"Oh, God," said Spike, staring at a bench.

Buffy and Faith looked at each other, nonplussed. "Now what?" asked Faith irritably. A couple of minutes earlier, he had annoyed them both by complaining rather pathetically as his hangover commenced.

"We killed a homeless man on this bench. Me and Dru. Those were good times." Spike sat down on the bench, looking wistful. "He begged for mercy," he went on, chuckling, "and, you know, that only made her bite harder." He turned to see both Slayers glaring stonily at him, their urge to slay rising.

"I guess you had to be there," said Buffy.

[o]

Soon, they reached the magic shop, the door of which was crisscrossed with police tape. Ignoring this, they went inside and began to gather the ingredients necessary for the spell, and, upon being told rather coldly to find the rat's eyes, Spike sank into another emotional reminiscence.

"I used to bring her rats. With the morning paper," he said.

"Great," said Buffy. "More moping. That's gonna get her back."

"The spell's gonna get her back," he retorted, returning to his usual abrasive tone.

"Isn't this kinda a lot of trouble for someone who doesn't even care about you?" Faith mocked.

"Shut your gob!" Spike snarled at her.

"Sorry, it's just; lady sounds kinda flaky," she continued carelessly.

"Shut up!" he shouted, lunging at Faith, who blocked his attack and punched him squarely on the jaw.

"Girl's got a point," said Buffy, unable to resist, "she must really not want you if you have to resort to magic to get her back."

"What do you know?" he demanded, his voice starting to crack again. "It's your fault! You and Angel both! She belongs with me!" The fight went out of him and he let out a sob. "I'm nothing without her."

"That I'll have to agree with," Buffy snorted. "You're pathetic, you know that? You're not even a loser anymore; you're a shell of a loser."

"You're one to talk," Spike shot back before resuming the search for rat's eyes.

"Meaning?" asked Buffy coolly.

He laughed scornfully. "You call me pathetic, but you're in the same boat. And I bet you've got every one of those sods you call friends fooled, too."

Buffy had no reply to this, and Spike turned back to the shelf, his expression smug. "Eye of rat," he said a few seconds later, pulling out a glass bottle full of what looked like red and white tadpoles.

[o]

They left the shop shortly thereafter, each carrying a brown paper bag full of ingredients.

"Okay, Spike," said Buffy, "we got the stuff. Where are they?"

"What's your hurry?" he asked.

"My hurry is my intense desire to get you out of my life," she said. "You tend to cause trouble."

"I'll be out of your life in a few short hours," he said sourly. "No trouble at all." Faith looked slightly disappointed, but this went quite unnoticed, because they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a gang of vampires.

"Hello, Spike," said the one directly in front of them.

"No trouble at all," Buffy repeated dryly.

"Lenny!" said Spike jovially. "How've you been?"

"Better, since you left," the vampire replied, his lip curling. "You should've stayed gone."

"Is that right?" asked Spike, tossing his bag aside in preparation for a fight.

"You know," Buffy told Lenny, "he was just leaving." She rounded on Spike threateningly. "Don't you start anything," she growled.

Spike let out a noise of disgust. "This piss-ant used to work for me!"

Buffy groaned and turned to Faith. "The guys are in trouble," she said. "We can't risk this."

Faith gave her an incredulous look. "You kidding? This just turned into my kind of party. Thanks for the invitation." She dropped her bag too. Lenny, however, only seemed to be interested in Spike.

"You other two can walk away from this," he said, waving them off.

Sensing Buffy's eagerness to take this invitation to leave, Spike spoke up quickly. "I die, your chums die," he said, still looking at Lenny.

"Sorry," said Buffy resignedly to Lenny. "We're staying."

"Not for long," he said, leering.

Buffy threw her bag in his face, and within seconds, a full-on street fight had broken out, each of them fighting a third of Lenny's gang at once. Buffy's fight took her to the next-door coffee shop, which had long since closed for the night. Three vampires tried to corner her, but she picked up a table and smashed it into one of them, then broke off the handle of a mop and used it to stake the other two at once. Meanwhile, Spike was standing on top of a black car parked on the side of the street, sending devastating kicks at any vampire that tried to get him down, and Faith was beating her foes back with a long metal pipe she'd found on the floor of the alley into which they'd chased her.

Buffy, Faith, and Spike all met up in front of the magic shop again during a brief lull in the fight, only to have at least ten vampires converge on them. Weaponless and outnumbered, they retreated into the shop and bolted the door shut behind them. Spike and Faith quickly moved a large bookcase in front of the window while Buffy broke the legs off a chair to make stakes for each of them.

"This should be a kick," said Spike as they all faced the window, chair legs at the ready.

"I violently dislike you," said Buffy. A second later, there was a crashing sound from behind them, and they whipped around just in time to see several of the vampires come bursting in through the back door. They ran to confront them, Faith flipping one of them across a table and staking him before slamming the door shut again. Buffy shoved another vampire against the ladder on a large bookcase and plunged her stake into his chest, before rounding on another, while Spike and the one he was wrestling fell against a set of shelves mounted on the wall, which crashed loudly to the floor with them.

Despite Faith's efforts, the back door was torn completely from its hinges and landed heavily on top of her, leaving her temporarily dazed and pinning her beneath it. Lenny and another of his cronies stepped on the door as they entered, then made directly for Spike, who had momentarily subdued his earlier opponent.

"I heard you'd gone soft," Lenny jeered. "Sad to see it, man."

"Soft?" Spike repeated furiously.

"Yeah," said Lenny, "like baby food." Behind Spike, the first vampire was getting to his feet, but he smiled, undaunted.

"Well, then, let's give baby a taste," he said. He simultaneously back-kicked the one creeping up behind him in the groin and dodged Lenny's punch, landing a blow of his own instead, before seizing Lenny by the jacket and smashing his face into a nearby table.

Faith threw the door off of her and jumped up to help Buffy with her vampire. Together, they managed to stake him within seconds, but bookcase blocking the front window trembled ominously.

"Not good," said Buffy.

"B," said Faith, looking in a different direction, a smirk spreading across her face. Buffy followed her gaze to a shelf full of vials of holy water. "Found the stock of Holy Hand Grenades."

Spike was still busy bashing Lenny's face repeatedly against the tabletop. "Baby like his supper? Baby like his supper?" He flipped him over the table. "Why doesn't Baby have a nap!" He drove his stake violently into Lenny's chest and grinned with the thrill of the kill.

"Spike, get down!" Buffy shouted, just as the bookcase barricade crashed to the ground and five or six vampires came bursting in. Spike ducked, and Buffy and Faith began to pelt the newcomers with the vials. They recoiled, steam billowing from their skin wherever the water made contact. Before the two Slayers had run out of their artillery, the vampires ran for it, back through the broken window and off down the street.

Spike stood up and watched them flee with an expression of deep satisfaction. "Now that was fun," he declared. Faith looked as though she wholeheartedly agreed, but Buffy was incredulous. Noticing this, he rolled his eyes, still grinning. "Oh, don't tell me that wasn't fun. God. It's been so long since I had a decent spot of violence." He paused thoughtfully. "Really puts things into perspective."

"Could we please just do the spell now?" asked Buffy in weary irritation.

"Oh, sod the spell," said Spike, waving a hand dismissively. "Your friends are at the factory." Buffy and Faith glared at him in exasperation, but he was grinning cheerily again and not paying attention. "I'm really glad I came here, you know? I've been all wrong-headed about this. Weeping, crawling, blaming everybody else. I want Dru back, I've just got to be the man I was." He stood up straighter, looking proud. "The man she loved. I'm gonna do what I should've done in the first place: I'll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, torture her until she likes me again."

"You are seriously screwed up, you know that?" asked Faith.

He shrugged, making his way jauntily towards the exit. "Love's a funny thing."

"Yeah, well, that torturing thing goes south," she called brazenly, "I'll be here if you ever need some warm comfort."

"Faith!" Buffy hissed, scandalized, but Spike had already left.

[o]

The scene at the factory was not a fun one. While paramedics pulled an unconscious Cordelia from the collapsed stairwell, Xander tagging fearfully along in their wake, Oz was the one to explain to Buffy and Faith what had happened. Buffy was utterly shocked when he told them, hurt and anger coloring his usually detached monotone, that he and Cordy had found their respective significant others locked together in a passionate kiss when they arrived at the factory to rescue them. She couldn't believe it, but when she looked at Willow, who was standing a short distance away, her expression overflowing with self-hatred and shame, she knew it had to be true.

[o]

About half an hour later, once she had arrived back at home, Buffy was very glad to be done with this entirely-too-hectic day, and she fell asleep almost the instant her head hit the pillow.

Her eyes opened to the scene she now knew as well as any place she'd ever been to during her waking hours. She turned slowly until she saw Angel, who was sitting, as usual, in the corner, brooding with such intensity that Buffy was almost surprised that he wasn't burning holes into the floor with his stare. Despite this, there seemed to be less misery and hopelessness in his features than there had been before. She smiled. Faith and Spike might find violence to be therapeutic, but she preferred this, no matter how bittersweet it was.

Once again, Faith seems to be fluctuating between wanting to slay Spike and wanting to shag him. So, yeah, I think that's about right. Sorry about the very limited Angel involvement and complete lack of Wesley involvement in this one; I mostly just wanted to get "Lovers Walk" over with, and I couldn't figure out any good ways to shorten it more. Also, I'm pretty much going to skip "The Wish", because Cordy's alternate reality has nothing to do with this story. Just a heads up on that. Cheers!