Faye stared at the little menu without really seeing it, totally absorbed by her internal suffering. This was going to be much more complicated than either of them had intended all because of her idiotic obsession with reason. Why couldn't she let it go? She didn't know, but she did know that these things couldn't be left alone otherwise she would never be able to sleep again.

'I know what you're thinking,' said Spike suavely, and Faye's gaze snapped up anxiously to observe a knowing look in his eye.

'What?' she said sharply.

'You're wondering where I got the money to pay for a meal,' he said, and Faye exhaled long and slow.

Thank fuck for that. She didn't want to imagine what he would think if he really knew what she was thinking… But why should I be afraid of asking him? Suddenly, as though out of nowhere, a reckless feeling of injustice captured her and all reservation vanished on the spot.

'Actually, that's not what I'm thinking,' she said firmly, putting the menu down.

'Hm?'

'That's not what I'm thinking,' she repeated clearly. 'Though I am thinking a lot of other things.'

'Like what?'

When she didn't answer, Spike looked up and when he noticed her expression, put his own menu down as well.

'What about Julia?' she asked boldly.

'What about her?' Spike replied, his brow knitting together, all frivolity gone.

'What do you mean, "what about her"? Three weeks ago she was the love of your goddamn life, that's what. I want an explanation.'

And Faye crossed her arms under her breasts, looking him hard in the eye. To her surprise, Spike smiled, though it was a humourless smile.

'I was waiting for you to ask,' he admitted quietly. 'The truth is, what Julia and I had was three years ago; I've come to realise that I was in love with a memory – with nostalgia, if you will – more than the actual woman herself. When we met again, we had both changed.'

'But you still preferred her,' said Faye stubbornly. 'Don't avoid the real evidence, Spike, you left me for her before.'

'That was more than her,' he replied, and his tone was quiet but firm. 'That was about Vicious –'

'Don't lie,' hissed Faye, though what he said was reasonable.

'You don't know what you're talking about. I have cared about you right from the beginning.'

'I'm sure you care about Jet and Ed as well but it's not like you're in love with them!'

OH shit. Faye faltered, her mouth open in shock, and the word seemed to bounce between them like a screeching echo. What the fuck is wrong with you?!

Spike was looking at her with a totally shocked expression, all irritation lost from his brow. After a gruelling silence where that single word rung in their ears, Spike spoke.

'Are you saying that you're in lo–'

'That's not what I meant,' said Faye quickly, her eyes wide in horror.

Slowly, Spike's face became blank and soft, and he averted his gaze. Faye's insides were writhing, her cheeks burning. Idiot!

'That's not what I meant,' she repeated painfully.

'It's always been you, Faye,' said Spike suddenly, looking up again. There it was, that smouldering look in his eyes that seemed to hypnotise her – the only aspect of his physique that gave away any intense emotion. 'I'd been denying it all this time, but believe me. As soon as I met Julia again I was sure of it.'

'Don't say that if you don't mean it,' whispered Faye.

'I wouldn't,' he said, with a small smile.

'Oi, you two finished pickin' somethin'?'

The bartender had shuffled over and was looking down at them through the smoke of the cigarette hanging crookedly from his puffy lips.

'Just a bowl of chips,' said Spike, without looking up. 'And a scotch for me.'

'Whiskey on the rocks,' requested Faye, suddenly casual, glancing up at the man with her alluring eye.

'Can do,' he grumbled, and shuffled away again.

A silence descended upon the pair but neither of them felt uncomfortable enough to be inclined to fill it with mindless chatter. They both just sat there across from one another, lost in their own musings and ponderings, until Spike's long fingers reached unwaveringly across the table in a controlled, purposeful motion to clasp Faye's. The sudden warmth and closeness of his skin recalled memories from an hour before, and Faye looked down with a certain fondness at their entwined fingers. To her, they seemed to look so right together; the shape of their respective knuckles and joints fit so perfectly, like a jigsaw or the most careful symmetry.

'I'm sorry for all the ambiguity, Faye,' Spike murmured, leaning back in his chair and stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

'As long as you want to be with me, I don't mind,' she smiled, but it was a slightly sad smile that did not go amiss to Spike.

He knew she felt inadequate; he knew she thought he was lying. He could see the reservation creeping back behind her eyes as she gazed unseeingly at their conjoined hands. Faye saw how close they were, and yet she felt that Spike was a whole dimension away. There he was, sitting only two feet across from her, and she felt his physical being in hers, but she knew that if Julia had have been the same as always it would be Julia sitting here across from him in a dingy bar on a Friday night, listening to the weaving soft jazz crackling through the speakers – not her. She knew that Spike would prefer it that way.

But then a number came on, a song that she knew well. Waltz for Zizi, what a familiar tune. Faye listened to its hopeful and yet somehow lamentable tune drift unnoticed through the pub; no one seemed to care, none of the Boardwalk Inn's five occupants looked up from their depressed empty glasses. Inside, Faye's heart was calmed and she ceased to think about her failure as a human being in relation to Julia.

Spike had said it himself: Julia had changed and so had he. They were different people now and he had chosen his relief. Or a fallback? No, she told herself firmly. I am not a fallback, I know that for sure. And she did know it, and Spike knew it, and that was all that mattered.

Subconsciously, she squeezed his fingers tighter.

The bartender came and dropped down their drinks and a sad looking bowl of weepy hot chips. Faye looked up at Spike, smiling slightly at her renewed confidence, and took a chip to bite between her teeth. She hadn't realised how hungry she was.

And then the bar door opened. The bell tinkled and Spike's eyes narrowed slightly; he was watching the entrance, preoccupied by the newcomers. The shift in his expression told Faye all she needed to know.

Immediately, she dived under her seat and pivoted around the little table as Spike threw himself behind the bar counter. The glass bottles behind the bar shattered like diamond dust when machine gun fire jutted through the pub, drilling plug-holes in the wooden surfaces of the bar and the tables surrounding. Faye dug frantically in her pocket for her Glock, loaded it and fired around the side of the stool, aiming for the legs of the four men who had entered. One fell with a cry of pain into the taps from Spike's trigger; another was hurled back into the window by Faye's bullets fired up from his ankles to his hips.

Her mind was spinning. She felt a reckless disregard for self-preservation and leaned dangerously around to fire at the main man who stood boldly, suited, in front of the door. His suit was significantly white.

'White Tiger!' shouted Spike furiously, as the machine gun of the suited man popped to an end.

Spike knelt up and shot him right in the forehead as Faye blasted the final man into the jukebox. A smoky silence resonated between the many shards of glass that now littered the dingy pub, but it did not last long. Spike had leapt to his feet and scrambled over an overturned table to reach the white suited man.

'Shit, he's dead!' groaned Spike. 'I wanna know why members of the White Tiger are looking for us.'

'More men to kill, great,' Faye muttered mutinously. 'And such perfect timing, too.'

She sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time. Can't we at least have an uninterrupted conversation!? I'm never going to get to sleep…