He opened the bag andlooked down on its contents incredulously. Red digits counting down. Counting down from 4. Bugger! No time to throw the damn thing away, no time to get away from it. He just stood there looking rather comically, while stared at the countdown ticking down. Wam! The sound of the explosion almost made his eardrums burst, like hot dragon breath the destructive power of the detonation swept over his body and singed his clothes. He was catapulted back a couple of meters and crashed into a parked car. Spike slowly slid down its side and landed on the floor with a pained groan. The smell of burned textiles and flesh invaded his nostrils. He waited with his eyes closed for the pain to subside, not daring to move until his vampire healing powers had taken care of most of the damage.

He told himself to focus on anything, but the feeling of his burned skin and the prickling sensation as it began to grow again and heal. A name emerged from his subconscious, the one he had guiltily tried to ignore and ban from his mind in the last couple of hours. Lisa...the smell of lavender, laughter, kisses…those thoughts only summoned up melancholy. Somehow now it felt like his wounds were hurting a little bit more instead of healing. He winced and drew a sharp breath. What was he doing here again? For a moment he could actually remember what he had come for. Buffy? Or was it just his reluctance of letting Angel better him in anything? Maybe…Probably….Certainly

His musing were cut short by the gradual awareness of his situation. Spike suddenly remember that he was still lying on a Roman piazza with debris from the explosion covering him, surrounding him. This was a public place. It would have been hard to overhear the detonation. They should better get out of here before the police would arrive.

He moved his fingers probingly – it didn't hurt. The pain had finally subsided and he opened his eyes, started to move, even stood up. Parts of his clothing peeled away from him - stripes of leather, dark jeans fabric. Instead of cursing he just watched, strangely mesmerized. The handle of the bag was still in his hand, but the rest of it was missing. He let it slip from his hand. It had gotten irrelevant among so many other things. Spike suddenly felt homesick.

"You've got an hour, after that she has to leave to make it to her rendezvous with those two fanged fools," the Immortal honoured them with a mischievous grin ere he walked towards the door of Buffy's apartment.

"Honey, I told you to not call them that," Buffy tried to sound stern, but inevitably the corner's of her mouth twitched.

"See you later, amore," he called out before he closed the door.

"So, that leaves just the two of us," the slayer stated the obvious. Her gaze fell one the bag standing next to the couch on which she sat, "actually the twoofus and the head," Buffy added, her voice trembling the tiniest bit with suppressed laughter.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Lisa blurted out impatiently.

"Spike."

"Mhm, sure..," it seemed hard to believe that the slayer suddenly wanted tolayher mind open to her, given the fact that they were far away from being even remotelyfriendly.

"Do I have to remind you that it was you who came knocking at my door?" Buffy crossed her arms over her chest in defiance.

"No, I'm well aware of that, I'm just surprised that's all," Lisa admitted truthfully.

"It's not like I could talk about those things with my family or my friends," the slayer told her almost ashamedly, purposefully avoiding the other woman's gaze.

"And you think I'm the right person for this?" Lisa's voice involuntarily rose a pitch out of sheer incredulousness.

"I figure it might help us both. I could get some things off my chest and you would get some answers," Buffy looked at her as if she expected her to say something.

"I understand," Lisa said pensively. "I promise I'll stop being a bitch and just listen," she said softly after a while.

"Fine," Buffy take a deep breath. Apparently it really took her some effort to actually start talking about her past, "Angel was my first love," she commenced hesitantly, "What I felt for him was very intense, all Romeo and Juliet like, because of the curse, the air of mystery that surrounded him, the vampire thing…Well, basically him," Buffy sighed. She now looked rather tired, much older than in her early twenties. It was something about her eyes. "Being a slayer is sometimes the worst job in the world. I had to kill him to stop an apocalypse from happening. Did you know that?" Of course Lisa hadn't known. It wasn't like anyone had told her.

"Well, never mind. That seems so long ago now anyway, after all that happened."

"I'm sorry."

"Bad things happen; it's what we have to live with," Buffy got distraught by looking at the two half full wine glasses that still stood there one the table. The way the light broke in them, it made the liquid inside sparkle like rubies, it almost had the colour of blood. Crystal glasses full of blood how very much cliché.

Lisa half expected her not to continue talking anymore, but finally the blond woman continued.

"Something died inside of me that day, but I never had the time to find out what it was exactly. I was always on patrol, always busy with fighting the next big bad and on my free time I had to deal with everyday life. That sounds so utterly depressing, but it was just what it was nothing more and nothing less. I had very little time for myself, very little time to reflect on who I was and what it was that I wanted. So I never got around to finding myself."

Lisa felt the need to ask what this all had to do with Spike, but she had promised to be nice, so she decided to shut up and listen. She just hoped that they would be able to get through with this in an hour, given the fact that Buffy had suddenly become so talkative.

"You're probably asking yourself why I keep on jabbing about myself." Bingo, Lisa thought.

"Because that's why it didn't work out with Spike. I never knew what I wanted, so I ended up using him. Not my brightest hour, but to my defence I have to say that the using bit that was going on…that was kind of mutual. He didn't have a soul back then," Buffy's forehead wrinkled at the memory of those days. She preferred not to think of it.

"Fuck buddies," Lisa stated seemingly emotionlessly, although each word felt like a stab to the heart.

"Fuck buddies with the benefit that I could load on him all my emotional baggage, all the stuff that had been bottled up inside. Well, I was just back from the dead, but that's no excuse really," her voice sounded strained, as if by saying those words aloud she was beginning to realize some very important things about herself.

"And after he got his soul back?" Lisa inquired.

"After that we finally managed to become friends. Very slowly, because the fact that the First used him as a puppet didn't add to Spike's mental sanity, but after that we finally started to trust each other. We never got past the level of being friends, though I told him that I loved him. It was not really love or at least the kind of love he would have wanted me to feel for him, I realize that now. Not as deep as he felt for me."

Lisa gulped. Suddenly her throat felt very dry. It was hard hearing those words uttered from another woman, especially Spike's ex-girlfriend.

"When I last talked to Angel I told him I was cookie dough," she smiled wistfully, "that I was not done baking, that I had not yet found the real me. Kind of a bad metaphor, huh?"

Lisa had to smile involuntarily, "Sort of, but it served its purpose I guess."

"Yeah, it did," Buffy smiled. Her posture had changed since they had started talking. First she had sat very upright on the couch to the point of seeming stiff, but now she looked more relaxed. She had crossed her legs and had made herself comfortable, half lying half sitting on the sofa. At some point she had kicked of her high heels and as her gaze fell on her bare feet she wiggled her toes playfully. Her mood seemed to have lightened up considerably.

"You could say that I'm in the baking process right now. Things are looking up, since I finally managed to let go of the past or better reflect on the mistakes I made back then."

"Does that letting-go thing also involve Spike?"

"Yes, it does," the slayer smiled at her. "In a sense we did each other good, while being all wrong for each other at the same time."

"Sounds complicated."

"It was, very much so. And what about you two? Are you happy?" after what Buffy had just told her she was certainly entitled to ask that kind of question.

"I guess it's never easy, but I think I am happy. Of course, not when he jumps on a plane and flies to Europe without telling me, but the rest of the time I'm happy."

"I'm glad to hear that," Buffy sounded sincere. For a moment silence filled the room. "I think you have to leave now. You've got an appointment with two handsome gentlemen," the slayer smiled at her encouragingly.

Lisa nodded and got up. She grabbed her coat and bag and slowly walked towards the door. Behind her she heard Buffy's bare feet pad over the carpet.

"Thanks for the talk," Lisa turned around to face Buffy. For a moment she felt was unsure what to do, but than she felt a sudden wave of sympathy for that woman she only knew a few hours. She gave her a brief hug and felt silly for it only seconds later as if she was trespassing the unwritten law of "thou shall not like your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend".

"Thanks for listening, I guess. It was kind a nice…getting to know you. Weird, but nice," Buffy said with a friendly smile.

"Likewise. Well, maybe…you know…" What she wanted to say was that maybe if circumstances had been different they might have actually become friends.

Buffy seemed to have similar thoughts, because she seemed to get the hidden meaning between those few stammered words. "Yeah, I know…," she answered finally, "Have a safe trip home. I hope things turn out okay with Spike."

Lisa nodded at her briefly and turned to walk out of the door. It closed behind her with a soft click, not a bang, it just closed, that was all. She smiled to herself and started walking down the corridor.