Buffy stands in front of the bathroom mirror, smooths her hand down over her stomach carefully, and starts unwrapping the bandage.

Across the hall she can hear Riley breathing deeply in his sleep, curled on his side of her bed. She bites her cheek sourly.

He can hit the pillow and be out like a light. No tossing or turning. No worries.

...No cares.

He'd barely asked her how she was doing. Whether her stomach was healing alright. No question of how Joyce was doing. How research had gone last night. All though she suspected he knew she hadn't really been with Giles at all.

I suppose I can't really blame him if I'm not willing to share either. It's not that I don't want to, I just don't want to send him into hyper military-man mode. Deciding things for me, and taking away what I need to keep myself distracted. Busy.

I don't need to be taken care of, I just want someone to listen.

She finishes undoing the bandage and carefully peals back the gauze. The skin is pink and new and sensitive to touch underneath the dried blood from the bandage.

Can't beat Slayer-ness for healing.

She sighs hard, wrapping the bandage back up into a ball, and throwing the gauze away into the trash.

At least external healing, anyway.

She turns the shower on and sets the water to scolding, standing underneath it until her skin feels like it's going to burn, letting the old blood on her skin rinse off under the steam. There are thin lines around her waist where the bandage hugged and she runs her fingers over them, feeling the ridges of them. Hard, like Spike's fingers. A little sore where it criss-crosses her new skin.

He'd let her cry. Hadn't given her advice, or platitudes of how there was nothing to worry about. When she could finally bear to she'd looked him in the face and seen tears shining in his eyes too. Like he knew exactly what she was going through and it hurt him to think of it..

Why is Riley so rubbish at that? Do you have to be alive for decades to figure out that the mucho man routine doesn't solve everything?

She shuts the water off and shivers as the heat dissipates rapidly. She dries off and pulls her towel tight around her.

I need to give him more of a chance on this. Your Slayer girlfriend getting stabbed in the stomach while her mom is in hospital isn't exactly an everyday boyfriend problem, she thinks as she slips back to her room.

Riley's on the floor, grunting as he counts his push ups. He stops as she walks back in, smiling at her as he gets up off the floor.

"Morning."

"Hi." Buffy smiles back, but when she catches sight of her face in the mirror it looks more like a pained grimace.

Come on, try harder.

"What's the plan for today?" He says, pulling on a shirt, slipping into jeans.

"Just checking in on mom at the hospital."

"What's the latest? A news?"

"Nothing yet, just tests."

"Well, I've got papers to grade and a class at midday, but I can do the papers in the waiting room."

"Oh uh... sure ok." She tries to sound relieved but the strain her voice is deafening and she can see it on his face.

Riley crosses his arms, pursing his lips.

"You don't want me there."

"Riley-"

"No I get it. Summer's family only."

"It's just tests-"

"I get it." He nods, pulling on shoes and pulling the laces extra hard. "I was going to do some research myself anyway."

Buffy stops toweling her hair, raising an eyebrow as she pulls on a skirt and a sweater.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, just a little recon. Nothing for you to worry about."

Buffy raises an eyebrow. "He said worryingly."

Riley stands up, straightening his shirt, avoiding her eyes.

"Might have something on a potential nest downtown."

"We're not talking a rat nest though are we?"

"No, other vermin." He leans against the door, giving her a hard look that stings.

"Vampires?"

"I'll fill you in when you're back from the hospital."

Buffy shrugs on her denim jacket, pointedly ignoring his bitterness.

She swallows the words she was about to say. How he shouldn't patrol alone. How he should leave it all to her, that it's her job and not his...

I need to trust him. If I don't trust him he won't trust me.

And he probably shouldn't trust me right now... I'm being a bad girlfriend.

"Ok great. We can patrol together later."

He seems to soften slightly, unclenching the arms that are folded across his chest.

"You sure you're up to it? After the other night?"

Buffy nods, smiling harder than she feels.

"All better, no more stomach gape-age. Ready to cause gaping holes in others."

He shakes his head, "I don't think I'll ever get used to how fast you heal. Sort of wish we still had the Initiative's lab. Information on healing like that would be invaluable."

Buffy represses a shiver, squashing thoughts of herself hooked up to beeping machines, of needles slipping in under her skin as the room spins and men with clipboards and cold unfeeling expressions take notes. Thoughts of that tin-foil pit in the Initiative, rows of tables covered in handcuffs and leather straps. Endless rooms with nothing but white, easily washable walls.

That tunnel Maggie Walsh had sent her into with a dud gun and two demons, expecting her to be ripped to shreds... would they have dragged her body back afterwards? Taken it to pieces to see how it worked? See if her Slayer destiny changed anything on the inside?

Would they rebuild her? Fit her with a chip and set her off like a clockwork soldier.

The thought of the chip nestled inside Spike's brain suddenly wigs her out completely-

If it wasn't for Riley, if Maggie had found out about me first, where would she have drawn the line? Would she have fitted me with her own little remote control? Have a Slayer in her pocket whenever she needed one-

"Buffy?"

She snaps her head up, realizing Riley had been speaking.

"Huh?"

"I said shall I pick you and Dawn up from the hospital?"

"Oh uh, no that's ok, Xander will. I'll see you after."

"Alright. See you later..."

Spike lounges in his armchair, letting daytime TV wash over him in a constant droning yammer.

Jesus it's almost like having Harmony back.

He shuts the TV off, and his mind flares in the sudden silence. His skin feels too tight and his mouth tastes like an ashtray but he hasn't moved since he flopped down into the chair last night.

I should sleep. Fuck, I wish I could just sleep...

Can't sleep with all of Buffy fizzing around in my brain. Maybe I'll never sleep again.

Can still smell her everywhere.

His stomach growls angrily, twisting itself into a knot, and he rubs his gut to try to ease it.

The scent of her...

I want it so much. That scent. Want to swallow it whole, coat my guts with it. So much heat, and power, and darkness under a wave of sweetness and light. If I could just taste her again...

Can't get her out of me now, she's wormed her way in deep. Made me want her. I'm never going to get out of it now. Never.

Dru was right...

Mad bitch was always right...

His stomach contracts painfully and winces.

Need to feed. Going to start shredding myself from the inside out if I don't drink something.

He hauls himself out of the chair, opening the fridge and pulling out a pack of blood. As he sets his teeth against the plastic, tearing into it, the door to his crypt is slammed open. The figure in the doorway is backlit by blinding Sunnydale light but even over the blood in his hand Spike can smell who it is without looking at the face. He tears a longer gash into the plastic of the bag and tips the contents into a glass.

"If you're hear to peddle your Girl Scout cookies, mate, you've gone a bit far down the wrong road."

Riley steps down into the gloom of the crypt.

"I'm not here for a social call, Spike."

"Oh, what a shame, here I was about to pull out the good china." Spike takes a long slow sip of blood, waiting for the inevitable throwing of weight around and barrage of back-off-my-girl cliches.

He's here about last night, must be. Or the night before... or... shit the glorious night before that. Guess it was thick of me thinking she'd keep that to herself.

"The other night. Buffy-" Riley starts. Spike rolls his eyes.

There we go.

"Oh, she told you huh?" Spike doesn't catch Riley's change in expression, as he takes another sip of blood. "Don't overthink it, crewcut, it was just a patch up. That's all."

Riley freezes, confusion flooding his face.

"A patch up?"

"Yeah, the uh-" Spike gestures to his stomach. "Looked nasty, is all. Didn't see the point in her bleeding out over a pissing fledgeling fresh out his grave. And I didn't do it for money either if that's what your thinking! I jus-"

He suddenly realises Riley hasn't moved an inch, but a white raging fury has filled his eyes.

Oh... Fuck.

"Ah... she didn't tell you, then."

"Tell me what, exactly?"

Despite the look on Riley's face, and his own threadbare sense of preservation, Spike can't help but grin.

"Wouldn't worry yourself over it mate. Slayer can handle herself fine, just a little slip is all. I was happy to help." He looks Riley dead in the eyes, savouring the moment, "you know. In a hands on capacity."

"Right." Riley sneers, taking a couple of steps towards Spike, "cus you two are such good friends?"

"Something like that."

"That's funny. Why don't you tell me another Spike as you're so in the know? Seeing as you two are so close."

"Oh well now I wouldn't go that far. Last night I was just a shoulder to cry on, as it were. I'm sure it's just cus you were busy. Had a late club meeting or something, did you?" Spike runs a tongue over his teeth.

Riley's face turns white.

"Didn't tell you about that either, eh? Dear, oh dear."

Spike finishes his pint of blood, setting the glass on the table beside the chair, smirking.

"Shoulder to cry on about what?"

"Don't you know?"

Riley's teeth are clenched in a rictus of outrage, as he takes a final step towards Spike, towering over him.

"Know. What?"

"Oh well, I don't really think it's my place to say. Hate to be a gossip- HEY!"

Riley grabs him by the collar of his shirt and drags him to the door of the crypt, yanking it open before pinning Spike to the entrance.

"HEY-Whoa-WAIT-"

Riley dips him partway into the sunshine of the cemetery and Spike gasps at the sudden searing agony.

"Bloody- PULL ME BACK IN-" Riley pulls him close only to slam him back again, cracking his skull against the stonewall of the crypt, making white spots of light dance across his vision.

"You're lying. You don't know anything about Buffy, you never did. And I don't think she'd miss you particularly if you went up in flames, Spike. She's got me, and she doesn't need your poisonous filth."

There's a blinding pain up Spike's arm as he feels the sun scorch his skin into blisters. He tries to pull himself out of Riley's grip back into the shadows.

"Sure. She's got you. That's why you're there holding her hand right now while her mom get's her brain scanned, right?"

Riley blinks, hauling him back in suddenly.

"Brain scan?"

"She's getting checked out good and proper, no more aimless poking around." Spike catches his breath, clutching his hand as the blisters start to recede. "Last to know, huh? Must've slipped her mind."