Ch3

Fleur sniffled and pulled back after awhile. She gave Buffy a watery smile and shook her dark hair away from her face. "Thanks. Sometimes, I just really feel like breaking down like that…or screaming and going after my sire with a fiery stake and chopping his head off while drowning him in Holy Water…but that could just be my vampire part of me." Buffy laughed and nodded her head.

"Don't worry about it. I want to kill Spike nearly every day." Spike looked affronted, and grumbled, but the others in the room ignored him. "Do you need someone to stay with you the next couple nights while you're out of it? And we have a place near the campus where Oz stays when it's time, so you can wait there…?" Fleur shook her head.

"The place sounds perfect, don't get me wrong, but you have a job to do, Buffy. And I am not putting anyone in danger that doesn't need to be. Spike I will allow. Maybe a werewolf that you trust and I can talk to until I change… But no, not you, or Xander, or anyone else. I barely trust myself when I'm like this sometimes, so I definitely do not trust the full demon part of me. I have no control then. That's the only time I feel like a real vampire, no soul, no conscience…just me, the demon, and my food." Buffy grinned and cast a sly look and the red-headed guitar player that had been listening attentively in his own, silent way.

"I know just the guy. Fleur, meet Oz, our werewolf in residence. Oz, you know all about this, so, while I go patrol, why don't you take her to go see the pit?" Oz nodded and motioned Fleur to the door. She stood up and smiled at him before slipping out into the darkness.

"So, you're who Buffy was talking about when she said someone stayed in the…pit?" Oz nodded and looked at her.

"Yeah. My cousin bit me a couple years back, and the gang just sort of took me in one night when a werewolf hunter came to town. They pretty much saved me from being a rug." Fleur stared at him. "Yeah, I know. Rug."

"No, actually I was referring to the vampire standing behind you." Oz turned and quickly ducked as the vamp took a swing at him. While he was still mid-swing, Fleur pulled out a slim stake from her coat pocket and stabbed him, sending dust all over the place. "Sorry about that. Vamps just aren't very clean losers." He gave her a weird look.

"You're a vampire." She nodded.

"Yep, but I'm special. Slayer vampire, remember. I just die again, and then disappear. No dust, no cleaning crew, just nice clean, although complicated, kill."

They walked along in silence for the rest of the way until they got to the pit. The building looked sort of like an abandoned bomb shelter, only a bit nicer, and with a part of it caged off.

"Strong enough to hold a werewolf," he told her. "Giles has the keys to the locks."

"Locks? You mean plural?" He motioned to the five or six locks laying in a neat pile by the door. "Very nice. It looks strong enough to hold demon me. But, we'll just have to see. William can get the tranquilizers that we'll need in case it doesn't work or I start to hurt myself. When I get locked up, I get a bit suicidal, and it's not very pretty." Oz shook his head.

"Want me to stay?" Fleur shrugged.

"If you want to. Spike knows how to handle me, but I have to be locked up before sunset, and I get pretty bored most times." He nodded.

"I can bring my guitar if you want. I'll play some of the stuff that we're working on right now. The band I play with normally has a gig at the Bronze on Friday nights…that's the night after your last demon spaz."

"Sounds fun. Tomorrow you'll have to show me around town." He stared at her, his deep, penetrating eyes questioning. "I don't get burned by daylight. Hence the tan." He grinned. "Yep, I get a pretty good package, excluding the need for blood at least once a day, and the whole new moon demon thing."

"Bet Spike feels a bit bad because of it," he said, but she just laughed, a light, tinkling sound.

"Spike? Feel bad? As in William the Bloody, my sire, feel anything other than anger, hate, or horniness, feel bad? Are we talking about the same person?" Oz just gave her a look, and she sighed, then sat down on the floor, leaning up against the wall. "He doesn't have a soul, Oz. He is barely capable of love. Sure, he cared for me, but he never once did anything about what Angelus did to me," she spat, glaring at a spot on the wall opposite. "He raped me, tortured me, did anything and everything bad you could imagine except kill me. And the whole time, Spike did nothing. He pretended it never happened. When Angelus was around, he'd pretend he didn't care at all and hit me…Then, he'd go out and get me things. Actually buy them because I refused to have things he stole. That is the closest to caring I have ever seen him. Until tonight."

"What do you mean?" Fleur gave him a sly smile.

"My daddy may not know it yet, but he has a soft spot for the current Slayer in Residence, and I am going to make him suffer because of it." Oz looked horrified. "Oh, not a bad suffering!" She reassured him. "The kind of suffering where you're in love, and you can't stand it anymore, so you break down and confess it to someone close to you, who then encourages you to pursue it, and accept it, until he can't take it anymore, and you tell the person. And the whole time, I'll be doing much the same to Buffy…just… nicer." Oz grinned as he realized what she was talking about in a way. He had been feeling much the same from the moment he arrived at the Summer's house.

"Count me in."