A/N: Okay everyone here's the next chapter. It's a little long, but that's a good thing right? I hope you enjoy this. Please read and review.

"Are you sure you don't want to come out with me?" Faith asked Buffy as she got out of the car in front of the old hotel. She had tried desperately to get her to come out with her for a few drinks.

"I'm sure. Besides, we have work tomorrow and the last thing I need to do is come in to work with a hangover. You know alcohol and I are unmixy things."

"Alright. Tell my step brother that I went out for awhile and I promise not to be too late."

"Will do." Buffy told her as she shut the car door. It had been hard for her to concentrate on anything Faith was saying on the drive home. Faiths words kept ringing in her mind. "Spike used to live in Sunnydale. His father and stepmother moved him to England." William had moved far away, but he hadn't told her where he was going. He had lived with his father and stepmother. His eyes were just like Williams. 'No it couldn't be.' She thought as she walked through the front door. I'm sure I would have realized it was him from the moment I saw him. Maybe I…' Her thoughts were cut short as she started towards the stair case.

"Buffy." She heard Angels voice come from the large living area. She paused then turned to face him.

"Angel, hey."

"Were you just at the shop with Faith?"

""Yeah we stocked up on everything just like you said to."

"So where's Faith?"

"She decided to go out for a bit, but she promised that she wouldn't stay out too long. She knows that we have work tomorrow so I'm sure she meant it." Buffy said trying to convince Angel that Faith wouldn't be out all night like she usually was.

"Yeah well I guess we will see about that. You and I both know how many times she has said something like that and has only stumbled through the door after two or three in the morning."

"I'm sure she will be home Angel, she knows there is work tomorrow."

"Like that has ever stopped her before?"

"No, I guess not." Buffy said turning to go up the stairs. "Oh Angel?" Buffy called to him before she went up the stairs. She looked over her shoulder at him. "You wouldn't happen to know if your cousin is around would you?"

Angel gave her a look as if to say 'are you kidding me?'

"Don't look at me like that. Just answer my question."

"Honestly I don't know. I told him to pretty much stay in his rooms while he is here."

"Well that was very hospitable of you." Buffy said sarcastically. "Which apartment did you put him in?"

"The one at the end of the hall on the left. I figured it was the furthest one away from every one else so he couldn't be a nuisance."

"How nice of you to think of the others like that." Buffy muttered as she made her way up the stairs. She walked to the end of the hallway and knocked on the last door to her left. After a minute with no answer she knocked again. "Spike? It's Buffy, if you're here open up. I need to talk to you." She waited another few minutes and when she got no answer she turned the doorknob to see if it was locked, it wasn't. "Hello? Spike?" Buffy called out as she opened the door and walked into the apartment switching on the light. "Is any one here?" The place looked empty. She walked into his bedroom turning on the lights there as well, then over to the bathroom. There was no sign of him. 'He mustn't have come back yet.' she thought to herself as she started to walk out of the bedroom.

"Out mingling with the locals?" Faith asked as she stood behind the bleach blond man at the bar. He turned in his chair to see who had approached him.

"What the bloody hell do you want?" He asked crossly as he turned back to his drink. The last thing he wanted was for any of them to follow him around. "Did my poof of a cousin send you out to fetch me so he could ground me to my room?"

"Actually, no. I come here all the time. It's a nice quiet place. The kind of place you like to go to when you need to get away and clear your head. You know like when something is eating away at you." Faith answered him as she sat on the bar stool beside him as the bartender placed a drink in front of her.

"The only thing eating away at me, pet, is my sorry excuse for family and friends." Spike told her as he watched her join him at the bar. "The whole lot of you back at that place you call a home avoid me as if I've got the plague or something. The only one of you that tried to be civil turns out to be a heatless fraud hiding out here from the people that love her and are worried about her."

Faith glanced at Spike confusion written on her face. "Are you talking about Buffy?" She asked. It was the only person that she knew had talked to Spike.

"Yeah, I'm talking about Buffy, or should I say Elizabeth?" Spike replied angrily as he waved the bartender down to refill his glass. He glanced at Faith who looked at him clearly shocked.

"Buffy told you her real name?"

"No, she didn't have to. I knew it, I have for a long time. All I needed was a few clues as to who she is. I figured the rest out for myself, and I'm not sure I wanted to know. Thirteen years ago she was a sweet little girl and my best friend, now, I don't know what to think of her. The way she left Sunnydale and the state her father was in when I saw him yesterday because she hasn't bothered to call him to at least let him know that she was okay. That's no where near the girl I left behind."

Faith sat silently for a moment as she let Spike's words sink in. He had known Buffy as Elizabeth. He had known her when she was happy with her life and loved her family and friends with all her heart. "Wait, you're Wonder Boy?" Faith asked as though she didn't believe it. "You're the boy that Buffy refused to forget about. The one that she kept telling me would come back for her one day. You're William? Does she know?"

"I don't think so. I didn't tell her who I was." Spike couldn't believe that Faith had known about him. His mind hung on the fact that she had told him that Buffy had refused to forget about him. He wasn't sure how to react.. "She refused to forget about me?" he asked in a whisper.

"I don't know if I should tell you any of this stuff or not, but I will as long as you promise me you won't tell her I told you." Spike nodded his head in agreement. "Buffy held onto the hope that you were going to come back all the way up until she moved here. At every one of her birthday parties, when she would make her wish before blowing out the candles, she would wish that you would come back. I don't know what made her hold on for so long, but she did. I think that part of the reason she finally decided to go against what her father wanted was because she started to lose hope. She figured it wouldn't matter if she left because you weren't coming back."

Spike bowed his head as he took in a deep breath trying to steady his mind. "I wanted to come back sooner. My step mom got really sick and she asked me to stay. Jenny had always been good to me and I couldn't leave her when she needed me. I can't believe that Lizzie held on for so long. I would have given up hope years ago."

"Are you going to tell her?" Faith asked watching him. She could see he was in disbelief.

"I don't know. I want to, but after all this time I'm afraid of the way she will react. What if she is mad at me and wants me to leave? What if she doesn't still love me?"

"Hey pal, those are questions I can't answer. The only way to find out is to tell her."

Spike downed the drink that was sitting there and threw a few bills on the counter for the bartender. "Do you think I should tell her?"

"It's better then wondering what if."

"I suppose you're right." Spike stood up from the barstool and walked towards the door.

"Hey Boy Wonder" Faith called after him. Spike stopped and looked over his shoulder at the brunette sitting at the bar watching him. "Take it slow. Don't just come out and say it. Find a way to lead up to it. Maybe it will go better that way."

"Thanks." He said and headed out onto the dark L.A. streets. He had been at the bar longer then he thought. 'You are such a fool." He told himself as he walked back to the old hotel. 'She waited for you all that time. If you hadn't been so involved with Dru when you got out of high school she wouldn't have lost hope." The thought of his ex, the only girl he had been with, made him shudder. She had been crazy, but he hadn't cared. She treated him like a prince. Then she decided that she was bored with England and wanted to leave. She had tried to get him to go with, but by then his stepmother had fallen ill and he wouldn't leave her side. Druscilla had threatened to kill him telling him that he didn't love her enough and that his step mom shouldn't have been more important than her. She had been right though, he didn't love her. Spike had been with her because she was there, because she was the only one that didn't jump down his throat when he was getting in to trouble. Most of the time the trouble he caused was because of her, because she would ask him to do crazy things for her, and he had agreed because the thought of her leaving him alone in the world scared him. 'This all happened because I was afraid to be alone. If I had been strong enough to walk away from Dru I would have been back before she lost hope.'

Spike walked through the doors of the hotel and headed straight for the stairs. He heard Angel call after him, but pretended he hadn't. He was on a mission and he wasn't stopping for anything until he found her. He looked through her open apartment door, but there was no sign of her there. "Buffy?" He called to her as he walked into the living room. "Are you here?" There was no answer. "Damn" he whispered harshly. I thought about plopping himself on the sofa until she came back but he didn't want her to be upset with him for hanging out uninvited. 'I'll just go to my rooms and wait there for awhile and try again in an hour or so.' He decided as he left Buffy's apartment. He walked quickly down the hall when he saw light coming through his open door. Spike stepped into the living room, but saw no one. When he approached the bedroom he saw the woman he had been looking for sitting on his bed.

As Buffy walked past the dresser by the door in Spike's bedroom something caught her eye. She knew she shouldn't snoop through his things, but for some reason she just couldn't resist. There on the dresser was a small black photo album with a silver cross on the cover. Buffy picked it up, went to the bed to sit down, and opened the cover. The first picture she came across was of a baby boy. One look at his eyes told her it was a picture of Spike when he was first born. The next few pictures were of him with who she thought was his mother. He was still very young in these pictures. As she flipped through a few more they were of him as he was getting older. She stopped on a picture of him when he was about eight years old. He was standing by a playground a small blonde girl standing beside him. She stared at the photo as what she had been denying since she had first looked into Spike's eyes became all to real. She didn't remember the day the picture had been taken, but the picture she knew. There had been one just like it that had hung on the mirror in her bedroom since her mother had given it to her. She had taken it to college with her and to Los Angeles when she moved in with Faith and Angel. However, when she unpacked her belongings she left the picture in a box with others and had stuffed it under her bed where she had forgotten about it.

"You mind telling me what you're doing in my room looking through my things?" Buffy jumped off the bed at the sound of his voice. She had been so engrossed in the picture that she hadn't heard anyone else enter the room.

"I, I'm sorry. I came looking for you. I didn't mean to, I was walking out and I just I saw the photo album and I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I…" She handed him the photo album still opened to the picture that had captured her attention. Spike looked at the picture the book was opened to. There was no doubt in his mind that if she didn't know who he was before, she definitely knew now.

"I see you found the picture. I guess I don't have to tell you who I am any more."

Buffy glared at him. "How long have you known? Why didn't you say anything to me before? Were you planning on leaving here and not telling me, thinking that I would never figure it out or that I wouldn't have cared?" She was clearly upset with him for not saying anything to her, it wasn't what Spike had been hoping to happen.

"Elizabeth" her real name came out of his mouth and it felt strange to him. "I was going to tell you. I realized it when we were talking at your place. I talked to your dad yesterday. He told me what happened and when you told me the same story I knew it was you."

"You called him didn't you? You told him where I am." Buffy yelled at him, scared that her hide out had been exposed and her father would be coming for her soon.

"No, Elizabeth I…"

Buffy cut him off not giving him the chance to tell her where he had been. "Don't call me that. My name hasn't been that for a long time. I am not the girl you left behind."

"Please, can we just talk this out?"

"Oh so now that I know who you are you want to talk. Earlier when we were talking you stormed out of my living room pissed off at me for whatever reason. You didn't want to talk to me then and tell me that you knew so I don't want to talk to you now." Buffy stated as she pushed her way past Spike and walked out to the hallway.

"Wait, Buffy." Spike called after her but she refused to stop. He followed her to her apartment where he was greeted with her door slamming in his face. Nothing had went as he had wanted it to go. Giving into defeat he returned to his apartment to try to figure out what to do next.