Note: This chapter takes place in Lessons, Episode 1 of Season 7. They're sort of like scenes inbetween what we, the viewers, saw. Think about them logistically and place them chronologically. Any questions, please feel free to ask!

Buffy ran.

Not that it was unusual. Nine times out of ten Buffy tended to be engaged in some form of sprinting. It was her Olympic speciality. Well, along with all the monster fighting.

But Buffy was proud that she'd made it nearly an art form—running in every outfit imaginable. Heels? Khakis? Flying necklaces? Fashion didn't deter her from duty. Matter of fact, it spurned her on. It gave her courage and satisfaction knowing at any given moment she could kick demon ass. Superman had it all wrong.

She cringed to think of alternatives. Of carrying a gym bag with her. Or wearing only sweats and loose tops. God forbid. She was the Slayer and could do anything, did do anything, rules be damned. Friends? The Council? Falling in love with vampires? Parents? High School? College, even? Death? What's the big deal if 'fashion' was slapped on too?

She skidded as she rounded a corner, almost tripping on a lost binder on the ground.

Dogs? My dogs are dead? What the hell was I thinking? Buffy grimaced, knowing thinking on her feet was not one of her strengths. Oh well, it was too late to worry about that now. Odds were, she'd never see Principal Wood again anyway. Principals never did last long at Sunnydale High.

Speaking of lasting long, Buffy had hoped it'd be at least a day until Dawn used the phone. But no. Leave it to her to get into trouble the first day. In the daytime, no less. And during first period.

And so Buffy ran.

Because she was the Slayer—the Sunnydale Batman—and protected the innocent, even if it happened to be her not-so-innocent little sister.

Buffy at least had a safe, normal childhood; she hadn't hit Slayerdom until 15. By that age, Dawn had been half-sacrificed; seen her mother die; seen her surrogate mother die; seen her sister die, only to come back and nearly fall apart; had her family threatened repeatedly; and had been kidnapped more times than Buffy could count.

But wait. No, that wasn't it at all, was it? There was more. Lots more. Dawn was there for Faith—with blind admiration in the beginning and stubborn strength at the end when she and Mom were cornered in the bedroom after the coma. She was there for the divorce, cried for days and refused to eat grilled cheese sandwiches again because they were Dad's specialty. Dawn was there for Angel, and later, for Angelus. She was there when she broke her leg in the fourth grade after a bad skating accident. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Buffy had lived her life twice—once with, and without a sister.

And to think she'd come so close to losing it. Twice! Buffy frowned and promised herself she wouldn't let it happen again.

And ran faster.

Tara pulled the towel that rested over her shoulder and ignored the flapping noise it made when it hit the kitchen counter. She wiped her flour-dusted hands carelessly on the sides of her thighs and walked over to the stairs. "Spike?"

After a quiet moment she shouted again, "Spike, are you up?" When silence again greeted her, she started to climb the stairs while a faint worry seeped into her heart. She called ahead, "Spike? I made breakfast," but was cut off by the slamming of the screen door downstairs. Full-out alarm exploded in her ears as she scrambled down the stairs, barely managing to see the last reverberating shutters of the door in the kitchen. She righted herself against the banister, sprinted through the door and turned sharply to see Spike's boots disappear around the corner.

"Oh no, you don't," Tara gritted her teeth and gave chase to her increasingly spastic houseguest.

Months of spending time without a nightly demon hunt had left her ill-motivated to exercise. With no Slayer to back up, no beloved to guard, no innocents to protect, there hadn't really been a point. Not to mention the fact that there weren't any demons to hunt anyway. She felt the effects now only a few blocks from Revello Drive, as a cramp pinched painfully at her side. Tara made a small note in the back of her mind to resume exercising as soon as she could catch her breath.

Tara was so bent on forcing her mind to outwit her body that she hadn't realized where he was headed. As his strides became more focused and Spike entered a dilapidated building, Tara wondered just how much longer she could hope to chase a being that didn't need oxygen.

She didn't think she could run much longer when she saw Spike trot to a dazed halt in the middle of a burnt out hallway. Finally . She balanced her arms on her knees, too exhausted to stand straight. Her chest heaved as she took stock of her surroundings.

High school. He'd led her to the high school. Its dark, broken corridors and corroded walls echoed the giant gap of time it'd been since she was last here. A small twitch of her eye and she could almost see the not-so-tiny Tinkerbell light in the distance. Before she could sink into a delicious, painfully memory, Spike's possessed footsteps pulled her in the opposite direction, down a janitorial stairway and into the dark.

"Spike!" she shouted while she scrambled over fallen beams. Tara slipped suddenly, grunted as she hit the floor and watched a burnt yearbook page fly out from under her. A long-dead, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed girl floated past her face.

What the hell is the matter with him?

Tara knew Spike, deeper than she expected to. It started in the milky beginnings of her and Willow's relationship, though she didn't know it then, while sitting on the cool porcelain of Giles' toilet seat making awkward small talk with Anya. She understood when she saw the bruises dance on his face after Glory, in the ways he averted his eyes for days. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, the hours he spent leaning on the tree in the front yard, cradling a forgotten cigarette between his fingers.

It came to her slowly, in moments and crises, just how similar she and Spike were.

Both, runaways trying to escape what they were, inadvertently falling into this ragtag team of Scoobydom and becoming something entirely unexpected and different. Something more. She understood, later on, how deep that path took them—when sacrifice, love, and loyalty become truths instead of sidenotes. Sure, they may have taken different routes, but ultimately they'd become the same. Tara knew. And she held onto it just in case Spike ever tried to forget or pretend otherwise. He was more than that; she was more than that.

All of a sudden, he stopped. Frozen dead in his tracks, Spike suddenly seemed to realize where he was. He turned and squinted at Tara through the dusty light that filtered through foggy basement windows.

"Spike?"

They stared at each other for a moment, searching, but then Spike turned and faced a gaping hole in the wall where a door once stood. He laughed crazily for a moment, but his features soon softened and his eyes smiled tenderly at something Tara could not see. He raised his arm and gently spoke, stealing the breath from Tara's lungs.

"Buffy…duck."