A/N: Thank you so much for my lovely betas foxfaceinthewindow and RavenLove12, and to all the amazing commenters!


He wakes before her—as is usually the case—stumbling up from the depths of sleep, drowsily aware of his surroundings, admiring the girlish room in pale hues. Florals and pastels. The opposite of the abysmal hovel in which he'd spent the last week in every way.

Missed this so much.

Buffy's body warmth dapples his skin, glowing wherever he's in contact with her. Legs and feet and hands gently set on fire by her feverish skin. The side of his cheek and the expanse of his stomach too. He stretches under the blankets, reaching out, wanting to feel every fiber of her bed.

During the night Buffy must have rolled onto her back, unconsciously taking him with her. Spike cautiously pulls back from her breast where his head is lying, dispelling the hand she'd curled into his hair.

It feels so sweetly normal now, waking up next to her like this, even despite their week of misery apart. So perfectly domestic and simple that he has to take hold of his instincts to lean across and kiss her awake. To wrap himself around her so she wakes up swaddled in his arms and in his love.

But she's not his, and the thought of the kiss they'd shared before it all got ripped away makes his heart clench, a fresh flare of anger tightening his throat at the thought that it had all been so close.

Back to the beginning again…

He takes a minute or two to watch her now that she's still and at some sort of peace, propping himself up on his elbow to properly take her in.

Her normally glossy, golden hair is greasy and limp, framing sickly pale skin. Red blotches under her eyes betray the copious tears wiped away. The only thing he can focus on though is how sore her lips look. Chapped and raw as though her tears had bled her dry. A few cracks look like they might've been bleeding at one point, ripped by teeth in the height of misery.

Something needs to be done about that.

He hates to do it, but he unfolds himself quietly from her bed, causing her to shuffle in sleep before turning onto her side. He swaps the Charlie Brown pajama shirt for his own black one but forgoes the jeans, conscious of waking her up with the clanking buckle. Besides he's certain no one will be awake at this hour to see him in her clothes anyway. Can't be much past 5 AM.

He pads quietly down the stairs through to the kitchen and stops dead.

Deader.

"Ah. Balls."

Tara casts a careful look over him, her gaze traveling from his guilty face down to his pajama-clad legs as she sits at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee.

She clears her throat. "Y-you're back, then?"

He flinches, ready for judgment to roll down upon him, but the expression on her face softens his shoulders. She sounds hopeful. Looks it, too.

Been a long time since anyone looked like that on finding me in their house…

"Maybe," he answers, pumping his fist a few times awkwardly as it taps against his leg. "Was… Slayer's looking a little parched n' all. Not drinking, I think."

Tara nods, her face ducking behind her sheaf of blonde hair before she tucks it back, shame clouding her eyes. "Yeah, I know. We tried, but she just-" she breaks off, thumbing the rim of her coffee mug, "-i-it wasn't a good week."

Spike grunts in agreement. "Bit of an understatement," he says, and Tara smiles back, tight-lipped.

"Not good for you either?" she asks, and the evident concern in her voice eases him further.

"Gone through worse, I guess," he says magnanimously, though right now it's hard to pinpoint when that might've been.

Tara nods, unsaid words dancing on her lips, and he cocks an eyebrow to prompt her.

"I'm-" she breaks off, eyes darting back into her coffee. "I'm sorry… about… you know. All of it."

Spike frowns at her a little. He'd nearly succeeded in burying most of that day underneath a shroud of liquor but obviously it had been chewing on her insides.

Sweet kid. Actually cares.

Wasn't even her fault…

"Don't dwell on it," he says with an awkward shrug, aiming for carefree and missing the mark. He's unused to people apologizing to him and is in no way comfortable with it. "Any word from the watcher? How's Red doing-" he bites his tongue as a look of misery crumples Tara's face briefly.

"I don't know," she mumbles, wrangling a more neutral expression into position. "W-we haven't talked since the… the-" her eyes gloss over as she swallows. "I don't know how to talk to her about it."

Spike furrows his brow, discerning there's more here than he's comprehending. "About what?"

Tara shrugs and wipes away a tear before it can even spill with a flick of her hand. "Just…" she lets go a shivery sigh and Spike inches closer to the kitchen island so she can lower her voice to a more comfortably hushed register. "Just with everything I went through with my dad. My family. All the mind games and manipulation. A-and then Glory… turning my brain to mush for a while," she smiles a sour angry smile. No mirth in it whatsoever. "I thought Willow was different… that she'd be the one who'd understand… to never-" she breaks off, shaking her head causing her long locks to fall forward again.

Spike nods cautiously, chewing at the inside of his cheek as he lets her words sink in.

Poor kid's been gaslit her whole life, and just when she thought that was the end of it her girlfriend starts messing about with people's heads. Talk about trust issues…

He tsks, feeling more than inadequate to be dealing with such complicated problems, wary of reaching out a comforting hand to someone already so… messed about with.

"Whole thing is pretty fucked up, I guess," he sighs. "Don't reckon a punch on the nose is gonna fix this one for you."

Tara meets his gaze then, a slight crinkle of a smile at the edges of her eyes acknowledging what he means. That he'd do something if he could.

They both shuffle awkwardly, throats clearing, squashing down all the huge heavy words that can't be said right now.

Tara wets her lips, taking a breath before deciding to say whatever it is that's still haunting the back of her throat.

"...I'm glad you're back."

Spike's face must be a picture of surprise, judging by the amused smirk that pulls at her lips.

He shakes his head, chasing off the bashful look as Tara generously averts her gaze. "Missed me, didja?" He mutters.

"I wouldn't go that far," she says into her coffee as he skirts the kitchen island to the cupboards, pulling out all the glasses they've got.

"Yeah, well… I'm like a bad penny. Can't get rid of me."

He finds a tray tucked away in another cupboard to arrange the glasses on and moves out of the way as Tara reaches past him. She pulls a large glass of something seaweed-colored out of the fridge and hands it to him.

"The hell is this?" he asks, leaning away from the glass like it might growl.

"Spinach, almond milk, apple, banana smoothie," Tara lists as she rinses out her coffee mug in the sink, "Buffy needs vitamins. Maybe you'll have better luck than me at getting her to drink it."

Spike rolls his eyes as the green concoction seems to bubble spontaneously.

"Spinach is not a beverage," he calls after her as she leaves the kitchen. The green sludgy goop moves thickly, playing catch up as he turns the glass from side to side. "Pretty sure this counts as a dip," he grumbles as he divides the mixture into two smaller glasses, wincing as it oozes down with distinctly unappetizing plops. "Ugh. Wiccas."


The sound of tinkling glass pulls Buffy up and out of the first sleep she's achieved in several days. An actual sleep, not just another dive into unconsciousness that usually ends with a dramatic, panic-induced jerk awake.

Her bedroom door closes with a slight slam and a muttered curse from Spike.

"What are you doing?" she mumbles groggily, wiping the sleep out of her eyes with the heel of her hand as he deposits the breakfast tray on the bed to a harmony of clinks.

"It's the game of rehydration," he says with obnoxious joviality, sounding like a corny game show host. "Fun for ages six and up."

"What?" she groans pushes the blankets down to look.

Her blood feels thick—god so thick—sluggishly moving through her brain's pathways like mud down a river bank. Once her eyes refocus out of their post-sleep blur, she takes in the tray littered with every possible beverage they have in the house.

Water, juice (apparently apple and tomato), some sort of green smoothie thing, and-

"Is that-" Buffy struggles to sit up in the bed without causing a blanket tidal wave, and brings a tumbler off the tray to her nose. "I am not drinking straight margarita mix, Spike!"

He chuckles, immune to her scowl. "Want me to put some tequila in it, pet?"

"No! I'll throw up from all this!"

"If you throw up, you lose," he says unconcerned, sitting on the bed carefully so as not to dislodge the tray.

"I lose?!" she sputters dryly. "There's, like, twelve glasses here!"

"Yup." He rearranges the glasses so they're clearly divided on the tray. "Six each. First one to finish wins."

Buffy blinks, and every blink feels like she's a lizard on a flat hot rock, all crusty-eyed and devoid of moisture. Her head pounds.

I'm so thirsty… when did I drink last?

She digs a hand into her hair, feeling the tangles out as her incredibly dry tongue scrapes across her lip.

"What do I get if I win?" she grumbles, still glaring skeptically at the various drinks.

Spike digs in the pocket of the pajamas and brings out her prize with a flourish.

"This vanilla-scented sparkly pen-"

"That you stole from Dawn." Buffy accuses correctly, narrowing her eyes.

"That I stole off Dawn, yeah. High stakes here." He twirls it between his fingers under her withering glare. At least it would be withering if everything wasn't so bright and her eyes weren't so squinty.

"Oh, I'll give you high stakes." Buffy swallows and finds there's no spit in her mouth at all. "…Fine."

Smiling pleasantly, Spike adjusts his position so they're more squarely seated opposite one another, competitor against competitor, good versus evil in the fight for the sparkly gel pen.

"Ready?" he asks as Buffy shifts to match him.

"Hold on."

She arranges her glasses into an order of worst (margarita mix) to best (apple juice). After a second thought she swaps the margarita mix with the green slurry that looks like something she would've beaten out of a demon not all that long ago.

"Starting with the smoothie?" Spike asks as he picks up his own glass.

"Well, no way am I gonna finish with it." Buffy tilts it in its glass, eyeing it suspiciously. "Smooth-ish."

"Think the trick is to chew it," he smirks, raising his glass to hers. "Cheers?"

Buffy clinks her glass against his, glares at him once more over the rim, and slugs back the smoothie without taking a breath in through her nose. She gets halfway before she gags but manages to keep her mouth closed around the concoction.

Spike pauses in his own efforts to rub her back. "Just keep swallowing, darlin'," he soothes, trying not to sound lewd but unable to help a smirk as she nods with an I got this bob of her chin.

"I hate you," she huffs as the wave of nausea passes and the clench around her gut slowly eases. "Tastes better than it looks, though." She finishes the glass without a second hitch.

"Speak for yourself." Spike grimaces. "Must be your Slayer resolve, pet. Think this would choke a mortal man," he swallows back the last of the smoothie just as Buffy picks up the margarita mix.

Buffy snorts, feeling stupidly proud to be in the lead, whether he's letting her win or not. "Not much of a perk, but I'll take it." She chugs the virgin margarita and winces at the sourness, eyes pinched shut as her tongue tries to escape her mouth. "Yurrrgh- warm-" She chases it with a glass of water as Spike finishes his with an unimpressed scowl.

The liquids are—to her combined relief and surprise—settling comfortably and not making an effort to launch back up her gullet since the first shock of the smoothie pulverized her stomach into submission.

"You're falling behind," she gloats as she takes up the tomato juice, pausing briefly, distracted by the sight of his Adam's apple bobbing at his neck as he swallows down his water.

Hmm… pretty.

Spike plonks the glass back upside down like a finished shot, taking up another. "You know, if it's not blood or booze, it's just not worth it."

Buffy finishes hers and takes up her final tumbler of apple juice, sipping a bit slower since she's in the lead by a glass and a half. "Not a rootbeer float kinda guy?" she snickers, watching him huff through his second water until he can take up his juice.

"Never really got to do the whole sockhops and milkshakes scene, luv, no," he says with a smile as he watches her finish her glass with an obnoxious display of triumph, finishing his own without taking his eyes off her.

Her lips look better. Less parched. Color creeping back in slowly.

"Gimme my prize." Her fingers click impatiently, and he fishes the pen back out of his pocket with an affected scowl. "Don't be a sore loser," she chuckles affectionately, and the sound of it sets a little trill tripping up from Spike's stomach into his heart.

"M'not. Think I got a pretty good consolation prize," he says meaningfully, taking in the slight flush of her cheeks as blood starts beating more fluidly underneath her skin.

Buffy raises an incredulous eyebrow, rising to the dare even as her freshly rehydrated mouth dries at the burning look in his eyes. He's unreservedly flirting with her, and it's as if no time has passed since their game of dares in the Bronze. "Which would be?"

Spike smirks, and pulls a second scented pen from his other pocket. "Watermelon."