"You alright Buffster?" Xander drives down towards the edge of Sunnydale, swatting Dawn's fingers every so often when she reaches for the controls of the radio.

"Buffy?" He waggles his fingers in front of her face. "Hello, Ground Control to Major Buff."

Buffy snaps out of it, blinking hard, realising they're nearly at the hospital.

"Sorry Xand. Just... off somewhere else, I guess."

"Hey it's a celebrating day. Mother Summers returns! You be where-ever you want." He casts a glance over at her, noting the deep purple marks underneath her eyes that always seem to appear when she doesn't sleep. Slayer metabolism only ever seems to carry her so far before wear and tear starts to set in, eyes first.

"Late night with the Sunny-D undead?"

"What?" Buffy snaps her head to face Xander, color draining out of her face. Oh my God, did Spike leave a mark on my neck after all? She balls her fists in her lap to stop herself reaching up and checking her neck in the windshield's mirror. Shit, if Xander knows-

"On the slay? Last night? You look like it was a late one?"

"Oh." Buffy's heart rate crashes back down, missing it's landing in her chest and sinking into her stomach. "Uh. Yeah."

"You take Riley? Sunnydale's dream-team?"

Some dream-team. Buffy thinks bitterly, biting a cheek, swallowing an angry sigh as thoughts of him rolling around underneath the fangs of a vampire push intrusively into her head.

"No uh... just a short patrol."

The endless conversation is making her throat close over. It's too bright. It's too hot. It's too early. And every innocent, innocuous question out of Xander's mouth is new tightrope to walk.

There hadn't been any messages on the answer machine when she got home and part of her was relieved, didn't want to hear Riley's scrabbling excuses, or worse a short note asking her to call him in his pretend-all-is-well voice.

But not even a missed call rankles her a little.

I don't want him back. And I definitely don't want to see him. I just... I just-

I just what? I want him to suffer a little? Care for me, feel just a tiny bit guilty? Fight, even if the fight is meaningless and will end the same way? Stroke my pride just a little bit after I caught him there, with that thing? At least act like losing me would be unbearable.

Shit is my pride really so co-dependant? How lame is that?

Like a cooling balm thoughts of Spike wrap around her mind. The way he yearned for her. Burned her. Begged her to stay, and made it seem like even inches between them was too much to bear. She sighs.

I wish I was he was here now. He's so good with mom... and I'm exhausted. Want someone to take the wheel. Just for a little while.

"Dyu think Spike will be there?" Dawn asks, oblivious to the tension, giggling a little.

"Why would Spike be there?" Xander asks turning a little in his seat.

"He visited mom in the hospital a couple of days ago." Dawn reaches over Xander's seat and changes the radio station for the umpteenth time.

"...Huh." Xander smirks.

"What's funny?" Buffy turns in her seat, changing the radio station back again.

"No nothing."

"What?"

"...Think the Nuisance Undead has a soft spot for mothers." Xander chuckles, tickled by the idea.

"What makes you say that?" Buffy resettles in her seat, winding the car window down.

"When Giles was Spike-sitting last year they watched Passions together a couple of times. You know, that sad soap opera that's on in the middle of the day that bored unemployed people watch? Apparently they killed off one of the main characters, some big time mom-style character, dropped her off a cliff or something. Giles said Spike sulked for a week."

Dawn dissolves into a fit of giggles.

"Poor Giles."

Despite the last couple of days Buffy can't help but smile a little.

They turn into the the hospital and Xander parks. They climb out of the car into the cool of the hospital parking lots shade, heading round to the entrance at the front. Buffy stops in her tracks.

Riley's standing at the front of the hospital, waiting by the doors. She clocks the long sleeved shirt, and the jacket he's carrying in his hand, despite the broiling heat. He looks pale, like he's fighting a bout of blood loss, sticky white and sweating. But underneath it is a sort of agitated twitchiness. A fidgety nervousness that she's seen in a few of Sunnydale's more struggling drug addicts.

Or were those more of that places clients?

Oh my God, how did I miss all these stupid obvious signs?

She hardens her jaw catching up to Xander and Dawn who have noticed Riley, and are waving friendly, oblivious greetings.

He kicks himself off the wall he's leaning against, moving to meet them, barely noticing Xander and Dawn as they head passed to the hospital doors.

"Buffy-"

"No." She walks around him heading for the door that Xander is holding open for her.

"Buffy, wait-"

"Not. Here." She whispers, venom dripping off each syllable.

"I need to talk to you-"

"And when I want to talk to you you'll know it. But right now we're picking my mother up from the hospital, and you are most cordially not invited."

She stalks into the hospital passed Dawn and Xander who share a worried glance, leaving Riley out in the blinding sunlight.

Spike lounges in his armchair, daytime TV providing a white noise for the background of his thoughts. They swirl in his head, making him feel slightly dizzy. Last night feels like forever ago, like a sea of faded dreams with nothing but a couple of scratches up his arms and down his back to testify to their reality. Something about it all feels... uncontrollable. Pre-destined.

Like being a puppet on a string.

I don't believe in destiny. And a hundred years trailing after Dru... I don't believe in soulmates. Not after all the stuff we saw. All the things we did. But I don't think I'm really in control here either.

I don't have a choice when it comes to her anymore. Love doesn't give you a choice. It's there or it's not, and when it's there you don't get to opt out.

If I can't have her I'd rather be dust in the wind...

There's a flicker of shadow crossing the grilled window of the crypt.

Oh here we go...

Spike shuts off the TV listening to footsteps heading round to the front. On the stone steps outside. Bashing in the door.

He doesn't bother to turn his head, stays lounging in the armchair.

"What took you?" He takes in Riley as he crosses the floor. He looks pale. Sickly. He can't help but sneer. "Takes a while to get to full strength after the bites huh- HEY-" Riley yanks him out of the chair by the collar of his shirt, ending Spike's protest with a hard fist across his cheek, swelling an eye.

He's got him by the throat, pinning him against the crypt's pillar, reaching behind him for his back pocket-

Oh fuck-

Spike panics at the sight of the wood grain.

"Easy mate, let's be reasonable about this."

"Oh I'm far passed reasonable Spike."

Riley shoves the stake hard through Spike's thorax, driving it with pure force into his heart. Spike screams, silently, no breathe to make a sound. The agony is just a thick foggy wall of mind-numbing emptiness.

Over... it'll be over in a second. Dust any second.

Riley pushes the stake further in, out passed his heart through the other side, towards the muscles of Spike's back, touching the nerves of his spine. It seems to last hours. Days.

Please... just end, why won't it end?

Jesus, did he somehow miss?

Oh God..

Spike's transfixed by the stake sticking straight out of his chest, perfectly piercing his heart. Hyperaware of every detail. All the little swirls in the grain, the hairs on the back of Riley's hand as it drives it in further. Riley's breath hot and angry in his face. There's a stitch missing in the cuff of his long sleeved shirt. A slight scratch on his knuckle. The smell of antiseptic soap on his skin. A strange sort of sheen to the wood-

A strange sort of sheen to the wood.

Wait...

"Hey..." he manages to croak.

Riley suddenly yanks the stake out of his chest with a heavy sucking sound and Spike coughs as muscle and air flood back into the hole it's left behind.

"Plastic wood grain. Looks real doesn't it?" He leans further in, still holding Spike by the collar. "I catch you hanging around her again, we'll do this for real."

He pushes off him, deliberately leaning on the open wound in his chest before turning his back.

Relief washes through Spike like a river. There's a bubbling in his throat and it takes him a second to realise he's laughing.

Oh fuck I really thought that was it. Honestly thought that was it...

"Bloody hell, you're really on the ropes, aren't you soldier boy?"

There's ice in Riley's eyes as he turns back to face Spike.

"What?"

"Got you trembling has it? All afraid that I'm hot for your honey." He grins, nearly cackling again.

I've gone insane. Who's got a fucking death wish now, Slayer?

Riley furrows his brow, edging back towards Spike.

"Because you are."

"Yeah. Oh yeah, I definitely am." Spike sneers, rubbing his chest over the hole left behind. "She's really got under my skin now. Really got under your skin too. Amongst other things." He nods at the bulge under Riley's jacket, still grinning. "Didn't think I was worth getting you all riled up though. It's uh... encouraging."

Riley's fist cracks his jaw, re-pinning him against the pillar.

"Maybe I didn't almost kill you enough."

Spike spits out some blood, wiping it away with the back of his free hand. He hasn't taken the other off his chest and there's a painful sucking feeling in the hole as he straightens back up.

"I'm not your problem, mate." But God how sweet it is to think I am...

"No I really think you are." He grips Spike's hand, forcing it further over and down into the hole in his heart. Spike gurgles, blood filling his throat.

"If that was the case, you wouldn't be spending you're nights downtown getting suck jobs from Sunnydale's Desperates would you, crewcut? Might piss you off a bit sure, but not enough to be slinking off at night. Getting your rocks off somewhere else."

He braces for another fist to cut his lip but it doesn't come. Riley let's go of him suddenly. Taking a step back. Eyes full of... pain. Misery.

"Really cut you deep, huh? When you found out what her ex was?" He takes a gamble, not sure if he knows about Angel, but the flinch in Riley's eyes tells him he's hit another jackpot. "Girl's got a type. And it's not soft college boys. Or army brats. She needs something darker than that." He levels himself off the pillar, easing himself back into the armchair. "It's just not in your nature."

"She's not like that."

Spike chuckles, rubbing his chest.

"Sure, maybe I'm wrong. But even if I am, you're still not what she needs. You're never gonna be able to hold on to her."

"And you know all about what she needs?" Riley sneers, edging back into anger.

"More'n you do. I know Slayers mate. They don't do well from being made to feel they have to hide half of themselves away. Even if it's the case most of the bloody time."

"That's not what-"

"Not what? Not what you were doing? Wake up, tin soldier, you worshipped her as Buffy Summers College Sweetheart. But since finding out what she really is you've been far from the doting boyfriend." He reaches for a bottle of wine from the table by the chair, uncorks it with his teeth, and spits the cork out. "Not that I blame you. Gotta be a bit of a shock, thinking you're the big solution to all of Sunnydale's demon problems. Then low and behold the tiny little blonde thing on your arm that you've been flashing around to your cronies turns out to be the be all and end all of the whole sodding mess."

He takes a swig, wincing as the alcohol burns on the way past the still throbbing hole in his chest. He holds the bottle out to Riley.

"Stung a bit, did it?"

Riley glares, jaw clenched, but he takes the bottle. Swigs from it.

"So what, you think you'd do better?"

"I'm not burdened down with an ego thin as porcelain." Spike sneers, "she wasn't built to make you feel like the man you're not, mate. Besides," he lifts a boot onto the footstool at his feet, grinning, "all those lovely muscles your girl has, takes a bit of strength to give her what she needs, doesn't it?"

Riley freezes.

"What's that supposed to mean."

Spike runs a tongue over his teeth. "What indeed."

Riley blinks. Thinking of nothing but the shirt in Buffy's room.