There once was a little girl. The girl was five, curled on the couch with her mother. They held a book between them, and her mother read to her. Westley and Buttercup were racing through the Fire Swamp, fending off Rodents of Unusual Sizes and avoiding spurts of flame that danced at their feet. Suddenly Buttercup was swallowed up by the ground, and the little girl's whole body tensed.

Her mother drew the little girl closer to her. "What happens next?" Her mother prompted.

"Westley saves her." Came the reply.

"Are you sure?" A vigorous nod from the child. "Why?"

"Because he loves her."

"That's right, baby."

Something dawned on the tow-headed child. "Mommy, Daddy doesn't love us anymore, does he?"

Though she could not see it, her mother's eyes must have filled with tears, because the words she next spoke were heavy with emotion, "Oh, yes, your Daddy loves you, baby. He loves you so much. He and Mommy just need to spend some time apart. He loves you, don't ever doubt that."

The child settled back into the curve of her mother, whose hand shook as she turned the page and whose voice was thick as she began to read again. As a drop of moisture spilled onto the page, she turned her face up to her mother's. "I love you as much as Westley loves Buttercup, Mommy."

"Yes baby, I know you do. And I love you even more than that."

There was once a little girl, and nine years later her mother was gone. Swallowed by lightning sand, by the great maw of cancer. All the love in the world couldn't have saved her, ravaged as she was, torn and stitched back together like a rag doll. She was barely able to smile because her beautiful lips cracked so severely. The last week, her daughter had climbed up on the narrow hospital bed with her, their weathered old copy of The Princess Bride in her hands. She had curled her new womanly form around her wasted mother and read to her of a love that could withstand everything, including death. She was there with her father on the day her mother passed away, had watched the breath leave her without even the faintest struggle. Had cried into his shoulder as the bile rose in her throat.

It was cruel, being left by the one she thought could never leave her; left to the one who would always leave her. Irrationally, she believed that if her father had stayed, if he had loved her mother enough, she wouldn't have succumbed to the devouring mass that had laid waste first to her breasts and then her entire lymphatic system. And now this man, who wasn't enough, was the only person she had left in the world. She clung to him even as she despised him. And he clung to her, the living reminder of the beautiful woman he always regretted losing.

They moved shortly after her death. Her father had come home one day with the news that his firm was opening another branch in a smaller town some fifty miles away, and that a house and substantial pay raise were available to him if he were to take the position. It was easy for her to leave. She and her friends had difficulty relating now. She was fourteen and about to start high school. There was an ache in her chest like a stone.

There was once a little girl, only now she was older, who had no clue about how to start up a conversation with someone she didn't know.

"Off to war sometime soon?"

He'd startled beside her in the lunch line, his blue eyes wide. Realizing that her comment was directed at him, he looked down at the combat boots he was wearing. Much to his chagrin, he'd blushed before coming up with a passable retort. "Yeah, what's it to you?"

Uh-oh, not the right tactic, she thought. Retreat! "I'm sorry, that was a bit bitchy. Bad Buffy, play nice." She reprimanded herself to him. "I was just trying to, well, I don't know, make conversation. I'm new, so I thought I'd do the whole sarcastic funny thing. Usually works." And now I'm trying the babbling thing, apparently.

"Buffy?" He raised a dark eyebrow. "Nice name." His lips twisted over his teeth as he spat out the words.

"At least I have one," she teased.

"Spike Giles. Spike."

"Buffy Summers. Hi Spike."

"Hi Buffy." He growled as he stormed off. He sat down with his girlfriend, Dru, giving her a not-so-chaste kiss before the lunch monitor loudly cleared her throat in their direction. Spike sneered at the woman, who looked at his safety pins and black and stuck her nose in the air, moving to the other side of the cafeteria. The new girl, Buffy, had sat at a deserted table at first, and when he looked at her again, she'd disappeared. There was something about her. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he decided if she talked to him again he'd do the whole being friendly thing.

Buffy had run off to the bathroom, barely able to silence her tears in the bathroom stall. Needless to say, Buffy's day had not gone well after that. Math was way over her head, as usual, and the girls in her gym class had made fun of her name. Even her English teacher had seemed boring. How could a teacher seem boring on the first day? Spike was in that class with her, but they were seated alphabetically and so she couldn't try again with the friendship-making.

She'd gone home in a daze, done the brief "Who Am I" homework her various teachers had assigned, piled forms on her father's desk to be signed, and curled up on her bed. It was exactly one month since her mother had died. She stared at the dresser beside her bed, mentally tracing the curves in the grain again and again. The ache in her chest refused to numb. Restless, she sat up on her bed. It was time for a walk. She looked at the clock. 9:13. It was barely beginning to get dark.

"I'm going out for a while, Dad." She said as she passed his dozing form in the armchair in front of the television. His feet were propped on a still-unpacked box, his head lolled to the side, mouth slightly open. Not quite sure how to react to the sight, she watched him for a moment. The light from the TV gave him a deathly pallor, and she shuddered at this. She grabbed a throw from the back of the couch, something her grandmother had knitted, and draped it over his chest and lap. She took his glasses off his face, set them on the end table and pushed back the shock of sandy hair that had fallen over his forehead.

Minutes later she was walking down the street that was just beginning to become familiar to her. It was a cloudless evening, the sky still orange and pink and a little bit purple. Where to go? She didn't quite feel like exploring the neighborhood, just finding a place she could be. Some place that wasn't this new house filled with all their old furniture, so many pieces of their lives, still missing one central part.

Buffy reached the end of the street. She took a left. Reaching the end of that street, she took a right. She went on like this through the neighborhood, making arbitrary decisions. She'd passed a playground that had been abandoned for the night but had decided against stopping there. The comfort she might have felt before at such a sight was gone. She couldn't play anymore, not like she had before. There had also been a park, with a gazebo by a stream, but there had been a couple sitting in the gazebo, so she'd shied away. The end of another street. Right. She started to walk that way, then abruptly turned around and went left. No reason. There wasn't any need for a reason. There wasn't anyone around to explain her actions to. All there was was that ache in her chest.

Spike's first day of ninth grade has gone smashingly. He needed to celebrate. For the first time in quite a while he felt…less angry. He decided it was time to patch things up with a few people he'd been ignoring. "I'm going for a walk, Uncle Ru."

"Where?" Uncle Rupert looked up from his book.

"Not far."

"Don't stay out too late."

"Right." There was a moment's pause. "You turn on a light. Don't strain your eyes."

"Thank you," came the absentminded reply as Spike flicked on the light switch as he headed out the door. His uncle was already absorbed in his reading again.

He took a shortcut through his backyard and his neighbor's. Dusk was settling in, but it was still light enough that the streetlamps didn't make much of a difference. A sliver of the moon was out, and it was going to be a cloudless night.

Spike reached his destination and plopped down. He cleared his throat, looking expectantly at his audience.

"So, I haven't been around in a while. I've been busy. Got myself a girlfriend now, I do. Doing just fine on my own, don't you worry yourselves one bit. I'm fine, do you hear? And it's ok that you're not here. It's ok." He leaned against his mother's headstone. "I still miss you, don't worry about that." He heard a rustling sound somewhere nearby.

The girl from lunch appeared.

"Well, if it isn't the Shoe Police. Come to confiscate the offensive clodhoppers?"

She turned beet red. "I…I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone would be here. Wait, what are you doing here?"

He propped an elbow against his dad's grave. "Family reunion."

Her mouth flew open. "Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Do not cry, do not cry, she told herself as she sank to the ground.

"Whoa, calm down. It's been three years almost." What was with this girl?

"I just…Imumblemymumbleamonthmumblemumbleago." She lowered her eyes, but not before he saw tears.

"Pardon? I didn't catch what you said. Are you ok?"

She sighed, straightened her back a bit and picked a blade of grass. "I lost my mother a month ago."

Oh. Well. This sort of changed things. Was that what he had noticed about her earlier today? Don't be daft. You can't just instantly recognize something like that in a person. "I'm sorry. How did she die?"

Flinching, she replied, "Cancer." She looked up at him. "Yours?"

He drew in a breath. "Car accident. Back in the UK."

"Oh. Who are you living with now?"

"My uncle. My Da's brother."

"Oh."

They sat in silence for a while. She studied the twin headstones. His parents' names had been James and Anne. Anne had been almost ten years younger than James. She tried to figure out what else she could discern about this boy from the graves of his parents. She shuddered, realizing how morbid it all was.