Author's Note: Sorry for the looooooong delay. The problem is I put this on hold and just never got around to finishing it. I am sorry. But for those few of those who might still be interested, there is only one last chapter left.

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"Open the door!"

"No."

Buffy stared at the door with some annoyance and considered kicking it down. But there were wards on it, weren't there? Yes, she remembered something along those lines. And Ethan had proved that he wasn't someone to get into a fight with, not unless you wanted to die an imaginative death.

"Ethan, I'm cold," she protested, "And it's starting to rain." A drop hit her right on the nose and she glared at it for a minute before brushing it away. "Please?"

"Slayer, I'm sure you can find your way home before the rain starts. I'd hate for you to be stuck there."

"Aargh!"

Without realizing it, she found her hands tugging at her hair, ready to pull it out in a fit of frustration. With the greatest difficulty she stopped herself. There was no use ruining her hair for one silly man who couldn't get it through his head that she needed to talk to him immediately. "Ethan!"

"Buffy," came the reply. And it effectively stopped her tirade. Ethan Rayne rarely called her by name in that tired, honest tone of voice. "Buffy, you really are being ridiculous."

Buffy slowly unclenched her fists and placed a hand on the door. The wood didn't bite her. It didn't encourage her to open it either. So she tried to think of how best to phrase things, just so Ethan would listen. Why it felt important she didn't know; but important it seemed to be. "Look, strange as it seems…" she began.

"…there's been a round of crazy dreams," he interrupted sarcastically, "Are we done quoting Andrew Lloyd Webber lyrics at each other?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. Suffice it to say, I am not opening the door to you."

"Ethan, I could break it down."

"I suggest you do not try."

The rain was just starting to fall. A couple paraded down the street, cooing and giggling at each other with their arms and fingers tangled together. Buffy glared at them for good measure too. It was really too much that everyone else had an uncomplicated life while she was the oldest Slayer in the world, standing outside the door of her fifty-year-old lover and trying to get him to let her in out of the cold. It was simply not fair!

"Ethan, please?"

"Go home, Slayer."

There! He was back to calling her 'Slayer' again.

The girl Buffy was glaring at slipped a little and the guy pulled her straight, almost falling over himself as she threatened to drag him down. They both burst out laughing, the sound sending a very bitter ache through the audience they unknowingly had.

Buffy opened her mouth- to say what? She didn't know. She didn't even know why she was where she was. All she knew was that she owed Ethan some gratitude for saving her life. It still surprised her when that happened; she was so used to it being the other way around. And by Ethan Rayne- the chaos mage who had frustrated the hell out of her in Sunnydale! Why in all that was healthy would she be standing on his doorstep anxious to see him?

"I haven't done that in a while," she said instead.

The door opened.

And there was no younger Ethan. She hadn't thought there would be but…

A dark eyebrow rose and Ethan just looked enquiringly at her. "Done what?" he clarified.

She nodded wordlessly to the couple, flushing a little as the girl noticed their look and waved cheekily at them.

Ethan just smiled and waved right back. "Nice little thing," he commented, "Do we know them?"

"No. At least I don't." She scuffed her boots at the pavements, feeling all of six years old under his patient gaze. "Look, we really do need to talk."

The mage considered that. There was talking and there was talking; he wasn't ready for one and wasn't in the mood for the other. But this was Buffy. And yes, they did need to talk. He stepped out and shut the door behind himself. And continued to look at her. He knew it freaked her out. He was counting on it. Better she be uncertain than him.

"Ethan, about that night…"

"Which one? I remember many nights." He could have bitten his tongue out for that.

"Um, the one where you saved my life." Buffy wasn't thinking about the rest; she really wasn't. "I wanted to thank you. And, uh, just ask you how you turned yourself younger."

"A spell, Slayer. Have you ever heard of them? It involves magic, you see." He was babbling. So Ethan adopted another mask. He used his easiest smile on her, settling into a boneless heap of somehow upright body on the step. "You really should try it, Slayer. It gets rid of those little frown lines so quickly."

"I don't have frown lines," she snapped, frowning at him.

He laughed softly and glittered at her. "Ah, then it must just be the face you show me."

That was a stupid thing to say. He knew it. So did she from the look on her face. That small, mobile little face was even now registering awkwardness and determination and something that told him a momentous decision was on the verge of being made.

"I've shown you all my faces," Buffy said quietly.

Ethan looked up, got a raindrop in the eye and thanked Janus for it. "It's raining," he sighed, "Perhaps we could continue this discussion on another day."

"No."

"How do you plan to stop me?"

Buffy looked at her hands and took careful note of the scar on the third finger of her right hand. It was an ugly line around the base. "I am the Slayer," she pointed out ironically, "Want to bet I can hold you down while I talk in your ear?"

"Slayer, it is raining," Ethan smirked in return.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The Chaos mage sighed theatrically and cupped his hands to catch a few drops in his palms. "As far as chaos magic goes, one of the best mediums through which to tap into natural magic is through natural chaos- such as storms. Storms make me more powerful. Storms upset your footing. I have the advantage."

Buffy gave an unexpected grin and giggled. "So did the First Evil. But it forgot one very important thing."

Damn! He was losing his edge if he couldn't threaten a twenty-something year old girl with his powers! "And what is that?"

"Love."

"You're telling me you offered to kiss the First Evil to death? I've slept with you, Slayer, you are not that deadly."

She glared at him. Considering she was standing in the rain, with her blond hair plastered to her skull and the back of her neck, her blue skirt and white shirt soaked through and partially see-through, Buffy looked like nothing so much as an orphaned street urchin. "I meant," she said slowly, "That they forgot Spike would love what me enough to die because he wanted me to live."

"Pfffft! Spike loved the inhuman side of you, and fixated on your humanity as a means of seeking redemption. It wasn't love in the way you mean."

"Exactly! See? He didn't love me!"

Ethan blinked. "I'm not sure I follow you."

"He didn't love me for me!"

"What does that have to do with the First Evil?"

Buffy waved the question away impatiently and ignored it. It was not, after all, important in the grand scheme of things. What was important, was that Ethan understand what it was she was saying. She hoped that he would, because she certainly didn't. "Ethan, how well do you know me?"

The man thought about that. "Sufficiently enough to say that I do know you. Why?"

"No, I mean, how many masks have I taken off in front of you?"

"Well, for one thing you've stopped threatening to break my neck on sight," he counted, "And you've stopped being so protective and frankly quite blind where Ripper is concerned. What else? Oh, and I know you have little or no alcohol tolerance."

"See?"

"You keep saying that! What am I supposed to see?"

"Apart from what's as plain as the nose on your face… I'm not sure. If you don't get it then you don't get it. I can't tell you."

Ethan Rayne was getting a headache. He was standing in the rain and talking to a young woman who wasn't talking in circles so much as meandering around the place before hopping into a completely different circle just when he had figured out her thought patterns of the conversation before. Which was surprising, because he was a chaos mage! Everything had patterns and there were few better than him at finding sense in the nonsense.

He concluded that defence was not a good position for him to be in. So he attacked.

"Slayer, are you saying that no one knows you as well as I do? Even considering the vampire who claimed to love you even unto death?"

Again, Buffy Summers surprised him. "Yes."

"I see… can it be that you like this state of affairs?"

"Like… don't like… it's all relative."

"Just how does it relate when it comes down to you and me?" He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. The appendage was back to its aged, worn look and he tried not to concentrate on the way it was so different from her smooth, young skin. "You will have to be specific, luv."

Buffy stiffened and fidgeted a little. Ethan sounded… angry. She knew him just that little bit better than not at all. And he never acted this way unless he was provoking her to something. And since she was being very immature and uncertain and not at all considerate of his continued requests to leave him alone, it stood to reason that he was angry. The problem was- how far would he go with this mask? He was quite capable of letting her fire up in indignation and letting her beat the crap out of him, just so he could laugh and spit at her feet and feel satisfied with himself.

"Giles thinks you're a logical choice."

"Do you really want to talk about your Watcher at a time like this?"

"I agree with him," Buffy said desperately, promising herself she wasn't reacting to the dark gleam in Ethan's eyes. That wasn't who she was any more. This was not like with Spike any more.

"Hmmm…"

That purr seemed to be eating her up from the inside out. So she did what any self-respecting young woman would who was being seduced against her will. She whimpered and lost herself in dark eyes that flamed and flared with the red glare of anger-fuelled magic.

Which is exactly what stopped Ethan in his tracks. Blue eyes were wide and the pupils dilated, staring up at him with an astonishing amount of fear.Five months on from the night he had saved her life and Buffy was this broken? He dropped his hand and looked away, giving her the time to get herself together.

"I'm sorry."

"About what, Ethan?"

"Slayer, surely you can see that this is a truly terrible idea?"

Buffy absently wiped her wet nose with her sleeve, forgetting the sleeve was just as wet. "I don't know what it is," she confessed, "But you made it feel better. And now the Council tells me that you're leaving for New Mexico in a few days. What's New Mexico got that London hasn't?"

The man laughed and flapped at the rain. "Sun," he admitted, "And a great amount of illegal substances for a very cheap price."

"Drugs?"

"Among other things."

"You do drugs?" Buffy was not very impressed.

"I do marijuana occasionally. Expands the mind, so to speak; awakens possibilities."

"I never knew you did drugs."

"I never did them around you."

"Are you an addict?"

"Not really. I gave that up a long time ago."

They were silent for a while, both trapped in their respective worlds. Ethan sighed as he looked from his doorway to the woman standing before him. Her face was currently turned away and she was looking at something in the far distance. A flash of memory darkened the sky and placed him in a car interior, with cool air pushing the wet hair away from her face as she shut her eyes and savoured it. Another flash of memory as he remembered the way she had felt twisting beneath him.

The sex had not been great, but it had been… satisfying. Something the both of them needed. Darkened rooms and slipped masks. Being who they really were?

Ethan grimaced at such pretentious thoughts. 'Who they really were', indeed! As if a mask was an assumed thing. "Take a walk with me, luv. I think we need to just think, eh? But together."

"It's all a mess, isn't it?" She smiled wanly at him. "How come I always get the weird relationships?"

"Nothing wrong in weird relationships, Slayer. I would have thought you'd know that by now, clever girl that you are."

"Clever, am I? Then how come I fell in love with two vampires, a secret government agent and… well, and."

"And?"

"And a dweeb who dumped me the minute I slept with him."

"Ah, yes. Parker, I believe."

"You know him?"

She seemed so surprised, Ethan crowed. So he shrugged and kept it gentle, tempering his words with a mild caress of his fingers on the back of her neck. "I did not always make a spectacle of myself when I came to Sunnydale. I had quite the clientele list in that little town."

"I'll bet," the slayer commented, "So you spied on me? The last ex who did that got himself slugged."

"But I wasn't an ex at the time so that rule does not count, my dear."

"Ethan, give me one good reason why we're out in the cold and wet."

Ethan chuckled quietly and threw his arms out as if to embrace the weather. "Ever played in the rain, Slayer?"