It was the same crowd as earlier, only drunker. A few danced in the corner, surrounding the juke box which seemingly hadn't been replenished since 1994.

Buffy had fixed herself up, stopped the bleeding on a few gashes using the supplies that Sharon [the English barmaid] had reluctantly provided. She'd thought about changing her outfit, but then she'd worried about what that would mean, or at least what Spike would perceive it to mean. Or something. Buffy frowned. This wasn't how you act when confronting your ex-... whatever Spike had been.

Maybe this was what was in the slayer handbook Giles had never given her. How to hash things out with the vampire who had tried to kill you, tried to love you, tried to help you, and tried to rape you. In that order. That's how she had always tried to think of him. It helped to reduce Spike to a list of actions, however extraordinary that list was. Buffy knew how she felt about each of his actions. She'd hated that he'd tried to force her. She'd loved the way he used to smooth her eyebrows with his thumbs. She didn't want to think about her feelings towards the whole creature, towards him. There were too many, and none of them agreed. Her eyes swung between inspecting her fingernails and the dancers, and sometimes glancing at the bar, where she expected Spike to appear, having entered the building from some back entrance.

Instead, he came barreling through the front entrance's hinged doors, as if this was a Western and he was looking for the sheriff. He might not have had the platinum hair to attract everyone's attention anymore, but the mucousy axe over his shoulder was doing a pretty good job of drawing eyes. Except for Madonna demanding that they get into the groove, the bar was silent.

The whole place watched Spike stride up to the bar and hand the axe to Sharon, who accepted it with learned composure. She even knew to wait for him to strip of his soiled cloth coat, which she also took. Buffy watched Spike turn from the bar, and spot her at the corner table. He waited for the American girl behind the bar to give him a bottle of beer before he approached her.

She could see him now, using the bar's rudimentary electricity. Central America seemed to agree with him. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn he had a tan. It was probably the brown hair- he didn't look like a marble Grecian statue or a rock star or a circus performer anymore. His colouring was so human. He was so like a man.

Actually, at that moment, he was so like a teenage boy, as he threw himself into the chair opposite her, pouted, crossed his arms, and refused to look at her.

"Do you want an apology? Is that why you're here, forcing this?" He was trying for detached boredom, as if she was his mother, about to ground him because she found a bong in his room.

She didn't know the answer, and she didn't like the question, so she chose silence.

"Because, you know, it's what vampires do. They leach blood from humans. They're humanity's predators. So I'm not going to apologise for that." He stuck a cigarette in his mouth, as if to mark the end of the topic.

There was a logic to the argument. Still..."Are you still killing?"

He furrowed his brow."What, demons?"

"I know you're still killing demons, you dick. I just watched you do it. I meant humans."

He was shocked by the question, the accusation. Like he was the preacher's wife and she'd just claimed he was also the local brothel's madam. As if the idea was so unlikely, so offensive.. She continued in the face of his moral outrage,

"Well, according to your logic, shouldn't it be ok for you to still be killing? I mean, you're still one of humanity's predators, aren't you?"

He scowled. "There's still the chip, slayer."

Not in respect to me, she thought, but put no voice to it. Instead, "Spike,you were never competent enough to bite me. You never fed of me."

"Yeah...and?"

She had to know what this soul meant. "Then why would you apologise to me? About the killing and feeding and stuff?"

He sighed. "Do you want a drink, then?"

Her drink came much quicker this time. In fact, the two girls seemed to fight over who got to bring the coke over. The American won, and earned a "Thank you, Sarah." and a wink from her boss. Sarah smiled at Spike, but was silent. It was as if she... respected him.

Buffy renewed her inspection of Spike, trying to see a boss in him. Trying to see what was there. What was the same. What was different. Spike was looking at Buffy too. Not returning her forthright stare, but as he scanned the backpackers, his eyes kept coming to rest on who was in front of him.

Finally, Buffy had to speak. She didn't want to start with the melodrama, so she went with a proven conversation starter. Flattery. "I like your hair like that."

And her words shocked him again, but this time, his face fell into one of those amazed smiles he did so well, before he quickly pulled it back. Still, it was like his brain was pulsing behind the badly maintained impassive facade- he blinked, he twitched, he opened and closed his mouth.

Finally, awkwardly, "I thought you might want an apology from me because not being..... someone who made you happy is...It made me want to be someone else. I thought you might want an apology for adding to your problems."

Oh god. She'd forgotten he could do that. Be halting, and unsure, and disarm her.

But that had been there before. On the staircase in her mother's house. Just before and just after her death.

And then he quickly morphed back into the ever-familiar asshole again, and left her fumbling for her weapons. "Although, I don't apologise for making fun of your Smiley Riley over and over again. That was just too much fun."

Buffy was appalled, "Spike, Riley just died. I was just at his funeral. Don't you have any respect..ok, that's a stupid question."

"My death never stopped you criticizing me, did it? So don't try pulling a shocked Miss Manners act on me, love." Buffy tried for haughtily exasperated, she really did. But she'd forgotten the intensity of being near him. The crowd of contradictory feelings she'd tried to avoid. The way they were all heightened. He was such a caricature, and every thing felt exaggerated around him- more tragic, or funnier, or better or worse.

"Speaking of criticism, how's your besotted follower doing? There was a program on about semi trained monkeys the other week, and naturally, I thought of him.". At Buffy's confused look, Spike, rolling his eyes, was forced to clarify, "Xander, slayer. I'm talking about the whelp."

"Oh...hey! He is not... besotted with me!"

"But, we're agreed on the semi-trained monkey bit?" He was laughing at her, at her expression, at her sudden loss of words.

"That was so lame. Shut up, Spike."

"Oh, slayer, its been too long since I'd heard that. I'd almost forgotten the perfect combination of contempt and confusion you achieve with that expression."

To stop any further laughter at her expense, she opted to keep talking.

"Actually, I think Xander's kinda...besotted... with someone else."

"Someone new? Don't tell me one of Inbreeders Anonymous has actually decided to try and bed someone they didn't know at high school." "Hey, I've slept with a few guys I didn't know while I was at high school."

And he was laughing at her again.

"Shut up Spike" He was only laughing harder.

A woman sashayed over. Took one look at Buffy sitting across the table from him, and deflated a little. Not a lot, but a little. "It's one of those weeks, is it William?"

"Afraid so, pet. Won't always be one of these weeks, though. Sarah will give you the run down." The woman accepted this, nodded at Buffy, and walked over to the bar, onto which she lifted a briefcase.

"Who was that?"

"She works for the beer supplier. She's here every few weeks."

Buffy was suspicious. What sort of salesperson comes in just before midnight?

"She looks like she wants to do more than... supply your beer."

That smirk. Eyebrows ascending. And hello to you, Mr 1998 era William the Bloody. "She does.".

She decided to call his inflated ego's bluff. "Like what, Spike? Does she wholesale the crap orange juice too?"

"Nah. We just fuck occasionally. And I know I've got to do something about the OJ. Its the pips, isn't it?"

Buffy'd known, from the second the woman had spoken to Spike, that she'd been disappointed about the lack of sex that Buffy's presence indicated. But then he'd said it, so casual and crude, and suddenly Buffy really knew, and she just started.