Buffy was cooking breakfast the next morning, doing the mom thing, feeling spacey and tired. The insomnia had lingered all night long and it seemed like every time she managed to drift off to sleep, something jolted her awake. The paranoid part of her that she always tried to keep at bay kept wondering if Spike was outside the window, waiting by the tree, watching like he always used to. What would he think at her and Angel back together? He was the one who had said that she and Angel could never be just friends.

"My father loves you, you know," said a flat voice behind her and she almost jumped a foot into the air before she could stop herself.

"Jeeze, Conner!" she joked, trying to laugh off the reaction. "Trying to surprise me to death?"

Conner didn't crack a smile, but that was hardly new. "My apologies," he said stiffly, like she hadn't been acting like the only mother he was ever likely to know for over a year now. "I thought you would have heard me enter. Your senses are, after all, superior to that of other humans on this world."

"Yes, Conner. When I'm on patrol. Not when I'm scrambling eggs. Try to make some noise when you walk next time. Now, what was that you were saying back when I was still twenty-three?"

"My father loves you. Very much."

"And I love him," she said warily, wondering about Conner's sudden need to discuss this.

"If you love him, who was that man you were with last night?"

It was all she could do not to drop the spatula. Stay calm, she told herself, struggling for control. It was important to stay calm, especially as Conner was very much his father's son, and excelled at reading people.

Keeping her back to him, she finally managed to say in what she hoped was a normal tone of voice, "He's an old... friend... of your father and me." Hopefully, there were no fates just waiting to strike her dead with lightening for uttering a lie that big. Whatever else she and Spike had been, it had never been friends. And times that by a thousand for Spike and Angel. She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping Conner would be satisfied with that and just let it all go.

"If you were friends, why did you hit him? And why did he kiss you?"

Trust Conner to cut right to the heart of that sick and twisted little relationship of theirs. There was no way she was explaining this to a sixteen year old, no matter how much older he acted.

"Conner! It's none of your business."

He stared at her, his face serious, his eyes intent on her. She had the uneasy feeling that he could see straight through her. She remembered the shock she had felt when Angel had first invited Conner in, followed fast by the anger that Angel had had a child with another woman while Buffy stayed in her home, raising other people's children. But what right did she have to be a mother when there was no telling how long she would live? She matched Conner stare for stare, daring him to take it farther. The kid was no fool, though, and he knew when he was outmatched. After a moment, he nodded brusquely. "What's for breakfast?"

Teenagers. Who could fathom them? With a sigh, she went back to her eggs. "Call Dawnie, Conner. The eggs will be ready soon."

Wordless, he bounded out of the room, for all the world like any kid his age. She sighed again and gave up even pretending to understand teenagers, despite the fact that she worked with them for a living.

"For god's sake, "she muttered to herself, staring into the slowing congealing eggs, "who am I kidding, thinking I counsel anyone? It would take an army of counselors just to figure out my own life."

"What's that?" asked Dawn, slipping into the kitchen with uncommon quiet. "You talking to anybody or are those voices in your head getting too loud to ignore?"

"Ha ha," stated Buffy in a flat tone of voice. But then she looked up and got a hold of Dawn's outfit. "No. Upstairs now and change clothes. People at the school know we're related."

"Yeah, that would be why I can't get a date."

"Up. Stairs. Now."

"Yes, mother." With a snarl, Dawn stalked out of the kitchen and stomped up the stairs, every inch the sullen and obnoxious teenager.

Buffy hung her head down, feeling exhausted beyond all sense. Damn insomnia. She was way too young to feel this old. Twenty three. She was twenty three. And Angel hadn't even come down yet for his morning cup of blood.

When night rolled around again, she felt almost ready for it. Stupid as it was, she wanted to see him again. Fighting with him made her feel young. Or at least younger. Took her back to a time when raising Dawn didn't feel like a full time job, when she didn't have a long term honey, a stable relationship that occasionally felt too hard to handle, when she didn't have a spare teenager to raise.

She stepped out the door, feeling strong, feeling sexy; closing it behind her, she leaned against it, knowing she was posing and not even caring. Angel was at the office, doing the detective thing. The kids were at this school thing, first play of the year or something. She was all alone. All alone in the dark. So what if he had left her two years ago? Fighting with Spike made her feel like a whole new person, made her feel like the last few years had never happened. It was so such a relief, there weren't even words for it.

"You here?" she called quietly, knowing he would hear. There were benefits to being a vampire.

"Course I am, ducks. Sun's down, ain't it?" Stepping out of the shadows from under the tree, he sauntered across the yard, all swagger and pride. Same old Spike, even with the black hair and the new cloths.

"You should go."

"You came out. I think you're playing coy."

"Learn a new word?"

"I'm an educated man." He was standing in front of her, staring down at her, that familiar smile on his face, like he had a dirty secret that he just couldn't wait to share. "Thought you were ticked at me? You calm all down?"

"What can I say, I'm in a forgiving mood." Young. It felt so good to feel so young. Buffy smile up at him, knowing she was flirting and not even caring. It had been a bitch of day, three kids in meltdown, missing paperwork and let's not forget Conner's little subtle threat that morning. This was not who she was, working wife and mother Buffy. She wanted to be young and wild Buffy, that one who could be stupid. She was deliberately put out of her mind how awful she had felt during most of that torrid affair with Spike and focused only on the pleasure, the way it took all her thoughts away. She could do with some of that oblivion now.

He fixed her eyes on her face intently, clearly trying to read into her very soul. Apparently he liked what he saw, since he grabbed her arms, pulled her towards him, and kissed her.

There was one delicious moment when she forgot everything but how it felt to be in his arms again. But then he stiffened and pushed her back, his face a mask of shock, fang peeking out, a sure sign his control was slipping.

"Why do you taste like Angel?"