Buffy pries her eyes apart with a soft groan. She moves, and—unexpectedly—feels soft sheets. Her eyes open wider and she sees she's home in her room, and relief floods her.

Her room is dim, the curtains drawn against the sunshine bleeding around the edges. Her head feels weighted, the grogginess of the sedatives lifting but leaving a fierce headache.

How did I get home?

She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand, trying to make sense of the flashes of memory that bubble up from her subconscious. It's all an achy blur of white lights and Riley's face.

"This one's a fighter huh?..."

Buffy lays a careful hand over the crook of her elbow where she'd felt the sting of a needle slipping beneath her skin. The ice that had flowed into her arm after those words had been spoken now fills her heart. Trapped and helpless. And Riley had put her there.

A fire of hate melts the icy sting of shock as thoughts and memories fall into place, the newest floating to the surface first to be replaced with another underneath. Most prominent is Riley's face…

…sneering at her from the other side of a glass wall…

…his lip curing as he pushed the needle into her arm...

…the flinty look in his eyes as he noted the skull ring on her finger…

The memory spikes a raging fire of panic.

Riley saw Spike's ring! Oh God, Spike!—I've got to find him!

She shoves the blankets back, about to race out of bed—

And steps fully onto Spike's chest where he's lying on the floor. He groans loudly as she tumbles back onto the mattress.

"Oh, Spike! Sorry!" she rasps as he rolls up from the airbed with a sour glare, rubbing his chest where her heel dug into his ribs.

As quickly as panic had flared, it melts into relief—relief, relief, relief—along with a twinge of guilt at their last parting, a sudden brutal urgency to erase it.

She's suddenly straddling his lap, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her head buried at his neck as she hugs him tightly, trying to push out intrusive thoughts that are tightening her throat.

I could have died. Again.

I could have been cut up and made into Initiative Research Goo.

And yet like a miracle she's home in his arms and somehow it's all okay—

"Good thing I don't need to breathe, I guess," he mumbles into her shoulder as his arms wind around her in kind.

Buffy takes a second to gather her wits, concentrating on his fingers stroking up and down her back in a calming caress.

"Why are you sleeping on the floor?" she asks without pulling back, ignoring all the other missing puzzle pieces of the last twenty-four hours. Little mysteries to solve later.

She feels the pull of his smirk against her cheek as his hands slide to her hips around to the small of her back, bringing her even closer into the air-crushing embrace.

"Joyce said I could stay but had to be on this bleeding torture device," he says, his words tickling her ear. "And the door had to be open," he adds after clearing his throat.

Buffy pulls back and notices the bedroom door that's blatantly ajar.

An amused, slightly stunned, giggle trips out of her. "I think your big-bad card needs revoking if my mom's got you obeying boyfriend-sleepover rules."

Spike snorts at the blatant disrespect to his outlaw reputation, his hand wandering to slip over the curves of her waist. "Slayer, I'll fight demons, you, hell I'll ride the waves of an apocalypse, but your mum is scary," he says and grins wider. "I mean, shit, the woman took down a whole goverme—...uh…"

He breaks off, and Buffy realizes he thinks he's put his foot in it somehow. "She huh?" she asks eloquently.

"Nothing," he mutters, shaking his head curtly like it was just a slip of the tongue.

"What nothing? What were you gonna—-" A vague, half-formed memory surfaces from the black depths of her subconscious.

S'alright, baby, I'm here, mommy's here with you—

"Mom was there?" she says, sort of dazed, and then reads the guilty wince on his face. "Wait, did you bring her?!" The wince deepens. "You brought my mom to the Initiative?! Are-you-in-sane?!" she demands, her words interspersed with batting slaps against his arms.

"Hey! If anything she brought me!" he sputters, fighting to keep the smirk off his face as Buffy shoves him. "Did you know she still has that ax?!" He ducks his head as she swings to clip him around the ears. "I could've died!" He falls back onto the air mattress laughing under her onslaught.

"You're already dead! And if you ever let my mom tag along with you again you will be double-dead!" Buffy stiffens suddenly. "Oh—she's alright, isn't she? I-I mean, I-where is—"

"S'alright, luv," Spike says, bringing her down over him. "Checked in on her an hour or so ago, having a nap. We got her looked over at the hospital after all the daring-do was done and she's fine."

Buffy glares suspiciously. "'We', being?"

"Rest of the white hats. Your Buffettes," he clarifies with a smirk. "Missed quite a party, you did." It'd sound flippant if his thumb wasn't gently rubbing over the pockmark at her elbow.

"Everyone's alright?" Buffy asks, another spark of guilt igniting at being out for the count.

"Wouldn't say everyone," Spike says quietly like he's breaking bad news. "The Initiative's really over and done with now. Was more than a bloodbath."

Buffy nods. Swallows. Wants to feel some sympathy for the soldiers that had walked by on the other side of that glass-walled cage. It's difficult, though. It's hard to summon up the necessary feeling of regret for the people who had decided she counted as Hostile or Sub-Terrestrial or Both. Faceless men turning a blind eye to her humanity…

Except… not quite faceless…

"Riley?" she asks quietly, feeling like his name is a grotesque thing to say in the moment. "Did you see him? Is he…" She leaves the D word hanging.

"Didn't stay to watch," Spike admits, and she knows he's being honest.

She mulls the loss of Riley over, turns it in her heart for inspection. Is it worse than if he'd died on some mission out in the deep dark jungle? Would that have felt any different?

Well, for one, he wouldn't have had you strapped to a gurney way out in the demony-wherever, she thinks to herself, her mouth twisting uncontrollably at the bitterness of the thought.

She doesn't miss him.

And she's not grieving.

Chooses not to. After all, he didn't exactly seem remorseful as he plunged a hypodermic into her arm. If he'd screwed up the dose of whatever knock-out crap he'd decided to inject her with, would he have grieved? Feel remorse?

That seems like something they would've trained out of him…

"...You alright?" Spike asks, tracing a finger over her brow to push back her hair.

Buffy shrugs. It's… all too much to comprehend right now. The multiple betrayals that just got darker and darker until he was helping push her down a white corridor toward a pit built to take things apart in.

"I don't know," she says truthfully. "It's been…a lot." She smirks at the inadequacy of the words. "I dunno if this way is better than him just disappearing as part of a troupe. I know he brought it on himself. I feel like I should be upset. Or… or angry." She sighs. "But I'm just glad it's over…"

Her eyes close as a sudden sting of tears threatens to break free, taking a moment to push them back down.

She jolts when his hand strokes over her cheek, melts a little when she feels his lips pressing against hers. He pulls back to cup her face properly and brings her down to lie flush against him with another breath-stealing kiss. "Gotchu, luv," he murmurs, his forehead pressed against hers, and Buffy nods.

She savors the moment for as long as she can before that age-old sense of duty drags her up. "I should check on Mom," she says, propping herself up on her elbows. "Haven't spent anywhere near as much time as I should with her after the whole…shadow-brain-thing."

She braces herself, waiting for the pout, and the groan, and the huff from Spike at not being a top priority. The expected weariness at having to soothe an ego makes a knot of tension at the base of her neck—

Only for it to disappear instantly as Spike nods, completely unconcerned.

"'Course, baby," Spike purrs, and kisses her again, even as Buffy blinks in shock, the multitude of sour moments with Riley having done enough to convince her that it couldn't possibly be that easy, even if it should be.

"...Really?" she says.

"Sure." His hands slide up her thighs and then cross in a link across her back, hugging her tight. "I'll do a quick sweep of the cemeteries once it's dark, yeah? You have your girl-time."

She considers him for a moment, unable to stop her eyes narrowing. He was offering to patrol, but in a stark contradiction to Riley, it didn't feel like he was trying to muscle her out, take over her territory. Do her job.

Wasn't treating her like a little girl…

Maybe it was the countless punches to the face, the fact that she had put him in his place more than once. Or that—in all honesty—he was just as strong as she was. He wasn't some military chauvinist that disagreed with not just her existence, but that such an existence should be granted to someone like her. Didn't resent her for it, and so—with giddy (yet cautious) optimism—she could relinquish the reins for the night in favor of time with her mom. Guilt-free.

Wow…amazing, Buffy thinks, basking in the feeling.

"That sounds great, I'll force Mom into watching some comfort films," she says. "Storming Initiatives definitely not part of the restful post-surgery feet-up-ness—"

"I said that!" Spike argued.

"Out loud?" she goads back.

"At full bleeding volume!"

Buffy laughs, "You'll come back after?" she asks hopefully, winding her arms underneath his neck.

"If you want me," he replies, and really doesn't sound like he will hold a grudge if she declines the offer. "Could bring you back some ice cream if you're planning a movie night?"

Buffy smirks.

"So revoking your big-bad card."

"What if I suggested eating it off your—"

She smothers his mouth with a kiss before he can finish what was likely to be a revolting sentence.

Spike mooches through the Sunnydale cemeteries. First the quarters of Restfield and then circling out. It's a slow night, nothing stirring except a couple of idiot vamps lurking in a mausoleum that don't use up more than five minutes' worth of effort.

Still, it's two less for Buffy to have to track down later, and as revolting as the idea of being useful to her would have been no more than a couple of weeks ago, Spike feels a pleasantly warm glow after brushing the dust from his coat. His girl can kick her feet up with her mum, nice and safe and comfy. Get her strength back so they can be out here having a good ol' hunt together. He loves the way she moves when she fights.

He slips his stake back into his pocket as he makes a last lap around the fringes of the woods, humming Baby Baby by The Vibrators to himself to alleviate the silence, muttering some of the lyrics to himself as he crunches over dead leaves and dried twigs.

He stops to pull a cigarette packet from his pocket, tipping one out and holding it between his lips as he fishes for his lighter when a dry snap sounds somewhere off to the left of him.

He raises his eyes to the darkness, and can just make out a figure shambling out of the dark undergrowth into the moonlit cemetery; sort of lopsided and unsteady the way fledglings often are before their first feed.

He tucks the cigarette into his pocket and retrieves the stake.

Freezes for a second taking in the creature's build. The height. The army fatigues.

And the square-jawed face, still recognizable under yellow eyes and blood splatter.

Oh, Dru, he thinks, grinning gleefully. You shouldn't have.

He pauses and leans against a headstone. Clears his throat, waiting for that hungry gaze to swing his way. Doesn't move an inch until he has Riley's full attention.

He was going to enjoy this.

XXX

"Room for one more?"

Spike closes the front door behind him, smiling at the scene as he slips into the living room.

Joyce—despite her recent medically-not-approved excursions—has quite a bit of color back in her cheeks as she turns to smile at him, her arms wrapped around Buffy and Dawn on the sofa.

"Only if you brought ice cream," Buffy says, holding her hands out in a gimme-gimme gesture.

He dumps a carton of Double-Chocolate-Fudge into her outstretched grabby hands.

"Aw, no cookie dough?" Dawn grumbles as Spike flops down into the armchair opposite.

"Oh, well, you're welcome," he answers sarcastically, and asks "What are we watching?"

He pulls a beer out of the grocery store bag as Buffy goes to retrieve spoons.

"Big," Buffy calls over her shoulder. "Mom's got it bad for Tom Hanks."

"Don't we all?" Spike smirks at Joyce who glowers playfully back at him. "Didn't fancy joining me for a bit of violence this time?" he asks Joyce, twisting off the cap of his beer and taking a swig.

Joyce bites down a laugh and pats her hair down over a fresh bandage.

"I think I might leave that to the two of you for now," she answers and turns back to the movie as Tom Hanks dances out Chopsticks on a giant keyboard. "At least until the stitches heal."

Spike snickers. "Don't leave it too long, Joyce. Can't let that ax rust."

"Can I come next time?" Dawn asks, sitting up straighter.

"No," they all answer in unison, including Buffy from the kitchen.

"Were there any baddies?" Buffy asks as she returns and takes her seat again next to Joyce, handing her and Dawn their spoons.

Spike shakes his head, settling in and crossing his boots at the ankles.

"Apart from me? Just a couple of fledglings."

Buffy shoots him a grateful smile and a flush of warmth tingles down his chest accompanied by the cold gulp of beer, caressing his heart that's finally fully healed beneath the plastic stake's scar.

The sight of the Summer's girls all happy and snug and curled up under blankets makes a smile stretch across his face. He takes a long slow breath that he doesn't need, just to bask in the warmth in Buffy's eyes, in Joyce's motherly teasing, and Dawn's overeagerness. The whole comfortable atmosphere.

He sighs contentedly, savoring the easy balance of it all. And hopes it never ends.

Fin.

AN: I can't believe I've finally finished this piece that I very nearly abandoned. Thank you so much to my beta's RavenLove12 and foxfaceinthewindow who've really improved my writing no end, and for all the wonderful commenters/kudos leavers/favoriters that saved this piece, thank you all!