Disclaimer: Don't own it…blah, blah, blah.

Spoilers: Who Are You?

I LOVE ObscureBookWyrm! Oh, and she gives good beta.

Remember When

Chapter Fifty-Three

Tara hurried down the darkened street, her paper bag clutched in her hands. She hadn't realized how late the hour grew as she agonized over which charm would be best, a pentagram or a Star of David, for Willow's bracelet. Both were important to Willow in their own way, and though similar, they both deserved to be on the bracelet. Besides, the star inspired Tara to look into Jewish incantations for protection, and she hoped they'd be compatible with Wiccan earth magic. She wanted Willow to be extra protected, especially since she worked so closely with Buffy against the forces of evil.

You could never have too much protection against evil.

She raised her lowered chin a notch, covertly studying the empty street. Sunnydale residents weren't as stupid as many thought. Like herd animals, they knew better than to venture out alone, and preferred to gather in numbers at places like the Bronze. Only the truly Darwinianly challenged ran about alone after dark.

If she hurried, she could have the bracelet, along with the last of the protection spells, finished before she met Willow to go to the Bronze later. Making jewelry was the one thing Tara truly called her own, allowing her to delve into a magical side she usually had to hide and unleash her creativity. Even her father had grudgingly allowed her to pursue her hobby, if only because it was a pleasingly feminine pastime that also garnered him extra beer money.

She desperately hoped Willow liked the gift. Or maybe she wouldn't. She probably wouldn't. Tara's jewelry-making skills were mediocre at best. Less than mediocre. At least she wasn't soldering anything. The last time, Tara had nearly burned herself to the bone trying to place a beautiful polished moss agate into a silver ring setting.

Maybe Tara should just forget the entire endeavor. It would only embarrass Willow to be forced by good manners to accept chintzy junk jewelry.

"What're you doin' larkin' about, witch?" Tara jumped three feet into the air and shed ten years off her life. The only reason she didn't yowl like a cat with its tail caught under a rocker was because all her breath hissed out of her in an emphysematous wheeze.

Since she was as clumsy as the day was long, she tripped over her own feet and nearly took a header into the dark alleyway she'd been passing. Spike caught her under the elbow, dark brow raised in question.

Tara pressed her hand to her chest, uncomfortably aware of her large breasts heaving against her shapeless maxi dress. To his credit, Spike's eyes didn't dip below her nose. She knew, of course, it was only a matter of time before he leered. They always leered.

Although she'd known Spike since December, she had been very careful to never directly speak to him. Not that she wasn't highly aware of him every time they shared space. He was the only vampire she'd ever met, and to that end, she studied him closely whenever he wasn't looking, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what made him different from a typical human man. Other than the whole blood drinking thing. But her Cousin Willis liked his sweet tea without the sweet, so to her way of thinking, everyone had their quirks.

He'd folded his arms over his chest now, his brows coming down into a silent scowl, and Tara realized she hadn't answered him.

"Sorry." She tried to slow her speech so she wouldn't stutter, but 'S's always gave her trouble. Her fright didn't help either. She ducked her head behind her hair, waiting for him to make fun of her, hating how stupid her stutter made her sound.

She found that men tended toward ornery, especially when they didn't have to be on their best behavior for others. Mostly they turned ornery when drinking and with their own kind, always with a sly, predatory undercurrent, making her wish she could just slide away into nothingness until she was forgotten.

Sliding away didn't work with her Pa's poker buddies. Always pinching her bottom while she scurried to get them beer and chips, leering at her boobies. Pa would notice how she tempted good, God-fearing men, and she'd be forced to go without food for however long it took for his temper to set.

She tugged on her dress, hoping to hide as much of her bosom as possible beneath the baggy material. It didn't matter how much she fasted, her boobies and hips never seemed to shrink.

"It's not safe after dark. All kinds of beasties wanderin' about lookin' for an easy meal."

The paper bag rustled loudly as it crumpled in her sweaty hand. The sidewalk was only so wide, and he blocked the way. No way did she want to step into the dark alley to get around him, and she'd seen enough movies to know stepping off the curb into the street was a sure fire way to get hit by a previous unseen vehicle moving at horrifically unsafe speeds. She glanced at the empty street, absolutely certain a city bus was lurking nearby with the intent to slam into her as soon as she stepped a foot off the curb.

"Come along then. Red'll shoot lightnin' bolts up my arse if I let any harm befall her lady."

Tara's head shot up. "I'm not…no…that's…not her lady." The heat of her blush spread from her chest to the top of her head as the blood rushed through her veins, nearly deafening her. He couldn't possibly know what she and Willow did together. If he had even the smallest suspicion, he'd tell the others, and they'd separate her from Willow for being an evil influence. They'd accuse her of being Satan's Whore out to corrupt their innocent friend. Maybe they'd even tell the school. Tara wasn't sure of UC Sunnydale's policies on sexual perverts. If they expelled her, they'd tell Pa the why of it. That she was wrong and dirty, caught doing wrong and dirty things. It would just prove what Pa already knew. Tara was filthy to the brim of her soul. No camp up north would ever wash her clean, no matter how much water pressure in their hoses or how many Bible verses they read to her.

Demons didn't ever stop sinning, no matter how good they tried to be.

She couldn't go home. She just couldn't. She couldn't.

No, no, no, no.

Spike vamped, fangs and snarls and glowing yellow eyes. Tara squeaked and nearly fell on her rear.

Spike slammed his back into the brick wall, shoving his forearm over his mouth. Fangs gleamed in the dim street light before sinking into the white flesh.

They stood there a moment, frozen, Tara in the middle of the walk, chest heaving with fear, Spike braced up against the brick wall, hunched over as if in pain.

"Bloody hell," he croaked. Spike tore his arm out of his mouth, and blood gushed down his wrist as he braced his hands on his knees, looking as if he was going to wretch. "Settle down."

She blinked at the incongruity of being told to settle down, when it was clear he was the one riled as one of Uncle Jed's fightin' dogs.

"What?"

"Your fear…all that rushin' blood. Soddin' delicious."

Tara watched him struggle, her pulse gradually evening out. Damn her tender heart, the urge to comfort him surged. Comforting him meant getting close, and Tara did her darndest not to get within a fist's swing of men. They were all monsters. Even the kind of decent ones.

Instead she folded her hands carefully, her sweaty palms rubbing together, and breathed in through her nose and out her mouth like Mama taught her, wrestling her fear down into the pit of her stomach where it always squirmed until the next time it broke free.

She moistened her dry mouth, unsticking her dry tongue. "I'm sorry," she stuttered.

He didn't reply, just kept himself hunched over so she couldn't see his face. She rubbed her clammy fingers together, feeling the skin go raw on the inside of her pointers.

Most of her family had one drug or another they got down on their knees for. Meth took two of her cousins, laying them down in a cold grave, and Uncle Jed still had a nickel on his sentence for cooking.

One thing Tara knew about, it was addiction. Sometimes she even thought magic could be one. Mama sure had embraced it like a drug the more Pa turned up mean.

Looking down at Spike, his shoulders hunched, the white bones of his knuckles showing as he clutched his knees, Tara couldn't help but to think of her cousins and how badly they had needed. How they clawed and bit, and sold every last bit of themselves just to make the pain stop. Just to make it another day, another hour, another minute through the agony of life.

"Is it even an addiction, if it's what you need to live?" she whispered, more to herself than to him.

Spike stilled for a heartbeat, hands tightening on his knees, then he burst into a flurry of movement, his boot heel scraping loudly on the pavement, his leather duster rustling like bat wings. It took all of Tara's self control not to flinch when he grabbed her by the upper arm, hauling her close. The look he gave her was pure fury, and her heart tripped over itself and fell into the deep bottomless well of her stomach.

His fingers tightened, dimpling her pale, soft flesh, and she arched away, certain that he was going to do worse than turn up ornery like her Pa's poker buddies.

His mouth hardened, blue eyes flickering to the base of her neck where her pulse thudded hard enough to feel in the back of her throat, like unwanted spurts of cum hitting the soft tissue in the back of her mouth ––hot, hard, uneven pulses with a tinny taste that made her want to spit.

"Let's get you home a'fore Red has a conniption." He nearly yanked her off her feet as he marched her down the street at a whirlwind pace.

When they passed through a yellow spill of light from a street lamp, Tara chanced a glance at him. His full mouth was pressed into a straight line, and no matter how closely she looked, she couldn't see the yellow-eyed monster he'd flashed her only moments earlier.

"I'm sorry," she whispered from behind the fall of her hair.

"For what?" He didn't look at her. Just kept marching her down the sidewalk toward campus.

"For being…" For being what? Just existing, really. For being her. Pa always accused her of being a temptation. Satan's Whore leading the righteous down the path to sin.

Spike dragged her to a stop, swinging in front of her. Unable to get a clear look at her eyes, he drew her hair away from her face with a single finger.

She hated him touching her with such gentleness. The hard grip on her arm she could handle. But gentleness was always a lie. His face was too close, his body too deep into her space. He smelled like whiskey and smoke, making her want to curl up and drift away to the safe place in her head.

"Never apologize for being what you are. Whether it be a delicious human, a delectable little witch, or a woman who enjoys the company of other women. Don't ever give your enemies the satisfaction of bein' ashamed of who you are."

Tears flooded her eyes, and she had to blink to keep them from falling. Her entire life she'd been ashamed of who and what she was. A demon, a whore, an abomination.

"None of that now," he ordered her gruffly. He tugged her forward, more gently this time, and she followed, more than willing to be lead back to Willow, the only warm haven she'd found since her mother died.

"Are you my enemy?"

"Well, luv," he drawled, smirking at her, looking as she'd always seen him before. No outward sign of their moment in the alley showing in his carefree expression. If she blinked she might not even remember it happened. "I am the Big Bad."

Tara studied him as they walked, wondering what made him such a different monster than all the others she knew.

8888

Spike shelved the last of his books in the half-decent bookcase he'd found at the dump and glanced around the lower level of his crypt. With Xander's help he'd finished off most of the bathroom, only needing to procure a solar water heater (preferably off the back of a truck), and they had shored up the dirt walls in the bedroom with varnished cherry wood paneling they'd torn out of an abandoned Victorian just outside of town.

The pine-scented candles the witches had provided gave the room a nice mellow glow, mingling with the natural scents of damp earth to give the room an open, woodsy feel rather than a suffocating, sepulchral one.

His fangs still ached from when he'd run into the little white Wiccan earlier. His reaction to her fear and embarrassment had been unexpected, reminding him of how much of a monster he still was just beneath the neutered puppy act he'd been perfecting since meeting the Summers women.

The demon had broken free from its cage hard and fast, the intense craving for fresh, free-flowing blood nearly putting him on his arse. Not even knowledge of the chip in his brain had been a deterrent. Only his own sense of self had stopped him from leaping on the girl and getting as many bites in as possible before his brain fricasseed.

It hadn't been thoughts of Buffy staking him through the heart, or Dawn's fear, or even Joyce's disappointment stopping him from trying to feed, but his own strong-rooted desire not to hurt the girl. Not to snuff her fragile life force. Not to leave death in his wake for once in his life.

He hadn't wanted to hurt her, so he hadn't. He made the decision. Not his drives or instincts. The blood had called its siren song to him and he'd tied himself to the mast rather than succumb.

He'd be proud of himself if it wasn't for the fact that he'd bitten himself down to the bone in an effort to stop himself. Only the taste of fresh blood in his mouth, the pressure of flesh giving way to his fangs, had curbed his impulse to bite down on the witch's soft white neck.

The girl made Spike twitchy in ways other than bloodlust. Secrets made the small hairs on the back of his arms stand on end, and that girl had secrets, other than the obvious one of making time with Red.

"Spike!" His crypt door slammed, nearly unseating one of the candles nearest the ladder. Spike inhaled, checking his internal clock for the time.

"Snack size?" He roared, heading for the ladder. "What's the buggerin' rule, you brat? No goin' out after dark." Halfway up the ladder, he glanced in Dawn's direction. He went predator still, eyes narrowed, face shadowed. "Why do you look like a two-dollar whore?" he asked in a quietly murderous voice.

"Buffy did it to me," she sobbed, nearly in tears.

Spike scanned her from the top of her teased-out hair, to her harlot-red lipstick, and…bloody, buggering, fuck, what was she wearing? Spike had never seen so much of Snack Size's skin. She looked like a pervert's wet dream and a fledge's perfect midnight snack all rolled into one.

Slowly, with precise movements that spoke of barely contained rage, Spike ascended the ladder, moving to his kitchenette. He tore off some paper towels, wetting them with clean water from a plastic bottle.

"Clean your face," he ordered.

She sniffed, grabbing the wad he held out to her, and scrubbed. The waterproof mascara smeared, and Spike was hit with the visceral memory of a young girl he'd trapped in an alley decades before. She had been nobody. Someone he'd eaten quickly and dropped at his feet. But her eyes. It had only been a glance before he walked away, but he remembered her eyes. Lifeless, rimmed in black mascara smeared with her tears.

Furious, he ripped off more paper towels, shoving them at her. Startled, she took them, scrubbing harder at her face. The red lipstick reddened her cheek and chin, making her look she'd just come off a fresh, hard fuck.

Spike growled, spinning away so he couldn't see her face. With shaking hands, he lit a cigarette, inhaling the nicotine deep into his lungs.

Images flashed through his head. Women he hurt. Fed on until they dropped dead at his feet. Memories of him stepping on their lifeless bodies to get to his waltzing princess as dark blood ran down her chin. Girls younger than Dawn. Girls prettier than Buffy. Women as old as Joyce crying over their children. Too old for him to eat, not the veal he preferred, so he left them to mourn a tragedy they'd never recover from.

Bloody, bugger, fuck! What was happening to him?

His fangs shot hard and fast, cutting up his mouth. Back still to Dawn he hunched his shoulders. In the tight confines of the crypt, he could smell her blood, pumping fast from her run through the cemetery. The salty sweat on her skin. Her tears. Her fear and confusion.

He needed to get his shite together before he went off the bloody rails!

"Spike?"

Was this a result of being chipped? Was he slowly going insane? Unable to indulge in his natural instincts, were they now going haywire?

He shuffled away from her, snuffing out the candles nearest to him, cloaking himself in shadow. The encroaching darkness made the predator inside him pull up tight. He clocked Dawn's heartbeat, the heartbeats of the scurrying mice in the cemetery, and the owl perched in a nearby tree, its pulse increasing as it poised to strike.

"Tell me what happened?" he rasped out around his fangs.

Behind him Dawn shuffled closer.

"No! Stay in the light." The light where she belonged. Where all the Summers women belonged. Far from where he skulked in the shadows.

"You're being a dweeb!" Dawn spat.

The outrageous accusation caught Spike off-guard. A laugh burst out of him, sending the demon scurrying away. Human face restored, Spike turned to Dawn. She'd scrubbed the best she could, but she still looked like a murderous clown.

His predator instincts didn't so much as mewl at the sight of her. Instead he saw his Snack Size looking both angry and miserable beneath the ridiculous make-up.

"What the bloody hell happened?"

"That's two quarters."

"Hell doesn't count."

"Yes, it does."

"No way. I'm not agreeing to it. Hell's in the Bible."

"So's damn."

"You let hell slide and I won't tell your mum you said damn."

Dawn scowled, crossing her arms in a huff. "So not fair."

"Life," Spike said with a shrug. "Now explain to me why you look like a zombie doxy."

"What's a doxy?"

Spike didn't answer. Just raised his brow and waited with his usual predator patience that the Summers girls were finding harder and harder to circumvent.

"Well, see. Faith woke up from her coma…"

8888

Spike escorted Dawn home safe and sound. He swept the house, finding everything in order, including Joyce, who had retired early with a migraine, which explained how Dawn escaped the house without her mother knowing after Buffy left for the club. No doubt Joyce's headache had been exacerbated by the catastrophe that was her living room and the long, complicated insurance claim she would have to file in the morning.

Once he was certain the house was safe from nasties, he ordered Dawn to lock up and headed for The Bronze to track down Buffy.

Faith awakening from her coma and attacking had to be a shock to her, but that didn't explain why she decided to play sex doll dress-up with her baby sis, then headed to The Bronze to 'let off steam'.

He found her in the center of a writhing crowd, six men deep, each vying for their turn to paw at her. Flashing fang, he managed to tunnel his way through to her as she heaved and strutted on the dance floor.

He caught her by the wrist, towing her toward their dark corner beneath the stairs. When he whirled to face her, he was startled by the stranger who peered back at him. Hair teased out, dark-rimmed eyes and red lips, she looked like the wet dreams he used to have of her during that first year, when he didn't know her as Buffy, and saw her only as a sexy piece he'd like to take a bite out of.

"Buffy, what're you doin', luv?"

Buffy tilted her head to the side, scanning down his body with a darkly speculative look in her eye, making him vaguely uncomfortable.

"You're Spike."

He raised a brow. "Yeah, I know who I am."

"When I stopped to check in with Giles earlier, he was yammering on about the chip in your head."

Spike tensed. The chip wasn't a topic he wanted to talk about. It was doing things to him. Bad things.

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

If the Watcher had ideas on removing it, Spike wanted to hear, though he doubted any of his so-called friends would vote for its removal. He still hadn't forgotten his non-invite to the Initiative raiding party, cock-blocking him from finding a sodding doctor to undo what they did to him.

They may play nice to his face. Xander with his handy carpentry skills, and sad, unloved puppy eyes, and Anya with her chirpy little pep talks about surviving day-by-day. Willow and her soddin' housewarming baskets full of beer and candles. And let's not forget the bleedin' Summers women. The only reason he was allowed back into the house, like a dog recently bathed in flea dip and declared tick free, was because of the chip in his head.

Now his girl was strutting her tight little arse on the dance floor just two days after nearly sucking his cock.

It was enough to brass him the sod off.

She shrugged, dragging her eyes away to scan the crowd. The music slowed, and she began swaying her hips in time with the beat, drawing Spike's eyes to the black leather pants practically painted on her.

"Everyone's always talking about you. Used to piss Angel the hell off. How you saved the girl. How you aren't a normal vampire. You weird everyone out."

The pain that hit him in the chest jerked him back a step. Yeah, he might not be one of them. Black hat, and all, but to hear that he weirded them out? Ouch.

Apparently, Buffy didn't find what she was looking for in the crowd because her thickly kholed eyes zeroed back on him. She cocked her head, and Spike shifted his weight, feeling like prey under her penetrating gaze.

"Wanna fuck?"

Spike nearly choked on his tongue. Barely finding his words, he managed to cough out, "What happened to wantin' it all romantic like?"

Buffy eased closer, her hips moving in a sinuous dip, beckoning him to fit his hands in the curve of her waist and pull her into him so she'd feel his cock against her belly.

He fisted his hands at his sides, refusing the temptation to grab her when she slid in close, looping her arms around his neck. The glossy red lipstick she wore smelled like cherry amaretto, daring him to take a taste. He wrinkled his nose, knowing from his experiences kissing Dru and Harmony that the lipstick would taste waxy and bitter on his tongue. He bet the strawberry gloss she usually wore would taste better.

"Ever bagged a Slayer before, Spike? I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up. I've got muscles you could only dream about. I could squeeze you until you popped like warm champagne and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more."

She smiled up at him, so certain of her power over him, while rubbing her fingers along the collar of his duster. Spike finally gave in to the temptation to touch her, setting his hands low on her hips and shoving her an arm's length away. Her jaw sagged in shock, but she quickly snapped it shut when he leaned in, shoving his face into hers.

"What. The. Bloody fuck, Buffy?" He couldn't believe she was spewing this shite at him after what they shared only a few nights before. She had sat in his lap, sharing all her fears about pleasure and pain being mixed up, and how much she regretted her night with Parker, and now she was up in his face, rubbing her perky little tits all over him?

She staggered back a few more steps, putting distance between them. The uncertain look she flashed him made him want to reach for her, but then that slow viper smile reclaimed her red-painted lips and it was all he could do not to recoil.

"And you know why I don't?" She notched her hands on her hips, leaning in close, reminding Spike of an asp ready to strike. "Because it'd be wrong."

Then she was gone, the scent of beer and cherry amaretto in her wake. She twirled through the dancers on the dance floor until Spike lost her in the writhing crowd.

8888

Buffy could not flipping believe Faith had done this. Somehow, during her weekly visits to the hospital, Buffy had convinced herself the rift between her and her sister slayer had been healed. Obviously, the rift-healing had been entirely one-sided. Color Buffy stupid. It seemed Faith had been nursing a grudge even in dreamland.

Now, Buffy was running for her life from a Council wetworks team, while trying to convince her friends she was her inside a Faith suit.

Luckily, Tara could see auras. Which brought up some serious questions about why her friends couldn't recognize Faith walking around in a Buffy suit. Was Faith that good of an actor or was Buffy just that unpredictable?

"They're coming," Willow whispered as she hurried away from Giles' window. They'd finally tracked down Faith. Fortunately, she'd taken Buffy's body for a visit over to Riley's. This did not give Buffy fuzzy feelings of goodness. The last thing she wanted was Riley hurt by Faith. Buffy's guilty conscience could only take so much.

Gripping the body-swapping katra hard in her hand, Buffy hid behind the door. Buffy knew Riley, always a gentleman, would let Faith precede him through the door, giving Buffy an opportunity to ambush her without endangering him.

The door began to swing open. Buffy caught the edge, slamming it closed. The door jerked, accompanied by a pained cry. Buffy jerked open the door, grabbing her dazed body by the collar of her jacket, and yanked Faith inside, slamming the door on a stunned Riley. She wanted him to stay outside where he would be safe.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Willow ready the tranq gun. With a nod, Buffy reached out, taking Faith's hand, the katra between them.

The world tipped over, and pain exploded in her temple where the edge of the door had caught Faith. She fell backward, hearing the soft recoil of the tranq gun as Willow shot Faith with two darts.

The front door started to open, and Buffy reached out, laying her palm flat on the panel, easily keeping it closed against Riley's struggles. Outside she could hear her boyfriend shout, but her attention was centered on Faith crumpled, but still conscious, at her feet.

Frowning, Buffy leaned down, hand still on the door, partially because she was still dizzy, but mostly to keep Riley out.

"You shouldn't have involved him. This was between us."

Faith blinked up at her, her pupils blown wide as the drug started to take effect. Her dark eyes focused on Buffy, and a slow, wicked-evil smile spread across her pretty face.

"Who? Your little human boy toy? He wasn't much in the sack. Not like Angel. Angel could screw all night, but I did my best. Rode him hard and put him up wet. Showed him all the ways a good girl can be dirty and when it was over he told me he loved me." Faith's laugh was a knife twist in Buffy's stomach. Between her thighs she felt damp with cum and sore in ways she'd never been before.

Face sheet white, Buffy bent down a little further. Not because she wanted to get closer to Faith, but because down deep, her belly ached. "You didn't?"

Faith smiled her wicked-evil, knowing smile, and the ache in Buffy's belly turned into hard, oily knots.

"Buffy! Buffy!" The pounding on the door reverberated through her palm and down her arm, knocking her world even more off-kilter.

"Don't worry. I only hurt him a little. He liked it nasty. Boy's got some kink." Faith's eyes fluttered, the last word coming out slurred. Giles hurried forward, zip-tying her wrists, casting Buffy a worried frown.

"Buffy?" Willow edged closer, her pale round face worried. Only she knew the blow of Faith's words, because Willow had been the only person Buffy had told about her doubts. About how she thought Riley might not be the One. About how she thought she might not want to have sex with him.

Buffy straightened, her hand sliding off the door. The door slammed open, a frazzled Riley bursting inside.

"Buffy! Are you alright?" His frantic eyes took in the blood on her temple, and the crumpled body at her feet. Frowning, he reached for her hand, coming up short when Buffy jerked away.

Buffy's eyes darted around the room, not meeting anyone's gaze. She pulled into herself, wrapping her arms around her waist, hunching her shoulders.

"I need to go. You got this, Giles?"

"Of course. The Council is on their way."

Buffy nodded, skirting around Riley, who shot her a lost and confused look. He reached for her again, and she dipped away, darting out the door.

"Buffy!" he shouted, following her out the door, but she was gone into the night before he could chase her down.