Buffy sits alone at a table, purposely facing away from the door. But she can't stop herself glancing towards the bar every couple of minutes where a clock is hanging over the counter. The minute hand slips ever up. Inching closer to 9 o'clock.

This was a bad idea. This was a bad BAD idea, but it's the only idea I've got. I need something to focus on. Some reason I can point to for... for losing last night.

She's changed out of her clothes again, wanting to get rid of the hospital smell. A soft gold top that doesn't cling to her bandages, and jeans.

Joyce is still wired up and on a drip as they take blood samples and x-rays. All hustle and bustle, and no one saying what they're testing for and why. It's enough to drive anyone insane.

She'd left Dawn there, watching TV on the set hanging from the ceiling. Xander said he'd be picking her up about now-ish and would stay with her until she got back from research with Giles.

But I'm not with Giles. I'm sitting in the Bronze waiting for a creature I loathe to come and reminisce about the most disgusting parts of his un-life. I guess in my line of work that would loosely count as research.

9 o'clock comes and goes.

Of course he wouldn't be on time. He loves to show up uninvited and get in the way and act like a general thorn in our side even during daylight hours but ask him to show up at a specific time and he's NOWHERE.

The minute hand starts sinking down, seemingly to speed up as she sits waiting, downing her drink and then another.

He's not coming. Maybe he didn't get the note Giles left him.

...Maybe he's out on the prowl. Shit what if he runs into Riley? He'll gloat about patching up a Slayer, of course he will, you can't stop that infuriating mouth once it's open!

She waits until 9:45, fidgeting and glancing behind her to the door every time she hears open.

That's it. I can't wait any longer.

She shrugs on her coat, wincing in pain as she inadvertently stretches her wound.

If he's going to play hard to get, then I'm going to play Kick the Spike.

Spike doses in his chair, letting the evening slip passed him. A small sound outside the crypt pricks up his ears. He smiles, hearing boots on the stone steps outside.

Buffy.

Despite the stake she took to her stomach she has no trouble kicking the door open, bursting in like a force of nature.

"You know, you could try knocking pet. Might save yourself some wear and tear on your boots."

She stands over him scowling, before kicking the footstool out from underneath his legs.

"Feeling petty, are we?"

"More like sick of having my time wasted."

"You wasted your own time, sweetheart."

"I told you to meet me-"

"Yeah and you will notice the distinct lack of me trailing behind you like a little leashed poodle. I might be chipped but I'm not your whipping boy, Slayer." A few of the candles in the crypt have sputtered out and he gets out of his chair to light more, dispelling some of the crypt's gloom. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be curled up in Soldier Boys arms? All safe and unfulfilled."

Her hand on his shoulder spins him and pins him hard against the pillar in the centre of the room.

"Ow, watch it-"

"I'm not playing games tonight Spike. You killed two slayers, yes?" The fire in her eyes has dimmed, hollow now, laid over the top of-

Fear. Ah. So this is what our little date was going to be about.

He runs a tongue over his lips.

"I did."

"You're going to show me how."

"Uh huh. And you'll what, glower me to death if I don't? You might be walking and talking tall, pet, but you're still not quite up to a good rough and tumble after last night are you? So what exactly would be in it for me?"

Buffy releases him with a push and digs in her coat pocket, pulling out a thick wad of dollar notes.

"Two slayers, one in China during the Boxer Rebellion, one in New York. Tell the story, you get the cash."

Spike doesn't take his eyes off her face, pursing his lips sourly.

Disappointing.

"What are you after here? A quick demo? That's not going to cut it pet. You can't map out and memorise something like that." He slumps back down in his chair, fishing around in a pocket for his crumpled packet of cigarettes, setting one to his lips and lighting it.

"Tell me anyway."

"Tell you anyway?" Spike rolls his eyes, blowing out a plume of smoke. "Fine. We fought, I won, the end. Pay up." He holds out his hand, snapping his fingers, briefly enjoying the scowl he's caused on her face.

She's gorgeous when she's angry- STOP it-

"Spike-" she shifts, about to snap, when she winces suddenly, clasping a hand over her side.

Spike crushes the cigarette under his heal as and comes to stand next to her, resting a hand over hers, but she flinches hard away from him, checking him with her shoulder.

"Don't."

"Buffy-"

"Just tell me what I want to know, you get your money and I'll go. Deal?"

"No not deal."

"I'm not haggling with you, Spike."

"Then I'm not talking, Slayer."

Buffy bites her lip, feeling a thick ugly throbbing in her side.

"Fine. What d'you want?"

Spike blinks, momentarily taken aback by the lack of fire in her voice.

What do I want... God, so much. All of you, Buffy, it's starting to eat me up.

But I can't ask you for that yet.

"Come and sit down."

She follows him over to the chair, sitting down as he settles on the footstool in front of her.

"So talk." She's rigid, refusing to relax back into the chair, balancing herself on the edge.

Ready to leave. Spike thinks.

He grimaces. Trying to line the words up for her, using the bare minimum to make her understand. He knows by the end of it she'll be looking at him like some disgusting thing she dug out of a gutter.

Just get it over with as quickly as possible...

"Started with Angel. Most of the trouble I got in usually started with something he did. Or said. He was trying to warn me off some fight or other. Told me if I didn't fall in line the Slayer would get me." He chuckles at that. "I'd never heard of a Slayer at that point, I'd not been dead long. After years of being a sweet soft London boy, years of getting kicked about and... well crushed under the heal... I'd been fighting a lot. Killing a lot. Sort of getting out a bit of vengeance as it were. Making a bit of a nuisance of myself-"

"Hard to imagine."

Spike grins.

"The Slayer was a bit of a boogey man. For Darla and for Angel. Told me all these stories of a chosen one, a sweet soft young girl plucked out by destiny. Sounded too good to be true, if I'm honest. After that, I was obsessed. I mean, to most vampires, the Slayer was the subject of cold sweat and frightened whispers. But I never hid."

"Just get to the point Spike. The fight. How'd you kill her?"

Spike stares at Buffy.

"Last night really rattled you, huh?"

"This isn't about me-"

"This is everything about you." Spike digs out another cigarette from the packet he's left on the arm of the chair. Lights it. "Overheard you saying Joyce is in the hospital? Everything all right at home?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not." Spike tenses his jaw, taking another drag of his cigarette. "Alright, then. I tracked her down. It wasn't hard, she wasn't hiding. Seemed sort of reckless about it. Ended up in a Chinese temple. I made a wrong move and she sliced my face with her sword. She made a wrong move and I bit her neck."

"But how did you win?"

"You're not asking the right question Buffy. I didn't do anything different, didn't particularly want it more. It's not about how I won. It's about why she lost."

"Fine. Why then?"

"...She wanted to."

Buffy blinks, flinching away from him.

"That's what happened last night. Wasn't it?"

"No."

"Tell the truth. You lost last night because you wanted to lose."

Her slap stings his face.

He takes a breath, a drag of his cigarette.

"Tell me about your mom."

"Tell me about New York."

She glares and he sighs, desperately wanting to avoid talking about the second slayer. It's making him sick, the way her eyes are biting through him.

"I'd stalked her for a while. Nearly came to blows in a park. Fought her on the underground a few days later. Snapped her neck, the end."

"That's not the end."

"You don't really care what the blows landed were Buffy. That's not the point. There was no finishing move that made it special. She wanted it to be over. You could taste it around her. When death is your gift, it starts to seep in until you want it. You wanted it last night. It doesn't matter how much you deny it. Every Slayer has a death wish. The real question is what's feeding that death wish."

Buffy swallows, feeling trapped in the chair by him. By the hole in her side.

"So tell me, Slayer. What's feeding yours?"

"I don't have a death wish."

"Don't you? If you're honest with yourself, I think you'd say different. But I guess we both know denial is your favorite game to play, eh pet?"

The cigarette has burned down between his fingers, and he crushes it under his boot.

"It's no coincidence that the first hit you take from a low level cretinous vamp just recently crawled out of his grave is the same week your mom's sitting in hospital."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I do. I had that same death wish once. Don't think Dru would've found me down that alleyway without it. You think, just for second, on the brink of losing someone, that it would be better if they lost you first. So you don't have to suffer through the grief. That split second is all it takes. That moment of thinking you'd rather be dead than be without them. And if you're lucky someone, someone like me, will come along and grant that wish. But it's harder on a Slayer, dealing out all this death every day. Watching everyone else cross over. It becomes a bit too tempting after a while."

He takes her hand and is mildly surprised when she doesn't flinch away.

"You keep wondering what it's like. Over on the other side. That's the secret of it, it's not the punches you throw, or the kicks you land." His hands trail up her arms, stroking her skin with his fingers. "Eventually some little bit of pain will worm its way under the door. Make you want to open it yourself. Your mom, your kid sister, your Scoobies. They're the reason you've lasted as long as you have. They tie you to the world. But they're the chink in your armour too, luv. Eventually you're going to want it."

Buffy restrains a shiver at those last words, feeling like there's something more to the point he's making.

You're going to want it.