"Hey." Buffy sat down beside Rona, rolling her eyes when Rona scooted away. "Or…not hey, apparently I have a communicable disease."

"Shh!" The hiss came from the first bleacher, somewhere within the contingent of Spike groupies assembled there. They all hated Buffy on principle- or were possibly just really, really jealous of her- and she was getting more than a few dirty looks from them at interrupting the fight.

But when she glanced at the fight that was already in progress, Spike was grinning up at her. Unfortunately, he'd been getting soft from fighting nonpowered slayers, and Narra took advantage of his distraction to slam him across the room and to the ground. His nose was dripping blood when he jumped back up, bouncing on the balls of his feet with sudden glee at the challenge.

Narra was also smirking. This was the last battle of her Cruciamentum, and it looked like she had it in the bag, if she could defeat Spike- or at least come out of it alive. And Buffy was sure that Narra, too, was rarely challenged, even on the Hellmouth, and not by someone as fun to fight as Spike.

The battle raged on, and now Spike's focus was completely on his opponent, and he didn't spare Buffy another glance. She bit her lip, remembering her vow not to let him get to her anymore, and tried to watch without becoming invested. Vampire and slayer, locked in a fight to the death, and the slayer had to win. That was all. And before long, she was grinning when Narra got in a good hit and every time Spike went down, enjoying the fact that he'd finally found an opponent he couldn't easily defeat.

But Spike was still the Slayer of Slayers, and Narra had only been slayer for a year, so eventually, a battered Spike managed to knock her to the ground, landing on top of her and lowering his head to her neck. For an instant, he glanced up and his eyes connected with Buffy's, almost as if… Was he asking permission? No, that was absurd. Spike would never do that. But there was apology in his eyes, and Gunn was watching with regret and Travers looked gleeful, and Buffy suddenly understood that this wasn't just a game. This was life and death, and Narra's life was on the balance, and Spike was going to take it.

No. No, he wouldn't! He couldn't!

He saw the sheer terror in her eyes and his own softened, just as Narra grasped the stake that had rolled away from her and shoved it into his heart. He cried out in surprise, falling away from her, and Buffy stood, all thoughts of keeping herself from caring about him gone the moment she saw him slumped over on the ground.

"Spike!" She jumped over the side of the bleachers and ran toward him, aching with shared pain at seeing him like this. Not Spike. Never Spike. He was indestructible, invincible, and he was never, ever injured on the game floor.

"Stop." Then Giles was suddenly in front of her, blocking her path to Spike. "Not now."

She looked up at him, wild-eyed, but he remained firm. "Stay here, Buffy," he warned her. "I need you to show me that I can trust you around Spike."

She nodded jerkily, staring at Spike as he was dragged upward by a special ops watcher with sudden dismay. Weren't they even going to remove the stake? But no, he was practically being dragged out of the room while everyone else focused on a victorious Narra, the watcher uncaring of his injury and the way he could barely stand, and only the Spike groupies were watching with angry murmurs at Spike's mistreatment.

"This is the power of a slayer!" Gunn said loudly, and the room fell silent. "A skilled, trained slayer can take down even William the Bloody!"

Narra was being escorted out of the room by Gates and Miller as Gunn continued extolling the virtues of the slayer, and Buffy took a step toward them. Narra stopped. "Buffy."

Buffy moved to follow her. "What?" she asked, perhaps more coldly than she ordinarily would. But Narra had just left her mentor and friend bloodied on the floor, and Buffy wasn't ready to let it go.

Narra turned her head to face Buffy, lolling a little as she did. "You…you make him weak," she said finally. "I see that now. But don't ever forget that one of us was going to die in that room. One of us will always die when you're the slayer."

Buffy watched her blankly. "I know," she whispered. "But not like this."

"Maybe not," Narra acknowledged, staggering through the doorway into the hall. Buffy followed her. "But it could be. And you can't falter." She shook her head. "Not even for him."

Then Miller and Gates were taking her down the right-hand hallway and Giles and Travers were hurrying after them, so Buffy slipped down the left-hand side to move around to the exit door for the vampires in the training room. Spike was leaving a trail of blood and moving slowly, and she finally caught up to him and the special ops watcher at the end of the hall. "Spike!"

He turned to smile weakly at her. "'Lo, kitten. Have fun watching my glorious defeat?"

She shook her head. "You need to pay more attention when you fight, instead of showing off for the groupies," she informed him. "Narra never would have beaten you otherwise."

"You can't be here," the special ops watcher said. He was one of the newer ones, still easily intimidated, and Buffy and Spike ignored him.

Spike laid a hand on her shoulder, and she backed him against the wall, steadying him. "Was only showing off for one groupie, love," he told her, flashing her a smirk.

She flushed. "I'm not a groupie." The stake wasn't in that deep, she noted with relief, and she tugged at it gently.

The watcher stared at them with alarm. "Hey! Don't touch-"

"Quiet," Buffy ordered, and yanked out the stake in one quick movement.

"Agh!" He flinched, and she laid a hand against his chest calmingly. "Trying to kill me?" he demanded with little rancor, his chest heaving from the sharp pain. She splayed another hand against it, feeling hard muscles just below his black outfit, moving back and forth against her hands as he breathed in unnecessary breaths. Slowly, he stopped panting, the pain escaping his face as he relaxed. He gazed down at her with a gentle fondness, and she gave him an uncertain smile as he drew closer, reaching out a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind one of her ears.

She swayed forward, almost dizzy from his nearness, all thoughts of avoiding him gone from her mind and her only coherent thought Spikespikespikespikespike!. His lips tickled her ear as he bent to whisper in it, "Sure you're not…" The watcher cleared his throat loudly, waving his electrocution device feebly. Buffy barely noticed. Spike's breath was sending cool air down her neck, and she felt herself moving closer and closer toward him unconsciously, shivering. "…One of my groupies?" Spike finished, leaning back with a satisfied expression on his face.

She blushed furiously and smacked his chest, making him groan with pain again. "Shut up, you. You wish. Go get some rest and heal up so I can kick your ass."

He snorted. "And somehow, I really, really doubt it."

"Okay, that's enough." The watcher stepped forward again, looking nervous but defiant. "You. Step away from the vampire or I'll shock him."

Buffy gave him a dirty look. "Don't even think about it." But she turned to leave anyway, unwilling to let Spike be hurt because of her again. He wasn't in as bad shape as she'd initially thought, anyway, and she was sure he'd be better in a day or two and ready to fight.

That was, if Giles would let her anywhere near him anymore. And somehow, she doubted he would.


Maggie Walsh proved to be trouble almost immediately, just as Giles had suspected. It had been one thing when she'd demanded some of Gunn's most experienced assistants as additional security over the vampires she was commissioning. He hadn't liked that, but he'd taken it in stride, seeing as she did need security and it had sounded reasonable at the time. But now she was pulling away master vampires for her experiments, insisting that they were far more effective for research than the younger vampires, and leaving them recovering for days afterward.

The shortage of vampires was taking its toll on the potentials, but when he'd complained to Travers, the man had given him a nasty smile and told him that Walsh's work was far more important than Giles having a "wide selection of vampires to choose from." Giles had thought about pointing out that Travers was allowing his dislike for him to influence the fate of their slayers, but he reconsidered at the look on Travers's face. The man was out for blood, and Giles was fairly certain that it would be his own.

So now, nearly a week after Narra's Cruciamentum, they were standing at Giles's office window, watching as the senior potentials and a few of the younger ones sparred with each other on the lawn, their pants and shouts coming out with little bursts of steam in the cold December air. "Ready to head back to Sunnydale?"

Narra shrugged. "Not really. But the Hellmouth needs a protector." She sighed. "Any chance there's a Hellmouth in Hawaii?"

Giles laughed shortly. "Not in decades," he said apologetically. "But we'll get you back to England sometime soon, and not for a battle to the death. Even slayers need vacations."

"Don't let Travers hear you say that." Narra gazed down at the slayers below them, her eyes following Kennedy as she slammed a fist into Buffy's face. Several of the other slayers stopped what they were doing to high-five Kennedy. "They really don't like her, do they?"

Giles shook his head regretfully. "Buffy's at the top of her class, and one of our most promising potentials, but the bullying has only gotten this dreadful of late. Miss Calendar informs me that she's been spending time with her grade's watchers instead of with the other potentials, and her peers don't appreciate it."

Narra frowned. "That girl really is unusual, isn't she?"

"One thing I've learned, being headmaster this long…" Giles smiled contemplatively. "Every student is unusual."

"I wasn't," Narra pointed out. "I was standard, by the book, your classic potential. I wasn't making friends with watchers and vampires."

"You hated fighting," Giles reminded her. "I don't think we've ever had a student who spent as much time attempting to avoid the training room as you did. You were quite skilled, but despised going up against the vampires."

"I grew up the daughter of two naturalists." Narra watched as one of the oldest potentials performed a sophisticated maneuver around one of the youngest, taunting her as she did. "To me, vampires were just dangerous animals, and injuring them for the sake of my personal training was inhumane. I couldn't do it."

"And now?"

"I changed." She turned to face him, her eyes suddenly serious. "And Buffy will, too, and keeping her from fighting Spike will only make her weaker if her time comes."

Giles frowned. "You saw them together. You know how dangerous a relationship like that can be."

"On both sides," Narra said quietly. "Spike is just as concerned about her as she is him. They distract each other, make each other fight worse when they're not fighting together. I'd be dead right now if Buffy hadn't have been there the other day."

"You wouldn't have," Giles murmured. "No one dies in the Cruciamentum, regardless of how determined Travers is to force the potentials to watch a slayer's death. He hasn't succeeded yet, and he'll never get the chance."

"Maybe not," Narra acknowledged. "But regardless of all that, the changes between those two aren't all negative. And Buffy fights better now because of him." She exhaled slowly. "If I d- If Buffy is called someday, you want her to fight at her best. And I guarantee that she'll change just as I was forced to when put in that situation, Spike or not. Don't handicap her by taking him away."

Giles shook his head. "It's not that simple."

"It can be." Below them, Buffy and Faith were fending off half their year's potentials on their own, laughing. Narra watched almost wistfully. "If Buffy is called, she might just be the greatest slayer ever. And as long as Spike is kept in the Academy, he'll never pose a problem."

Giles thought back to darker days, when being at the Academy wasn't a guarantee of potentials' safety, but he quashed his worries to offer Narra a soft smile. "I'll consider it. Take care of yourself, Narra. Be well."

They said their farewells before one of Travers's cronies arrived to whisk her away, and Giles was left alone to ponder her words and the strange little potential who'd become the hottest topic of debate in the school over the past few months.

She was so young, and it would be a shame to crush her hopes…but was it worth it, when the end result could be so much more harmful?

No, he decided. Buffy was strong, and Spike was the most reliable of a series of unreliable vampires. He wouldn't overstep his boundaries, and Giles had to believe that Buffy wouldn't, either.

But he'd be keeping a careful eye on both from now on.