He followed her home, sticking fast to the shadows so she wouldn't glimpse movement behind her and guess that he was there. It wouldn't do for her to suspect he had meant anything but what he had said to her—yelled at her, rather—on the street back there. Wouldn't do to give her hope that things might turn out all right. He was stealthy, but he was also drunk, and one cement-scuffing footstep almost blew his cover. Ahead of him, Dawn turned, wary as they had taught her (good girl, Niblet), wide-eyed and poised to flee for her life.

"H-hello?" she called. "Is someone there?" Then, murmuring to herself, "Great, Dawn, you've got a bright future in horror movies with lines like that." She turned and started walking again, then paused as if something had occurred to her. Tilting her head slightly in an unconscious imitation of him, she called out softly, hopefully, "Spike? Spike, is that you?"

Still as a statue in the deepest shadow of a nearby shade tree, he waited for her to sense his presence.

"Well screw you, anyway," she said bitterly into the echoing silence when she got no answer. "We don't need you either, you know. You think it's all about you and what you want? It's not. I just wish you'd been straight with me from the beginning instead of pretending you'd be around forever. I knew better, but you made me believe—whatever. It doesn't matter. If you are following me, you can stop. I can take care of myself. And if I can't, and I get killed between here and home, then I doubt you'd lose much sleep over it. Buffy's back now, you're not bound to me anymore. So screw you," she finished, and the angry tone that thinly masked the underlying pain cut Spike to the core. He fought a sudden urge to step out from the shadows, call to her, ease the hurt he'd inflicted.

Dawn suddenly realized she was standing in the middle of a dark, seemingly deserted street, telling off someone who probably wasn't there. Scoring major cool points. Janice would be so proud. She sighed, giving up the stupid blind hope that had flared in her when she heard the scuffing noise. Now she had to get to Buffy, had to make her sister realize the extent of the damage she had done. And to repair it before it was too late; before Spike left town or did something equally stupid. Before they lost him.

xXxXx

Spike watched until the front door of the Summers' house had slammed behind Dawn, enclosing her safely within. Then he turned and started back down the street, not sure of where he was going but determined to get away from this place. He gratefully lit a cigarette; he had been craving one since leaving the bar but had to abstain so that Dawn wouldn't detect his presence.

He didn't care, of course. He had followed the bit home, yeah, but only because he was heading the same direction. Bloody Slayer should put a leash on that one before she ran afoot of the wrong sort and got herself drained to the last drop. Wouldn't have old reliable Spike to watch out for her any longer, that was for certain. This wasn't the life for him, and fuck them all for containing him even this long. He'd been blind. Seeing Angel in Buffy's living room had changed things. Angel—Angelus—with his looming presence and now-soulful eyes, the same eyes whose merciless emptiness had once struck the fear of God in all they fell upon. Even in Spike, his student, his child. Drusilla had sired him but Angelus had made him what he was. What he used to be, before the Slayer had seeped into his blood and taken over. Before he had sacrificed all for a love that should have been unattainable. Buffy herself had removed the restrictions. But now, seeing how easily she lied to Angel, how naturally, reflexively she denied him, was the wake-up call he needed. They weren't meant to be, any more than Angel and Buffy had been. He saw it now. He hated what he saw, but it was there, and it was undeniable.

xXxXx

Buffy would never admit it, but she was afraid as she set out to find Spike. He had never been one to walk away from her, not even when she had first come back and tried in all the ways she knew to inflict on him, safe and easy target that he was, some of the pain she was feeling. This time he had walked out, and they hadn't even really been fighting. And Dawn was so upset—granted, Dawn was an emotional roller coaster on the best of days, but still—Buffy had to wonder if Spike really meant it when he said he was done with them.

Two vamps accosted her on the way to Spike's crypt. She made quick work of them, not even bothering with the banter or the showy moves that had become so much a part of her she could perform her Slayer duties in her sleep. She staked them, brushed off their dust, and kept going. She caught sight of a third one watching the pitiful excuse for a fight from behind a large tombstone and pinned him with a stare.

"Well come on, if you're going to. I don't have time to play right now," she said in a bored tone, twirling the stake in her hand like a baton.

The vampire paused, seeming to ponder this invitation to tangle with the Slayer herself, and then turned and ran off into the night. Buffy turned and ran smack into Spike. Recovering before she let out an unseemly scream, she shoved him back away from her.

"You'd better watch it with the sneaking up on people," she chided, lowering the stake she had instinctively raised in the collision. "That could've ended badly."

"Yeah? For whom, pet?" He was very drunk; she could smell the fumes coming off him, and he was none too steady on his feet.

"You'd be the one blowing in the wind," she answered noncomittally.

"I'd think that would make everything crystal clear for you, smooth sailing and whatnot."

"You sound like Dawn. Do you really need that kind of reassurance?"

"Not asking for it."

"Really? Well that's good. Because I think it's beneath you."

"Wait, I know this one. But the way I heard it, I'm beneath you. Isn't that the real issue here?"

"According to Dawn, we no longer have any issues. Why don't you fill me in, Spike? Give me the same load of crap you gave my sister, and see if I fall for it too."

He shrugged, a studied exercise in indifference. "I meant what I said to her, if that's in question."

"Not in question. Un-fucking-believable. You're done with us? What, because I made a dumb error in judgment with Angel by telling him we're not sleeping together?"

"That's not it. That's not all of it," he amended. "It just made things clear for me, is all. Made me understand that it would always be this way, me dragging you down to my level and waiting there for you to come back to me as you see fit. Once that might have been good enough. Not anymore. You've let me in now, and I thought that would never happen. Once it did the rules changed. I expect more. I need more."

"Funny, I thought that was my line."

"Don't matter so much now anyway, does it? I told Dawn, I'm telling you … it's done. I'm leaving. Getting as far away from you lot as possible, and if we ever happen to cross paths again, you want to keep your distance. I intend to get this chip out so I can be what I'm meant to be, what the love of your life made me. The monster I was before you—before I loved you."

Buffy watched him toss his cigarette away and light another, her face expressionless in the moonlight. "You were a monster," she agreed at last. "You're not anymore. I don't think you can be again."

"We'll see about that."

"If you leave … Spike, if you leave it will break Dawn's heart."

He met her eyes for the first time, raising one eyebrow interestedly. "I know," he said simply. The silence following those words told him that she wasn't going to say what he needed to hear. He nodded to himself, as if affirming the unspoken rejection.

"Can you live with that?" Buffy pressed.

"I've lived with a far cry worse, pet."

Buffy stared into his blue eyes, trying to read him, to break through his impressive barrier of detachment. She couldn't.

"Don't leave, Spike. It will break my heart if you leave."

She didn't say it. This time she was the one who walked away.

xXxXx

Shall I continue? Reviews are much appreciated.