Findings

Oz almost instantly began to wolf out at the sight of Willow and Tara caught in a tender embrace in front of him. Tara screamed at the transformation, and raised her hand to shoot him down with magic, but Spike got there first and incapacitated him before there was need.

"Ladies," he said, with a casual nod of his head, before dragging the werewolf back out the door.

The two witches looked at each other in shock, before Willow sprang to her feet to go after the guys. The phone stopped her in her tracks, though. Picking up she found Buffy on the other end.

"What the heck just happened?" asked the anxious Slayer.

"I… umm…" mumbled the red head.

"I just got a whole bunch of garbled stuff from Spike's head, really fast, and he wanted me to call you… I think," there was a pause on the line as Buffy processed a bit of what she experienced second hand. Willow was still stunned speechless when the Slayer continued with a summary. "General chit chat, music crap, kissing, danger, practical ways to hog tie a wolf, and damage control. Explain-y?"

"Oh Buffy!" the witch whispered, before bursting into tears.

Tara went to her side, to comfort her, but Willow flinched away from the girl's touch.

The words 'I'm coming over' were on the tip of Buffy's tongue, but they vanished the second her front door opened and Spike strode in carrying an unconscious, bound up Oz still very much in his canine guise.

"He might need some clothes," said Spike in a distracted mumble. His eyes had that far away look, that made you wonder what was going on in someone's head – if you didn't already have direct access to their thoughts, that is.

Buffy hung up the phone without a second thought and went to her mate. It seemed he was still processing the sharp change of events, too. And, as he did, the Slayer got a clearer picture of what happened.

"Poor Oz," she sighed.

"Yeah," Spike agreed, as his brow furrowed. "Infidelity hurts like a bitch."

Remembering – she realized – was what he had been doing. There was a surge of emotions passing through the Vampire that Buffy had first thought was an empathic response to what Oz was feeling, but it was more than that.

"What Dru did still hurts you," she concluded.

Spike's mind snapped back into gear at that, and he shook off the glazed look to give her a small grin. "Only when I think about it," he said, before kissing Buffy to reassure her his ex-lover was gone from his mind once more.

Half way through a conversation about how best to handle Oz, when he came round, Giles arrived at Spike and Buffy's apartment with his research on the First Slayer.

"It's a shoddy misinterpretation at best," he was saying, regarding what Spike had been told in the vision. "A blatant lie at worse. Intent to hurt. You see, the text says the balanced couple will share the destiny of the lighter half. Not that the darker half will take it from her."

"So this is a good thing?" Buffy clarified.

"Bloody hell," Spike exclaimed. "Stupid bint tried to make me break the claim over something damn well helpful for us!"

"It would appear so," Giles answered them both.

"I don't think she likes you," Buffy told her mate, by way of explanation.

"You don't say," he drawled. "But how did you know not to trust her?"

"Instinct," she said, plainly, which made him smile.

"God, I love you, Summers."

"I know," Buffy grinned, before kissing him. "So, a shared destiny, huh?" she directed her words back to her watcher. "What does that mean?"

"That I haven't came across yet," he admitted. "I'm afraid the texts are unclear."

"But the Powers that Be do have a specific plan for us? How do we find out what it is if it's not in some ancient book?"

"We wait until they're ready to tell us," Spike guessed.

Buffy frowned. "When are they likely to do that?"

"Oh, who the hell knows?! In the meantime, I have a warewolf in a cage to deal with. If you'll excuse me."

As Spike got up to leave - after a parting kiss, of course - he slipped a disk into Buffy's hand. She looked at him in question, but he just smiled and said nothing. The Slayer's frown returned as she examined it – a CD, with no label - then she excused herself, to find something to play it on…

A melody came out of the speakers. Just a single song. Nothing she recognized.

"Huh."

"What's the significance of this?" Giles asked her, and she jumped, having forgotten he was still there. She hadn't noticed him follow her into the room, and she scolded herself for it. It was becoming a habit to only have Spike on her radar.

"I don't know," she finally answered her watcher, with genuine confusion.

Later, after Giles had left, Spike returned from checking on Oz.

"How is he?" Buffy asked him.

"Back to bein' human," he replied. "Little shaken up. Sayin' very little."

"So unlike him."

"Ha, yeah. Give 'im a some time. I said he could crash here."

Buffy bobbed her head in agreement, then asked Spike about the disk he'd presented her with earlier.

"D'ya like it?" he asked.

"I guess," she answered, vaguely. Clearly the song meant something to him, and she was supposed to recognize it… she was still drawing a total blank.

Her mate looked a little crestfallen. "Took me weeks to hunt that down," he said.

"I'm sorry!" she replied.

"'s'okay," he told her, unconvincingly, before getting up to play it again. "Dance with me?"

"Okay," Buffy agreed, eagerly, taking hold of his offered hand.

They had no problem finding their rhythm, as in sync as they were.

"See, that's it!" Spike declared, excitedly, about half way through, when the song had reached a key change and the Slayer had let go of him to put her hands above her head and let herself be taken by the sound.

"Huh?" she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"This song right here, baby," he said, dropping kisses across the exposed flesh of her throat that made her shudder with need. "It's the one that was playing, first night I saw you. Was captivated from right then."

"This song?" she asked.

"This song," he confirmed. "Was a live band, in The Bronze. You were dancing with the Whelp, all seductive like. God, I'll never forget it."

"I'm sorry I did."

"'s'okay," Spike said, again, as he began kissing down the other side of her throat – over the claim mark he'd given her. "To be fair, you didn' know I was there."

"Mmm," she breathed. "Spike."

"Yes, luv?"

"Make love to me."

To be continued...