one last time, and he couldn't stop himself in time, reverting to human face and tossing her a wink. She narrowed her eyes at him, but he knew that she could see the apology written all over his face and that he was already forgiven. "Goodnight." She grinned faintly and hurried out of the room.

"You shouldn't have done that," Gunn said, watching her go.

Spike shrugged. "I'm your model vampire, right? What's the worst that could happen?"

"You know exactly what," Gunn 's hands bunched into fists.

"She's not…" Spike took a step away from the other man. "It isn't like that. She's not like that. I'm not like that."

Gunn gave him a hard look. "I hope not." He pulled a stake from his pocket, the wooden one that he always kept on his person, and held it so close to Spike that he could hear the faint sound of alarms blaring in the basement. "Because as valuable as you are to us, I won't hesitate to stake you if I think that you're a danger to one of my students."

Spike nodded. If it had been anyone else, he would have laughed it off or taunted him, but Gunn…he didn't blame Gunn for being wary. "Understood."