"Hey." Willow looked over at her. "You want to come with, Buffy? Oz won't mind."
"No, I'll just stay here."
Willow hesitated. "You want me to stick around and keep you company?"
"Go on," Buffy urged her friend. "I'm going to take a nap. You know I haven't been sleeping so well lately so this is a good chance to catch up. All the curtains are closed, it's pretty dark in here with the lights out, it'll be almost like night."
"All right, as long as you're sure." Willow hovered halfway to the door, undecided.
"I am." Buffy waved her away. "Go out and have a good time. I'll be fine. Won't even know you're gone."
"Okay. Bye."
Buffy waited until Willow had departed, then turned off the light and collapsed onto the bed, ready to sleep straight through to the morning. Her head had barely hit the pillow, though, when the phone rang. Buffy groaned and pulled the pillow over her head, but the shrill noise continued. Five rings, six....
She gave up and grabbed the phone, yanking it toward her without bothering to flick on a lamp. "Hello?"
"Hi, Buffy?"
"Yeah." She pushed herself into a sitting position and pressed the phone closer to her ear. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. "Who is this?"
"Oh, sorry. Riley. Riley Finn, Professor Walsh's T.A.?"
"Oh, no." Alarm ran through Buffy, forcing her wide awake. "Did Professor Walsh hate my latest paper? I thought I was doing so much better in that class. Do I have to meet with her or something?"
"No, nothing like that. This is personal. Me calling you. I mean, I was wondering, are you busy tonight? Or tomorrow night? Or any other night?"
"What?" She had to have misheard.
"I'm doing this all wrong. Let me start over." Riley took an audible breath and continued. "Buffy, I'd like to go out with you sometime. Whenever you're free. On a date."
"Wow." That was the last thing Buffy had expected to hear him say. She thought about the prospect for a moment and couldn't manage to work up the slightest bit of enthusiasm for the idea. "Look, Riley, that won't work out."
"Oh." His disappointment carried across the phone line. "Is it because you got back together with your ex-boyfriend?"
"Who?"
"That blonde guy with the accent. I haven't seen you two on campus together lately so I thought you broke up and I might have a chance. Am I wrong?"
"We were never really... well, we were, kind of." Buffy sighed and gave up on trying to explain her nebulous relationship with Spike.
"You broke up with him and he doesn't want you to see other men anyway? That sounds weird. Then again, Professor Walsh told me he was dangerous."
"What?" Could she possibly know Spike was a vampire?
"She'd kill me if she knew I told you this so please don't say anything, but she thinks your boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, whatever, is in the mob. I know it sounds crazy but she really believes it."
Buffy started laughing hysterically, partly out of sheer relief. "Spike, in the mob? That's a good one!" After taking a few deep breaths to get herself back under control, she told Riley, "I don't know where Professor Walsh got that impression, but it's not true. And I can't go out with you. It's not you, it's me. I'm sorry."
"Okay. Well, I guess I'll see you around."
"Yeah. Goodbye." Buffy hung up the phone with a tremendous feeling of relief. Riley seemed like a decent guy, but his timing sucked. She hoped she'd let him down with the proper mixture of kindness and firmness, so he wouldn't be too disappointed but he also wouldn't call her again. She shoved the phone onto the cradle and turned to lie back down, when she spotted a dark figure just inside the doorway. Buffy couldn't help jumping in surprise. "Willow! What are you doing back so soon? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
The figure didn't reply, instead just taking another step toward her.
"You're not Willow," Buffy realized. She was about to attack first and ask questions later when the intruder flicked on the overhead light, revealing himself to be Spike.
*****
Spike studied the Slayer, who was curled up in her bed staring at him with wide eyes. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the experience a lot more, but he was there to hash out a serious matter. He'd cautiously waited outside until he knew she was in her room and alone before he made his move. Buffy was getting careless; hadn't even bothered to lock the door.
Her eyes flickered to the side and then back to him. She had probably automatically been looking for a stake until she remembered that one would be useless against him. Unless, of course, she was planning a Gem of Amara retrieval operation all on her own. That was what Spike had to find out.
"Buffy," he greeted her coolly. "We have to talk."
"About what?"
Spike just looked at her. Buffy had the grace to blush, as if she realized the answer to her question was pretty obvious.
"All right, we can talk," she said, sitting up in the middle of her bed.
Not finding much of a choice, Spike pulled the wooden chair away from her desk and appropriated it for his own use. Buffy had earned herself big points by keeping his secret, but he had to find out why she'd done it. "I paid a visit to your mate Xander today."
"Huh? Why would you go to see Xander?"
"Because I don't like being tricked and left hanging. Last week you learned all my secrets and for all I knew, you could have told the world the way to dust me for good. I actually believed you *had* told your little gang. So what's a vamp to think? That the lot of you would come after him and end his unlife. But you didn't, and that made me curious. That's why I went to Xander's place. To find out why he hadn't gone stake-happy. He acted just as afraid of me as always when we're one-on-one. Said something about me still being invincible. He's not a good enough liar to fool me. He really believed what he said, which means you didn't tell him the truth about the Gem."
Buffy looked him in the eye. "No, I didn't and I don't plan to in the future."
She sounded convincing, but could he trust her? "Why not?"
"Because I tricked you and you didn't deserve to be treated that way. I made a huge mistake."
"Feeling guilty?" Spike scoffed.
"Yes," Buffy whispered.
"Good." He stood up and turned to go, perversely satisfied.
"Spike, wait!" Buffy's voice called him back.
He turned around. "What?"
"I'm sorry about the whole mess. I didn't realize it would turn out like it did and I feel bad."
Spike waited. "What do you expect me to say?"
"I don't know. Not that it's all right, 'cause I understand that it isn't, but maybe that you forgive me."
"Tell me why I should."
"What?" She stared at him. "Um, because I forgave you for trying to kill me all those times in the past?"
"Never heard those words come out of your mouth," Spike reminded her.
"They were implied."
Spike considered. "All right, I'll accept that. But my efforts to kill you were different than your tricking me. They were business. Besides, you also tried to kill me more than once, so I'd say we're even on that count."
"Can't you just accept that I'm sorry?" Buffy pressed.
"I suppose I can, seeing that you didn't tell Xander the truth about the Gem," Spike allowed before making a clever effort to dig up more information. "Unless you told someone else? Like, say, Willow or Giles?"
Buffy shook her head. "No. I made up something about a ritual you performed that made you invincible. It didn't make much sense but they believed it."
"Fine." Spike shrugged. Her story meshed with Xander's version. "Over and done with, then." He again started for the door.
This time, Buffy jumped up and ran over to stop him. "Where are you going?"
"Home. We talked, I accepted your apology, I'm leaving. That's the end of it."
"No, it isn't," Buffy insisted. "You said you loved me. You can't fall out of love just like that. I know you're mad at me. I understand that. But you can't leave things like this."
"Why not? You never once said you had any feelings for me besides disgust and hate. Seems to me I've been wasting my time on you."
"No, you haven't. All right, at first I wasn't exactly receptive, but your persistence could probably wear anyone down. It got to the point where I could actually see and admit that you have good qualities."
"So what are you saying?"
"I guess... that we can wipe the slate clean and start over?"
"Give me a minute." While Buffy waited for his response, Spike weighed his options. He'd nursed his wounded pride for a whole week. Maybe it was time to let go of it and see if they really could patch up things. Maybe Buffy would give them a chance after all. "Meet me at midnight, night after tomorrow, in Restfield Cemetery. Don't tell anyone and come alone. You do that, and we can talk."
With that, he left the dorm room. What happened next was up to Buffy.