A/N : The response to this story has been astonishing so far. I'm just really glad that so many people seem to love reading it as much as I love writing it. I don't know how long this story will be, I suspect not as long as some of my past fics since the ideas I have are not too involved. Anywho, here's the latest chapter...
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 3

Spike lay on the hotel bed staring at the ceiling. He'd tried closing his eyes and willing sleep to come, but to no avail. Thoughts of Buffy filled his head, both memories of the dim and distant past five years ago or more, and recent scenes that had played out in this very room just hours ago.

She called herself Joan, her hair was dark brown and shorter, and she said she didn't know him, and yet Spike was almost one hundred percent certain that the woman who'd stood before him was Buffy Anne Summers. He would have been more sure, if it were not for the fact she were dead. He had seen her tumble into the portal, watched the pain cross her face, followed by the calm and peaceful smile as she slipped away, presumably going to a better place. Though he could remember all this plain as day, still feel the terrible heartache it had caused, his mind worked overtime, trying to find a way in which he could be wrong.

How might Buffy have come to appear dead, and yet live still in a form that did not know those she'd been close to. Spike knew she'd never loved him, that they were not close in that sense, but he'd been a part of her life for almost three years. First enemy, then hostage, a strange sort of acquaintance, and by the end possibly even a friend. For her not to know him was impossible, and she had not lied on purpose, he knew that for certain. He'd studied the Slayer as both adversary and potential love interest, he knew her every expression, every inflection of her voice. She could not lie to him without his knowledge, anymore than Miss Joan Whatever-She-Called-Herself could be anyone but Buffy Summers by another name.

She did not know herself, and that worried Spike more than her not knowing him. When she stated her name, she meant it, no lies or tricks. She had no clue who Buffy was, and seemed stunned that Spike carried a picture of a girl that might be her own twin.

What first made the vampire so suspicious of this woman's origins was her scent. Though it was said that human beings could likely find a completely unrelated double of themselves somewhere in the world, each and every person was distinguishable by the way they smelled. Of course it was not always an obvious odour, only creatures with sensitive noses could pick up on it, dogs in the animal world, vampires in the demon world.

Five years on, Spike knew Buffy's scent as well as he knew her face. It wasn't something he was ever likely to forget, anymore than his own name would slip his mind. He laughed painfully at that. It was an ironic choice of proof. Forgetting ones own name was apparently not as ridiculous as it first seemed to be, if 'Joan' was to be made an example of. She simply had to be Buffy, and on some level she knew that, Spike was sure. Her reaction to the date of the Slayer's death was such that it was clear that day meant something to her. The bleached blond would love to find out what, but unless she came to him he didn't see how he was ever going to find out. Trying to find her, barging into the room of a helpless young woman, which this incarnation of Buffy would likely be, would only get him in all sorts of trouble. He could not afford to be thrown out of the hotel a couple of hours before dawn. All he could do was hope and pray to the Powers That Be that he was right, that Buffy really was back somehow, and that she'd want to come back and see him for whatever reason.

Joan couldn't sleep. Even as she'd gone through her little routine of taking off her make-up, washing herself, and changing into her pyjamas, she'd known it was all pointless, but she did it nevertheless. She lay under the duvet, watching the digits on her travel clock click over and over, a minute, another, then an hour, and two. It was soon three in the morning and Joan had barely closed her eyes. Each time she even contemplated sleep she was bombarded with images behind her eyes that she'd sooner not see, rather not remember at all.

Five years ago, a hospital, with doctors and nurses and other patients all eager to know the latest on the mystery woman, the one without a name or identification of any kind. Found in the street by an old homeless woman, in stylish yet affordable clothes that looked like they'd been in the wars, despite the fact the woman wearing them barely had a scratch on her, just a few minor bruises that had healed in a day or two.

There was no sign she'd been attacked or taken advantage of in anyway, and Joan remembered all the tests and questions too clearly to doubt the doctors and nurses had missed anything at all. How she'd ended up in a dark alley on a bright morning in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio, was anybody's guess, and the young woman herself had not one clue.

Since she was found to be medically fit, the hospital didn't want to waste a bed on her, but with no money, belongings, family, friends, or even a name to call her own, she couldn't just be turned out onto the streets. There were proper channels to go through of course, legal issues and the hospitals reponsibilities, but much had been bypassed when the nameless woman made friends with a nurse. The friendly young woman named Christine Jacobs had been the first person to deal with Joan at the hospital and had offered her a place to stay when it became clear after a couple of weeks that her memory was not going to return any time soon.

A little wary, but nonetheless grateful, Joan had taken her up on the offer and chose a temporary name for herself which had stuck when no other was ever discovered. The blonde's hair grew out, proving she had in fact been born a brunette, and she started to look for a job she might be good at. It took a while since she wasn't sure what she was good at, and couldn't prove whether she had any qualifications or not.

Joan struck lucky at a shop in town. Her picture had been on the television and in newspapers for a while as the doctors hoped someone might recognise her as their missing friend or family member, and though none did, her face was known in the local area. A gentleman who owned a book store had heard of her plight and when she went in to apply for the job of shop assistant that she'd seen advertised in the window he was quick to say yes, with barely an interview to be had.

Joan was at first wary of his eagerness to employ her. A young woman could not be too careful in this day and age. There were always talking on the news bulletins and in the newspapers about men that employed young women to sexually harrass them and use them. Joan soon found out she was very wrong about poor Mr Whitely, who's intentions were apparently honourable.

His own daughter had been involved in an incident several years ago, and she had been less lucky than Joan had been, he'd told her. When they found poor Molly in an alley, it was face down, covered in blood, and stone cold. Mr Whitely thought someone somewhere was smiling down on Miss Joan Winters as she had chosen to call herself. Things could have turned out much worse for her, and as she had been allowed another chance at life as it were Mr Whitely intended to help her out, since he'd had no chance to help his own child.

Joan was very grateful and took the job, enjoying it immensely these past five years. It was just a few months after she began working at the shop that she found an envelope addressed to herself, sitting on one of the shelves she was tidying at the back of the store. Inside were papers, birth certificate, passport, ID card, everything she ought to have but didn't since her memory had left her. It had scared her at first, that someone would do this illegal thing for her. Who would know her well enough to write all the made up details of her new life on the paperwork?

She assumed it must've been Mr Whitely's work, though he seemed so honest and upfront about everything. There really was no-one else it could be, she surmised, but decided not to say a word about it. Clearly he did not want it mentioned or he would not have simply left the things for her to find, he would have given them to her himself.

However the documents had come to be, Joan was grateful for them. Her life gained momentum, reality, a sense that it was her own, and that she was herself. The fact she could not remember anything about her childhood, or life at all up to a point five years ago hadn't mattered anymore as she did her job, made friends, and lived life like any normal young woman in Ohio.

With a different hair colour and style, new clothes, and a constantly happy expression, she was unrecognisable as the poor blonde from the circulated pictures of the mystery woman with no memory and no name. She was Joan Winters, book store assistant, friend to many, and happy to live her life as it was in Cleveland. Now everything was changing again, she realised, as she was forcibly reminded that she had no idea where she had come from, or how she ended up where she had with no memories at all.

Somewhere out there she must at least have parents, probably some friends, maybe even a boyfriend or husband or something. A whole group of people might have her picture somewhere in their house, by their bed, in their wallet, and wonder every day where she went.

Joan frowned as she thought about it. Such ideas had entered her head before of course, but she never let them hang around too long. The likelihood that she would remember anything lessened as time went on and she made peace with the fact that her old life, whatever it had been, was now over, done with, and gone for good. It had been easy enough to do, with nothing to remind her of it, but now she'd met Spike, and he seemed to know her.

The picture he'd shown her, the girl he'd called Buffy, it simply had to be her before her accident or whatever it was that had happened that landed her in an alley all alone and with amnesia. Could he be a friend she once knew, a boyfriend even? He had said he loved this Buffy and if that was her... Joan shuddered involuntarily as the strangest mixture of feelings shot through her, emotions from one end of the scale to the other. She was so scared of what it meant to find a link to her past, and at the same time kind of thrilled to know she might at last be able to discover what had come to pass in the twenty years or so she was missing.

With no information forthcoming from her memory banks, even her year of birth was uncertain, and certainly the date of it. She had created her own birth date, an event she had allotted to the day she was found in the alley, since that was when she felt she had been reborn. For the year, she'd had Christine estimate it for her, and they'd decided she was probably no more than twenty. On the one year anniversary of her being found, a huge surprise party had been thrown by all the new friends Joan had made and the day was a celebration for her twenty first birthday, in the hopes of blocking out some of the dark images of the year before.

Joan's hand went to her face as she felt tears course down her cheeks. Bad things had happened, good things too. Over the past five years she'd been through a lot of ups and downs, never knowing what the years before these had been. Now she had a chance to find out and the mix of emotions that stirred inside her made her feel heartily sick.

Glancing at the clock she realised it was pointless lying there anymore trying to sleep. It was almost five a.m. and the sun was peeking up over the horizon, shafts of orange light creeping in through the gap in the drapes. Sitting up, Joan glanced across at the mirror, wiped the tears from her face, and combed her fingers through her hair. She stared long and hard at her reflection, tried to picture herself as she had been long before, blonde like the picture Spike had. She forced a smile and waved to herself.

"Hi, I'm Buffy" she said awkwardly, before trying again more convincingly. It just felt so wrong and ridiculous the first couple of times but suddenly on the third attempt, something happened. It was like a movie running through her head as she stood outside a building, looking down on a young red-head with a brown paper bag and a backpack at her side.

"Do you want me to move?" she asked, worriedly.

"Okay, why don't we start with... Hi, I'm Buffy" Joan heard her own voice say and she gasped as she found herself suddenly back in her room.

For a moment she hadn't been sure where she was, talking to some random young girl, in some random place, but saying the words she'd been trying out in front of the mirror. She pinched her own arm and flinched at the feeling. No, she wasn't asleep and therefore the little trip had been no dream.

"Am I Buffy?" she asked the reflection in the mirror, of course getting no real reply and not expecting one.

She frowned as she strained to remember who the red-head she saw might be, what her name was, how she knew her, anything at all, but there was nothing, just a big blank canvas, an empty space where her memories used to live. Whether she was this Buffy person or not, she couldn't tell herself, but it seemed there was one man who might be able to help.

It was unlikely, she thought, that Spike would have left his room yet. The sun was barely up, and he most probably didn't have plans for at least a couple of hours, at least she hoped he didn't. Hopping out of bed she slipped out of her nightwear and into some clean clothes for the day. She didn't have to be anywhere in particular either, not until the evening when she was meeting a friend for dinner, whom she'd met in Cleveland quite some time ago.

Though she and Jonathan Jackson had never dated or anything, they'd been good friends, and she'd felt like there was a gap in her life when he was offered a promotion that would take him away from her to LA. However, it was the opportunity of a life time and as such Johnny had to take it. He and Joan had promised to keep in touch and visit each other as often as they could. He'd been back to Cleveland three times in the past six months and had insisted this time be Joan's turn to visit him. She'd agreed almost instantly and so here she was, never guessing that her arrival in California would lead to her discovering her true past. It seemed, however, that might be exactly what would happen as she picked up her purse and walked towards the door.

For a second she asked herself if she was being an idiot. Alone in a town she didn't know too well, and now going willingly into the room of a man who may or may not have known her years ago, but whom she knew nothing of except for what she assumed to be a nickname, since it was unlikely any mother would be so cruel as to name a child Spike. He was good looking, and seemed like a nice person, though appearances could be so deceiving, Joan knew that.

Nevertheless, she was outside his door by now and her fisted hand poised just short of knocking. Perhaps this was an insane idea. Perhaps she was better off not knowing what her life had once been. With a sigh she turned away, just as the door opened anyway. Unbeknownst to her, Spike had sensed her outside his door and waited for her to knock. When she hadn't and he'd known she was going to leave he hadn't been able to stop himself from going to her.

"Buffy" he said to her back as she stopped walking just a couple of steps down the hallway. She turned back, feeling ridiculous for having tears in her eyes.

"Am I?" she asked, voice shaking with emotion, "Am I Buffy? Is that my name? I don't even know" she cried and all Spike wanted to do was hold her and comfort her and promise her everything would be alright.

Without a thought he went towards her and went with his instincts, so relieved and overjoyed when she fell into his arms, though the fact she was sobbing her heart out didn't thrill him at all.

Though a voice in Joan's head was telling her what an idiot she was as she let this stranger hold her and take her into his room, for the most part she felt strangely safe and at peace in his arms, like she'd finally come home. That had to mean something, and she planned to find out exactly what that something was.

To Be Contintued...