She sat at the computer, staring at the words appearing on the screen. His words, filling the window, message after message. And she couldn't bring herself to reply. She couldn't bring herself to type the reassurances he so badly wanted to read. She looked at the phone, willing it not to ring. It did anyway. She was seventeen now, and receiving a very unwanted phone call.

"Buffy?" Her father called up the stairs, "its William."

"Thanks Dad," she replied. Steeling herself against what she was about to face, she gingerly picked up the phone. "Spike?"

A torrent of words assaulted her.

"What did I do? What did I do wrong? Buffy, tell me, you've got to know. One day we were fine and now this. I just don't know what happened. Please tell me what happened. Oh god I don't know what I'm going to do. The last four years. That's forever in high school! We were practically engaged! This can't be happening, it's not happening tell me it isn't happening oh god oh god oh god." The teenage voice sobbed into the phone. Buffy grimaced.

"Well, ok…I know that this logic train doesn't follow your particular track, but maybe this is best?"

"Best? Best? How can this be best, my heart's just been stomped all over and you say it's for the bloody best?"

"William," a voice could be heard in the background, "I have repeatedly asked you not to speak that way in my house."

"Right, sorry. Won't do it again." Spike sighed and returned his attention to the phone. "Buff, you gotta meet me. I have to talk to you, face to face."

Buffy looked at her clock. 10:27. This was going to be a long night. "Fine, I'll be at the end of the street in ten minutes."

"Oh, thank you. God, thank you. I really need to talk to you."

"No problem."

"Bring Kleenex, all we've got over here is sodding toilet paper."

"William!" The voice again, sharper.

"Sorry!"

So Buffy waited on the corner, kicking her feet at the long grass around the stop sign that a lawn mower had missed. She dug her hands into her sweatshirt pocket, twisting at the thick stack of tissues she'd brought. Her mind was another place entirely. Cautiously, she brought a hand up to brush against her lips.

Spike chose this time to burst nosily through a hedge on the other side of the street. His eyes, usually lined heavily in black, were red rimmed and shining. He nodded curtly at her, and she, used to this routine, started to walk with him. They walked side by side in silence, Buffy fidgeting with the tissues. Spike lit a cigarette. Buffy made a derisive noise.

"What happened to quitting?"

"I'm fucking stressed, if you hadn't noticed."

"Oh, so that gives you a 'Get Cancer Free' pass?"

"Damn straight."

"Let me see that pack. I wanna see what the warning says. " He handed it over. She casually let it fall it into a storm drain as they made a right onto another street and kept walking.

"Bitch. Those are getting expensive."

"So is chemotherapy."

They walked along in silence again. Spike watched the ash fly from the tip of his cigarette onto the asphalt each time he flicked it. He dropped the butt into another storm drain as they made their last turn. Left.

"Buffy, I just needed someone to talk to, you're the only one. You really are. And this thing with Dru. It's just all falling apart and I…and there's…Buffy, why is it all going wrong?"

Buffy sat against a marble headstone, watching her best friend pace angrily back and forth in front of her. Struggling to find words of comfort that wouldn't make him yell at her, she opted instead to be direct. "Well, first off, cut the teen angst crap." She put up a hand to silence him. "I'm not saying this just because I'm sick of it. It's no way to get Dru back, you know that. While she may love watching you writhe in torment at her feet, she's not gonna go back out with you if you're sniveling like you are at the present moment. Second, you might not get her back. You just might not. Sometimes people get taken away from us and we don't get them back. Remember? One of those harsh realities of life we babies learned all too young. And maybe, Spike, just maybe, this is what's supposed to happen. You're seventeen, a broken heart's not all that uncommon. But you'll fall in love again, you will," she finished breathlessly, looking up at him with hope shining in her eyes.

Spike stared. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. He started to pace, then stopped and stared at her again. He narrowed his blue eyes at her, cocked his head and pursed his lips.

"Who are you and what have you done with Buffy? And where the hell did you get that Rebecca of Sunny-hell Farm attitude?" He looked at her as she fidgeted, trying to come up with some sort of retort.

"Umm, well…it's my anniversary?" She offered.

"Yes, and usually that makes you all glowy. Come on, pet, I may be all wallowing in self-pity at the moment, but I'd have to be a bleedin' moron not to notice that you're…happy. Why are you happy?"

"Can't a girl be happy? I've adjusted fairly well in the years since I moved here, I think. I have friends, and extracurricular activities. And a library card. Which I don't use. I'm a very well adjusted teen. I am happy, I have been happy for a while now."

"Bullocks. That's all an act, you know that I know that. This is me you're talking to! And on the anniversary of your mother's death you're out here, giving me advice on my love life. Last year you were curled up in a ball on the couch. You made me watch The Princess Bride!"

"I thought you liked that movie?"

"Don't change the bloody subject, woman!"

She squealed and giggled. "Ok, ok, I didn't wanna bring it up, you being all lovelorn, but…there's this guy." Spike sat down heavily next to her. Her green eyes got wide. 'Ohhh, see, I really didn't want to say anything until things had calmed down on the Dru front. Now you're all sad."

"I'm not all sad. I'm stunned. I thought you had eschewed all boys?"

"I never said anything of the sort. I just said that I had yet to meet someone with any humanity at all." At the look he gave her, she added, "Er, aside from you and Xander and umm, Oz."

"And this boy that you've met that has humanity, his name is?"

"Angel."

"There's no Angel at school. Where the hell did you meet him? And what sort of nancy-boy name is Angel, anyways?"

"Are you jealous?"

"Not jealous. Protective. I just had my heart ripped out and I'm listening to you be all giddy about this guy and I don't want to see you get hurt, too. So who is he?"

"He's a sophomore in college. I met him this summer, when I took that art class at Sunnydale University. He was the TA. He's nineteen, and handsome, and very sweet. He asked me out on the last day of class. We've been on two dates and he's a perfect gentleman. He even stopped in to meet Dad when he dropped me off last night. I really like him, Will."

"Spike," he said, a warning tone in his voice.

"I really like him, Spike. God, what a ridiculous nickname. I hope you'll stop using it if this really is the end for you and Dru."

"Do you want it to be? Buffy, I understand that there's a new love interest in the picture and all, but even so you're very blasé about me losing the love of my life."

"Spike, I'm sorry. I know that Dru is very important to you. And that she's helped to umm, shape who you are right now…"

"But?" He prompted.

"But I don't like her. She's mean. And sort of crazy."

"She's different! And beautiful and Buffy for four years of my life I've loved her, I've been able to touch her and kiss her. It's true, she made me! She's the reason I am who I am. She's why I fucking breathe. I don't want anything else. Our love was eternal." He grabbed a tissue out of her hand and violently blew his nose. "And now you've gone and made me cry."

Buffy hugged him, and he hugged her back. "Well this is sort of a strange role reversal. Don't I usually cry on your shoulder?"

"Sod off, Summers. And don't mention this to anyone. Ever."

"Right. I promise."

"God I want a cigarette."

"But you don't want cancer, which is why you can't have one."