Just a quick A/N to say thank you to all of you who've left such encouraging reviews! I really appreciate the feedback. You all rock.

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Apparently, the last-minute protection spell had worked—his crypt was still empty, the shattered remains of bottles and glasses still scattered about, as he'd left them.
Everything that was broken when I left is still broken when I come back… funny how that works.

He sighed. Hadn't exactly been the triumphal return he'd imagined. He'd fantasized a fair amount on the way home, alternately that they'd finally have a knock-down drag-out and one of them would kill the other, or that she'd have been lost without him, and throw herself at his feet begging forgiveness. Nowhere in any of his imagined scenarios had she looked at him with quite that combination of pain and anger and disappointment. And nowhere had the sight of Dawn's scared and trusting face made him want to promise her he'd never drink another drop of human blood.

He began half-heartedly picking up the shards of glass, until the memory of the accusation in Buffy's eyes had him hurling the handful back against the wall in fury. Bitch. Always assuming the worst. He kicked the table for good measure, reflecting absently that he'd gone through quite a lot of furniture since he'd met the little blonde bint. Occupational hazard, he supposed.

Suddenly, he froze, head lifted, senses on full alert. After a moment, he began to laugh mirthlessly. He climbed the ladder, walked slowly out into the moonlit cemetery. Sure enough, there she was--all cozied up in a tree, of all places. Watching him steadily, her face blank, a stake in her hand. He stopped underneath the tree and smirked up at her.

"Well, now. How's this for a role reversal? You wanted to be near me, pet, you could've just asked."

As soon as she'd seen him step out of the crypt, all her anger and betrayal had come flooding back. She glared at him. "I don't trust you."

"Now there's a shocking bit of news." He rolled his eyes, stuck his thumbs in his pockets.

"What the hell was that all about today?"

Apparently, she was once again in no mood for games. She was deathly, coldly serious, and that Spike could have handled, but the tiny sliver of hurt in her voice pulled at him against his will. He wanted to make it better, and hated himself for being so whipped over this silly, self-righteous chit.

He didn't know whether to be angry or apologetic, so he tried to shoot for something in between. "It was about not being the whipping boy anymore," he told her seriously. "Things are different now."

"Yeah, I noticed that right about the time you were thinking about sucking the life out of the people I love."

He threw his hands up in the air. "There you go again, always accusing me--`This is one of your stupid schemes, Spike, you're a worthless thing, Spike, I can't trust you, Spike.' Bloody hell, Slayer, doesn't that sodding high horse of yours ever get tired?"

She pinned him with eyes, refusing to be baited. "Spike. I've seen enough hungry vampires to know one when I see one. And tonight, you looked at my friends and you saw dinner. Don't try to deny it."

She had him there, and the disappointment in her eyes made him feel like a scolded child. "Fine. I thought about it, all right? For a moment. I'm a vampire. I'm supposed to kill, to feed. You don't know what it's like, the way the blood calls to you, the way you can hear it rushing through the veins, practically taste it on your tongue…" He saw the revulsion on her face, but plowed ahead anyway. He wanted her to understand. "It's my nature, and it's stronger than you can possibly imagine, little girl."

Her smile was twisted. "Preaching to the choir, here, Mr. Melodrama."

He growled, frustrated. "But I didn't. I had my opportunity--could've drained at least one of them dry before you had a chance to stop me. But I didn't. I walked away, and all that idiot bricklayer got was a little tap on the nose. Least he deserved, if you ask me."

A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. "So why didn't you?"

He wanted to lie, wanted to tell her that punching Xander had been only the first step in an intricate Big Evil Plot that would leave her begging for mercy. He wanted to retain some shred of dignity, some semblance of power. But something about her just stripped away all his defenses. So he gave her the truth. "I saw Dawn," he answered quietly. "I saw Dawn, and I couldn't do it."

She was silent for a moment. Finally, softly, "And what if Dawn hadn't been there?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if Dawn hadn't been there? Would you have hurt one of them?"

He sensed that there was quite a bit hanging in the balance here, and again, he was tempted to lie--tell her what she wanted to hear. But he was starting to figure out that just as much as he wanted all of her, he needed her to want all of him. Man, demon, the whole package. He shrugged, forced himself to speak. "Maybe. I don't know." Four words, and she might never touch him again.

What was I expecting? But it hurt anyway. She felt her eyes fill and overflow. "Then I can't trust you."

Even though he'd been expecting it, it still cut through him like a knife. He growled again, slammed his fist into the tree in frustration. "Dammit, Buffy! Don't I at least get points for good intentions?"

She smiled a little, the moonlight glinting off the tear-tracks on her cheeks. "I don't give out the points, Spike. Am I supposed to be grateful to you for deciding not to kill my friends? I guess I am, sort of, which just goes to show you I've been living on the Hellmouth way too long. So you chose that today. But you said the demon's powerful, it's pulling at you. Tomorrow, you might not even have a choice. Tomorrow, Dawn may not be there to stop you. Evil's an instinct for a vampire—how do I know it won't take over? And since I'm the one who's gonna have to stake you if that happens, you'll understand if points don't mean all that much to me."

He thought about that for a moment, then chuckled a bit. "So what we've got here is your basic boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-for-girl, girl-thinks-boy-might-turn-into-a-ruthless-killing-machine-and-she'll-have-to-stake-him kind of thing?"

That got a reluctant laugh. "Pretty much."

A thought occurred to him. "So, if my instinct is to be evil, and you think I chose differently today, does that mean you're admitting that I'm not completely evil?" He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Being evil was fun. Then again, she'd used it as an excuse to stomp all over him for the past three years, so…

She rolled her eyes with a half-groan, half-laugh. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. The Slayer is supposed to kill vamps, not Psych 101 them." He stayed quiet, waiting for her answer. "Just because you've done good doesn't mean you are good."

He snorted. "Wouldn't want to be good. But…" He remembered what he'd told Dawn, that night they were hiding from Glory. "I'm OK, aren't I?"

"Sometimes. It's just… I mean…" She'd never really spent a lot of time pondering the nature of good and evil; she was more of a slay-first, ponder-later kinda girl. She couldn't believe she was doing it in a cemetery in the middle of the night, for the benefit of her vampire ex-lover who might or might not kill everyone she loved tomorrow. Definitely high marks for weirdness, even in her life. She tried to work through it anyway. "I guess it's about instinct. Something you do without thinking about it. Without expecting anything in return."

He couldn't believe he was discussing philosophy, period, much less with the Slayer, in the middle of a perfectly good night for hunting, while she was guarding him just in case she had to stake him. Still, it was as close to a civilized conversation as they were likely to get at this point. Besides, as long as they were chatting, maybe it'd distract her from the stake, so he figured he'd give it a go. "C'mon, Slayer. You really think anyone does good just for the sake of it?"

"I do," she replied, just a touch defensively.

"Oh, please," he scoffed, pulling a pack of smokes out of his pocket and digging for his lighter. The lighter clicked open and shut, and he took a long drag. "You've saved the world a few times, sure, but you can't tell me you didn't get anything from it yourself. Satisfaction of a job well done and all. As much as you bitch about your sacred duty, you sure get miserable when you're not out doing it. Makes you feel good to know you're making a difference, doesn't it?"

That threw her, he could tell. "Yeah, but… I do it 'cause it's right. Everything you do, you do for selfish reasons--because it'll get you money, or power, or me, or whatever."

He shrugged. "What's so bad about bein' selfish? My selfishness has saved your lovely skin a time or two, pet. And I'd say that counts as a point for the good guys." He grinned at her triumphantly. He was better at this than he'd thought.

She was starting to get frustrated. "So if the result is good, it doesn't matter why you did it? That doesn't make sense."

"Turn it around," he suggested, through his cig. "When you thought you'd killed that girl, you thought you'd done it by accident. But you still wanted to turn yourself in. Didn't matter to you that you hadn't meant to. The result mattered."

She thought about that for a minute. It had been so long since she'd questioned… anything, really. She'd had her hands full just reacting. "It's just… it's different. I protect people because I want to. You protect people because you want to get in my pants."

That stung, and wiped the grin right off his face. "I've fought by your side because I love you, Buffy. If all I wanted was a quick shag, I could've gotten that a hell of a lot easier. I've tried to change for you, and all you do is throw it back in my face. If it was just about the sex, I could have skipped town the moment you decided to make your great heroic sacrifice last summer. Could have left your friends to fend for themselves, and odds are one or more of them would be dead without me. But I didn't, because I'd made you a promise. You treated me like a man, and I wanted to act like one." He glared up at her, seething. Self-righteous more-Chosen-than-thou vamp-hating close-minded--

"Thanks."

He blinked, interior tirade totally derailed. He was absolutely certain he was hearing things, because he thought he'd just heard her thank him. "Sorry?"

She cleared her throat. "I said thanks. I never got the chance to thank you for that."

He blinked again, and she almost giggled, watching the way he was floundering around, totally at a loss. "Uh… well… I… I mean…" He trailed off. "What are you playing at, Slayer?" He squinted up at her suspiciously.

The wave of sadness caught her completely off-guard. She sighed. "Am I such a horrible bitch that you can't even accept a thank-you?"

Hmmm… So many answers to that question… For once in his unlife, he decided to take the gentlemanly route. "'Course not."

She smiled. "Liar."

He shrugged, unable to hold back a grin. "Well…" He let it hang. "You're welcome, anyway."

They smiled at each other for a second, and then she sighed again, shaking her head. "See, there's this, and then there's… A few hours ago, you were a heartless demon who wanted to kill my friends. How can all of this be you?"

His mouth quirked wryly. "Still working on that one myself, luv."

"How do I know you aren't going to go all demon-y again tomorrow?"

He shrugged. "You don't. I can't make you any guarantees, Buffy. The demon's strong. It's all about strength, all about power. It's the same for you, I expect—your power is strongest in darkness, and death is your duty. Every night, you kill, and with every death, the darkness pulls at you. Even Drac, nancy-boy poser that he is, got that bit right. You've resisted it so far. Your friend Faith didn't. And every day, every night, it's a new struggle."

Her eyes were bright with tears again. "I can't… People died because of me, Spike. Because I gave Angel the benefit of the doubt. Because I wanted to believe that he could be good again." It was as close as she could come to an explanation.

He considered it, tried to shove down his own hurt and resentment and see it from her side. Finally, "Fair enough. You hero types have to do your thing. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree." He blew unnecessary breath out between his teeth, flicked his cigarette to the ground, ran a hand through his hair. "You don't have to stay in the damned tree all night, though. Go home, get some rest. I promise, I'm too bloody tired to even plan any apocalypses tonight, much less actually start one."

He thought she might have been tempted to smile, but her face remained blank. "I'll be all right here."

He sighed, knowing it was useless to argue with her. "Fine. Suit yourself. I think I've got an extra blanket lying around--I'll leave it outside the door, in case you get cold." Damned if she wasn't turning him into the biggest poof since Peaches. Maybe that was a new technique in vampire slaying--turning them into such sad wankers that they had to stake themselves just to keep a shred of self-respect.

Still, it got more of a reaction than he'd expected. For half a second, he saw fresh pain in her eyes, then the mask dropped down again. But her voice was hoarse. "Thanks."

He shook his head, turned to go. "'Night, Slayer."

"'Night, Spike."

Back in his crypt, he settled in on his bed, tried in vain to sleep. Outside, she settled in the tree, tried in vain to hate him. In the end, neither one of them was successful. They stayed wakeful, feeling each other's presence, a comfort and a torture at the same time. And as soon as the sun rose, she was gone.

TBC