"Daywalker..." he seethed, pointing an accusing finger at her as he cowered in the corner of the room.

The others looked at her, waiting for her to speak. She shrugged her shoulders and looked to Giles for guidance. And then she looked back to Spike. She was so smug sometimes.

"Vampire," she countered, letting him know with her eyes that he would not have the upper hand.

"I saw her. Saw her with these eyes!" he said, pointing to his own eyes, never taking them off of her. "Her teeth... her eyes... " he shouted, and then drew back sharply.

Buffy's mind was racing. Spike was clearly scared of the... girl. Bella didn't move a muscle. It was almost as if she were part of a tableau. Not breathing, Buffy's head screamed. She saw Giles shuffle. He didn't look surprised.

"You knew," she said evenly to him. She wasn't angry. She understood.

He nodded.

"And this is why she's so indispensible."

He nodded again.

Buffy understood but it didn't keep her from throwing his own words back at him.

"Never trust a vampire..." she barely whispered.

Anya, Xander and Willow had been sitting silently, eyes saucer-wide. The demon, the witch and their whipping boy were probably more confused than anyone else. Witch? Vampire? Daywalker? The vampire with the soul pointing an accusing finger at another?

Dawn, who had been sitting up in the loft thumbing through a book of spells, stopped and watched them.

"The circumstances," Giles began. "I had the Council look into it. Spoke with the Grigori myself. Called Angel this morning. There's... there's no one..."

"There's no one like me," she smiled weakly.

"And just what is that?" Anya wanted to know.

Bella was still staring at Spike. She hadn't moved. Neither had he. Almost like a game of cat and mouse. Vampire and Daywalker.

"I am what is called a demifane," she told them. "You know what a demifane is, Vampire? Huh? Not them. Not you. EVERYTHING..." she was practically shouting. "Nothing," she whispered.

"Want to come into my world, Vampire?" she challenged. "A world of fear and courage? Of... of... sin and salvation? Life and death? Not knowing if you're fact or fantasy? That there is nothing... NOTHING like you in this world?" She pulled a cigarette from a battered packet in her jacket pocket. She held a finger to it and it was suddenly lit. She dragged it regretfully.

"Think you're alone, Vampire? You don't know ANYthing about being alone."

They all watched her as she continued to sip deeply on the cigarette. Nobody dared to speak.

"I am Guardian. Said simply, I kill my own kind." She extinguished what was left of the cigarette between her fingers before depositing it in the nearby trash.

"You know," she said softly, "Not all of us choose to be who we are. Slayer didn't ask for her role. I didn't ask for mine. But I certainly do believe in free will. And killing innocents? Not my thing."

She finally broke her gaze from Spike and turned to Giles.

"Giles will give you the book report. I need... I have some things I need to do," she said, excusing herself.

She'd only been out the door a matter of seconds when Spike bolted up.

"Holy shit, Watcher! What kind of beast has the Great Poof saddled us with?"

"Shut up, Spike," Buffy warned through clenched teeth. "Didn't... didn't you hear a word she said?" she asked him incredulously. "She wasn't defending herself. She was stating who she was. Who she is. I can't not respect that, can you? Can you, Xander? Willow? Anya? Dawn?" she asked. "Spike?"

"And you... you of all people... you should have some sympathy--"

"Empathy," offered Willow.

"Empathy," Buffy continued. "I complain that I'm the slayer. But I'm still a mostly human girl. I know what I am. I bleed and I hurt and I can die."

"You... you're a vampire. Sleep all day, hunt all night, drink blood, steal stuff..."

"Oh, so now you know me. That's what I am, yeah? Was a man at one time, you know. And 'ave a soul. Not like I don't have any feelings--"

"So you do understand?" Dawn was the first to point out from her perch.

Spike hated being tricked. Called on the carpet. Shite, he thought. Yeah.

"I... I could perform a locator spell... find her?" offered Willow.

"No, s'okay. I can find her on my own. 'M the one who opened this can of worms, aren't I? Lemme try to fix it," Spike told her.

"Come here often, Love?" he asked.

She didn't move from the park bench under the huge oak in the center of Sunnydale Cemetery. She didn't need any sympathy from the devil. Well, at least that's what Spike liked to think he was.

"Sorry I, uh... sang like a caged bird. Giles... he's filling in the others. Told 'em all I'd go find you m'self. Since I'm the one who bollixed this whole thing up for you."

"You didn't 'bollix' anything, Vampire," she told him.

"Got a name, y'know," he said quietly.

"Yeah? So do I. You haven't had much use for it though. Have you?"

"Touche."

She didn't smell it. The fear. The fear he was covered in earlier had disappeared. This new scent. It was concern. And understanding. And maybe a little touch of remorse. Stupid Vampire. Went and got yourself a soul. Stupid, stupid Vampire.

"His name was Artemius." she told him. "He was... dark. Beautiful. Deadly. Very deadly. He was a Daywalker. I'm not sure how he became that way. Maybe thousands of years in existence made him that way." She was referring to her father, her sire.

"Do you think you'll be around a few thousand years Vam-- Spike?" She wasn't looking at him now. He pulled a pack of smokes out and offered her one. Pulled a lighter to light them both, but she had already lit them with that little trick she'd done in the Magick Box. Thousands of years... he'd been around little more than a hundred.

"Can you imagine watching as nations fall? As the world changes around you but you never change? You're... you're still practically a baby. And me? I don't even know where I begin or where I end. I came into this world a kicking, screaming infant. But not like anyone else. I was already different. Special, Mamma called me." She stressed the second syllable in Mamma.

"I was protected by the coven until the day we left Italy. I was barely a year old. And when we got to New York, she found members of her clan there, as well. Of course, by then, they had all found out about her dabbling in the black magick," she told him, staring into her hands. "You know, it hadn't started out that way. She just... she just wanted someone to love. She wanted me. But she had no one." Bella took a thoughtful drag on her cigarette, as if the nicotine fueled the philosophy rolling about in her mind.

"You know, just because you cast a spell or pray to your gods... it doesn't mean that you'll get what you want. People... humans. They curse their God. They're angered by Him. He doesn't listen. He doesn't care. Well ya know what?" She took an unneccessary breath. "He does, Spike. He does. Just because He isn't giving the answer you think you deserve, it doesn't mean He hasn't carefully considered it. Maybe wrote a list of pros and cons. Held it in regards to how it would affect the rest of the universe. It just means that He thought it in your best interest to... save you from yourself."

Spike wasn't sure what to say to her. He thought that his was a lonely existence. But she was right. At least he knew exactly what he was. Even if the soul had thrown him into bouts of paroxysm. He wanted to hear her story. Hear who she thought she was...

"Your father. Artemius. Is he still... is he--"

"Nope. Showed up on my 18th birthday for the first time. It was midnight. Mamma and I were sitting out on our back balcony toasting my 'coming of age.' It was the last time I ever saw her alive," she barely choked out. "It was like in an instant, he was there. He'd told me that Mamma had me for 18 years and that her job was now done. And he snapped her neck. And I went at him." She stopped, throwing the cigarette to the ground and crushing it with her foot.

The moon was very close to the earth and very full. It glowed yellow in the night sky. How many more moons would she see in her lifetime? How many had Artemius seen before she slayed him?

"I killed him, Spike. He was ancient. He was... a legend among our race. But he was so evil," she was thoughtful for a moment. "I wasn't what I am now. I don't know what kind of life I would have lived or for how long, but he didn't give me an option. He decided to make me like him. And he sired me. For the second time."

Spike had her hand in his. So tiny. So strong. He was sure she could crush a man's skull with just one tiny hand. And at that moment, he was sure she could crush his heart with just one tiny kiss.

"What was I? Stregheri? Vampiri? At least... at least I was still alive. And then he took that away. He gave me strength and power that I never knew possible. But he took away my most important choice -- to live or die. And I will curse him for it until we meet in Hell."

Spike, as inappropriate as it may have seemed to anyone else, he wanted to know how she'd killed him.

"I was somehow able to wound him with a silver knife from the table. And then I kind of remember running into Mamma's room and I ripped the Luciendar out from under her bed." He was familiar with this deadly sword, the Sword of Light. "You know, I drank that fucker nearly dry. He'd already taken me, Spike. He'd already drank from me and given his own blood back to me. The ancient, the don't need to make you drink from them. They can inject you with their own fangs. That's how they poison you just enough to make you want more. And I did. I wanted him dead and I wanted to die. He took Mamma from me. I drank nearly every drop before beheading him."

She told him that she got the strangest feeling that he had wanted to die at her hand. That he had wanted her to know all of his secrets before he passed to the other side... whatever that may be.

"Funny," she said with a eerie coolness. "Even the old ones turn to dust."

She told him how she had since been a Guardian, guided by the Grigori, the watchers of the witches. How she'd slain so many of her own kind.

"Bella," It was the first time he had called her by her name. "For what it's worth, I'm... I'm..."

She stopped him. "Don't be sorry." She stood and waited for him.

"Think the Scoobies would care if we took the night off?" she asked, knowing that they would.

"We, now, is it, Pet? Oh, they'll mind. Always do. But what say we get gatted and bond over our lack of pulses and loves lost anyway?"

She could really like him. If she let herself.

"Get gatted... that's some hokey British term for...?"

"Ah, schnockered?" he offered, as he also did his arm.

"Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. I could get gatted. I'm all about that."

She was smiling. A genuine smile. And it was more intoxicating than any drink he could ever consume.