"It wasn't…wasn't quite how you planned it?" Buffy asked back, stunned, a perfect example of a deer fully frozen in the headlights of this breath-stealing revelation.

Spike sucked air in over his teeth as a brittle shrug tightened his frame.

"Yeah, you know; bit of candlelight, bit of romance," he replied, a sadly sardonic twist to his lips filling her stomach with ice. "Maybe an apocalypse for two." He paused to take a gulp from the wine bottle. "They say it's important to have common interests."

Buffy shook her head. Maybe if she shook it hard enough the world as she'd known it—the one before she'd sobbed on Spike's shoulder, the one before she'd seen Riley in the revoltingly named suckhouse, the one before she'd stormed in here for all intents and purposes to save a vampire after Riley had gone total eclipse on his good guy persona—would somehow fall back into place.

"You don't know what you're saying," she rushed out, still waiting for the other shoe to drop and crush her, for the punchline to KO her into next week.

"I do know what I'm saying, I just haven't bloody said it yet," he growled as his fingers curled protectively around the ragged hole in his t-shirt. He took a calming breath. "Buffy—"

"Don't say it," she begged. She didn't mean for it to come out so abrupt—at least here and now she didn't. Maybe if it had been yesterday, or even an hour ago, she wouldn't have been keeping her eyes squarely off the hole in his heart, and she'd maybe not care about the abruptness, and she'd definitely not be evaluating the look on his face as heartbroken. "I can't hear you say it."

Spike sighed, rolling his eyes heavenwards like he was asking for strength, as though deliverance could possibly come from that direction. "I'm going to choke on these words if I keep them in any longer."

"You're dead, Spike, so choking? Won't actually kill you," she parried, trying desperately to fight her way back to the fiery back and forth with him she was used to. This solemnity was making her dizzy.

"It will. It is." He swallowed and made to sit straighter. "Buffy, I… I-" Buffy gave a minute shake of her head in warning, her fingers ever so slightly curling into a fist that said don't and he acquiesced, visibly changing direction. "I want you. You're all I think about now and it's torture. Worse than this goddamn hole your boy put in my chest, it's agony."

"Is that why you did it?" Buffy asks, her lip wobbling mutinously. "Is that why you showed me… you thought that because you were hurting you'd hurt me back? Showing me Riley in that place?"

He blinked, visibly confused, and she could see the calculations happening behind his eyes before he closed them with a curse. "I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"Bull."

"I swear," he bit out around an audible lump in his throat. "I didn't… I thought… I thought you'd—" He broke off, shaking his head at himself. "He's a bloody self-righteous prick. He's been no good to you or your mum, or kid sis, and I thought… I thought maybe you'd be relieved. To have an excuse to drop him. I know you, Slayer, you don't give up on a guy until the reason you should is suffocating you, but I didn't mean for it to hurt." He carefully raised his eyes to hers and let out a careful breath around the pain writ large on his face. "I'm sorry."

Buffy took a step back, rebalancing after those two words had pulled the rug right out from underneath her. She'd already been thoroughly unbalanced after he'd hit so many home-runs in a row about Riley. He had been (to use his words) a self-righteous prick. Had cared about her mom only in so much as he was obliged to as the doting boyfriend, but the resentment had been a distinct and unpleasant aftertaste any time Buffy had interrupted their time together to go be with her instead.

He had patronized Dawn, and truthfully Buffy didn't even blame her for not liking him when her own hackles were continuously on the rise in defense.

He did that to you too, said the voice at the back of her head that was suddenly much louder now that Riley wasn't talking over it. You just didn't notice.

I did notice, she bit back. I just… ignored it…

"I know we hate each other," Spike said, interrupting the mental pause she was struggling to resurface from. "We're good at that, Buffy, we're so sodding talented at hating each other. But you can't deny that fire comes from somewhere deep, and it means something to feel that deeply."

Buffy snorted in disbelief. "You like me because you hate me."

"Don't sell yourself short, honey," he said, a wry smile curling his lips. "There's a lot to like."

That, despite her deep, deep reservations alongside the almost certainty that this was all just another of Spike's Special Mindgames, was intriguing. And even if it was just a mind game she couldn't help feeling curious at what examples he—Spike, proud Sneer of the Year gold medal champion, probably a hundred years running—could possibly come up with.

"Like what?" she asked, her eyes narrowing, unsure why she was chasing the white rabbit into a world of complete upside-down madness but she was incapable of pulling herself away either.

"Like what?" Spike repeated back to himself, shaking his head like he couldn't believe she had the audacity to ask. His tongue darted out to wet his lip as he steeled himself to the task. "Like the way you move… God, the way you move." He closed his eyes for a moment, his face strangely dazzled as though he was recalling a beautiful dream he hadn't wanted to wake from. "It's poetry, you know?"

Buffy's gaze fell to her feet, not knowing what to say to that. What to do with it.

"The way you fight," he continued, and her eyes snapped to his, eyebrows arching with surprise. "The way we fight," he added. "Shit, I love it. Gets me right hot, luv, always has."

"If this is just a sex thing-," she warned as her expression dropped back down into revulsion.

"If it were, I would've wanked you out of my system a while back."

A beat passed while she processed his answer into American English. "That's revolting."

"Don't I know it," he answered, shifting in his chair into a more comfortable position. "Not bleeding proud of it, but since we're piling on the honesty." He flashed her a quick sour smile and her stomach somersaulted. "I like the way you hit me, I like the rush I get when I dodge a blow. Land one myself. When you end up backhanding me across the room. It's addictive."

Buffy sighed, a short sharp huff of defeat that should've sounded relieved. "That's just you being sick in the head."

"Maybe. I don't care," he answered with a defensive shrug. "I miss knowing you like that."

Unknown to her, Buffy's eyes dilated slightly as two dots she never would have put on even the same continent joined themselves. That Spike liked the strength in her, as much as Riley loathed it.

That he sought it out, where Riley had—physically as well as emotionally—run from it.

That's because he's a monster, said the skeptical voice in her head, but—uncomfortably—Buffy wasn't entirely sure which participant in this square-off it was talking about. Spike's a monster, it reiterated helpfully, of course he likes all the Slayer-y stuff about you, killing Slayers is his whole evil deal. All his examples are gonna be super pseudo-pervy masochism.

Maybe… maybe not, said the other much more peppy voice that seemed all too keen to play in the lunacy ball pit, and was pulling Buffy in with her. Easy enough way to find out.

"What else?" she asked.

After a pause, Spike cleared his throat to regain a foothold on sincerity. "I like the way we talk sometimes," he continued and her shoulders let go of the tension slightly. "When you let your guard down a bit. Feels like you never do that with anyone else." He caught the flinch in her eyes before she broke eye contact. "You don't, do you?" he asked and Buffy cursed herself that he never missed a single microscopic expression passing across her face.

"No," she admitted.

"Why?"

She shrugged, appalled that she was about to reveal the soft underbelly of her insecurities to Spike, of all people. Even if it wasn't exactly the first time. Or the second. "I can't be their hero if they see me that way. All… less than full cheerleader-y bounciness." She turned her gaze on him. "I don't have to give a crap what you think of me."

He chuckled, eyes still a little tight from the discomfort of the wound in his chest, but amused regardless. "Love a girl that speaks her mind."

Despite herself, she offered a shallow smile, but her bottom lip curled in under her teeth as she realized her mishap.

Don't start believing this is anything but Spike messing with your head.

"Buffy… I love your hair, and how green your eyes are, and the stupid puns you make. The way you talk and the way you think. Christ, all of it," he said, interrupting another long pause with further additions to the list, and Buffy paled that she'd let him slip that four-letter word in and now he was running wild with it.

"Spike," she groaned, and tilted her head back to stop a fresh sting blossoming in her eyes. I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't…

"You're hurt," he said and she let out an exasperated sigh. "I get it, I do, but you're nowhere near as hurt as you should be if the love of your life just walked out the door. I'm not blind, sweetheart, I caught that look on your face and it was stone-cold relief. "

That, at least, was easy to admit to.

"Things have been bad for a while," she conceded, with a hard sniff and a stiffening of her spine. "I'm not sorry he's gone."

"I didn't mean when he walked away from you," he said, and her gaze lifted questioningly to his. "I meant when you realized I wasn't dust. Funny thing about windows, luv; they work both ways."

Buffy tightened her lip stubbornly, swallowing hard to get her voice not to quiver. "So I'm glad you're not deader than usual, there's still plenty of gap between that and… and…"

"And loving me back," he filled in even as she squirmed in place. "I know. I think you feel something for me though. And maybe it makes you sick, but it's something, right?"

Yeah, super heaped-on revulsion, the sneery voice supplied, angry that he was trying to corner her against an emotional wall… but the heat wasn't in the sentiment. The hate wasn't where it used to be. With the hole in his heart (and the hole in hers) all she could find in its place was pity.

Though 'pity' still didn't feel quite right. Wasn't sad enough for the emotion that was straining the edges of her lungs. The moment felt so much like a mirror of the time they'd had on the back porch that she was seriously starting to question if Riley was right. She always did seem to end up back here. Sought Spike out, even when she didn't need to (and she didn't even hesitate when she did need to).

I don't hate being around him, she thought, and as bewildered as that sentiment made her, the truth in it made her relax in a way she hadn't anticipated. I should but I don't. Being around someone who can read me so well… That gets it… Even when it drives me nuts, and it really really does, at least I don't have to explain anything to him…

"Buffy?" he prompted, making her jerk out of a line of thought that was leading to some very complicated crossroads, tension restringing itself as a wave of guilt hit her that she'd almost let her head get turned too far around, liable to snap.

"I have to go," she said, kicking herself away from the concrete pillar she'd come to be almost slumped against, and wiping a hurried palm under her cheeks just in case. "I'm going."

"Buffy—"

"I'm going," she repeated, as she rushed out of the crypt, out into the sunlight that stung in a newly painful way.

The light dazzled her eyes, and after making it across a few graves she gave in to the tears that wouldn't continue to be pushed down. They slipped down her cheeks easily, pooling under her chin until she wiped them away with her sleeve.

I'm just broken up about Riley, she soothed herself. Breakups suck and this is all this is. That's all it is.

"Buffster! Hey!"

She froze in her tracks as Xander's voice called across to her, approaching from the west side of the cemetery, and she brushed any remaining tears off her face hurriedly before turning.

God, what now?

"What are you doing here, Xander?" Her voice was miraculously free of clogged emotion as he made his way across the gravestones towards her, a smile fixed firmly on his face as though finding her there had been no more than a pleasant coincidence and not the ambush she suspected it might turn into.

"Thought maybe you'd wanna talk after the whole Buffy-smash incident," he answered, and offered her a slight smirk that, along with his glib words, peaked an uncomfortable uptick in her blood pressure.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably.

"You're always here," he answered.

Slightly panicked, Buffy's eyes darted guiltily back to Spike's crypt, hurried denials about to fill her mouth when Xander raised an eyebrow.

"You know? Graveyard?" he added. "What's with you?"

Buffy let her shoulder droop out of the defensive stance she'd immediately sprung into.

"I'm fine. Go home," she huffed, and turned away from him before he could get a hint of the tears still threatening to pool in the corners of her eyes.

Distance was what she needed. Distance and quiet for just an hour so she could recenter her head and settle down the growling wolf in her that was still accusing Xander of being a chauvinistic ass. Just enough to slap on a brave smile and carry on.

"You don't seem fine," Xander persisted, trailing after her even as she picked up pace. "Example one, Slayer on the run?" he pointed out, huffing to keep up as her speed increased incrementally. "That's not like you."

"It is like me. It's exactly like me when I want space, which I felt I made perfectly clear back there," Buffy answered over her shoulder.

"Space from what?" he argued, and when she glanced over her shoulder to him a look of irritated hurt on his face took her by surprise enough to make her pause. "From Riley?" he added once he'd caught some of his breath back, and she couldn't help taking a surprised step back.

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Buffy-" he sighed, his shoulder's slumping, "-it doesn't take a genius to work out the two of you are pulling apart at the seams. What I don't get is why you're just letting it happen?"

Letting it happen.

"Why you keep letting it happen…"

Buffy let out an angry half-laugh, rolling her eyes as those words stung anew. "Man, that phrase is really biting me in the ass today." She shook her head when Xander's eyebrows furrowed. "The seams are fully ripped, actually. And I'm not about to get out the sewing kit."

"Then I think you're making a mistake," he replied, mouth tightening in a frown like she was nothing more than a stubborn child throwing a hissy fit at not getting her way.

Buffy snorted. "You don't know the half of it."

"Then tell me the other half," he retorted, and Buffy squared her shoulders.

"Alright. Did you know that ex vampire-warehouse was Riley's new favorite spot in town? Did you know he let himself get bit night after night? Did you know he set up a new special ops extraction behind my back? Apparently it's not enough to almost die out of spite, gotta do the whole disappearing act to follow."

Xander's eyes darkened a little, but—heartbreakingly—Buffy could practically taste that any nuclear fallout her multiple bombshells had caused was only going to blow back in her face.

"Are you gonna let him?" he asked after a heartbeat, and she caught her breath at the lack of surprise on his face.

He knew...

"Yep," she answered briskly across the hurt that revelation caused. "Think I will."

She turned on her heel and started walking again, loathing the sound of accompanying footsteps as Xander followed after a brief hesitation.

"Then you're throwing away something you might not be able to get back. You understand that, don't you?"

"What are you getting at?" she asked.

"Buffy-" he stopped her with a hand on her arm and brought her up sharp. "You got your heart broken by Angel. I see that, we all see that, I'm totally clued in to what a bad scene that was for you. But I think afterwards you built up a wall, and you've been keeping Riley on the other side of it."

She twisted out from under his hand with a hard shrug. "That's not true."

"I think it is! And more importantly, so does Riley! You've kept him at an arms distance—"

"So, this is my fault? I pushed him into the arms of another woman, fangs included? Gee, thanks, Xander, that won't keep me up at night."

"You know what I mean! I know you've had a lot going on. God, I know it's been rough, I do, how can I not when we've all been there in the hospital with you? All of us but Riley half the time. You forgot to tell him the when's or the where's, or hell, just forgot he was there whatsoever! It's like he was only an afterthought to you! I just don't want to see you throw away a good thing because you wouldn't make time for it."

"Oh. My. God. What is with the male population today?!" she nearly screamed. "Since when did me focusing on my mother's brain tumor become a character flaw!?"

"Buffy, relationships need attention. You can't just sideline them and expect the guy to still be there when you've got the time."

"No, I really think I can!" she burst out. "I think if you care about someone, you don't make the worst thing they've ever gone through all about you! And PS do not lecture me on what a relationship needs because you are very much not with the golden track record."

"This isn't about me!" he growled, his face momentarily turning a blotchy red. "He's a good guy, all he wanted was for you to let him in."

"I did let him in! It's not my fault he didn't like what he saw! He wants to be the big strong man, but apparently it's all relative, and he can't be the big strong man if I'm stronger!"

"That's human, Buffy!" Xander shouted, his voice causing a flight of birds to take wing off a mausoleum. "Give the guy a break, every single man on the planet would have his head spun by that!"

"And I'm sick of it!" she shouted back. "I'm sick of all the boys who pin their masculinity hang ups on me, and then blame me for not buckling under the pressure!"

She was off again, long strides marching hard rather than hear any more criticisms of how she wasn't fitting neatly inside the box of Riley's toxic insecurities.

"So you're really just gonna let him go?" Xander called after her and she turned back.

"He let me go, Xander. And after what I saw last night, I really don't see myself chasing on his heels. But thanks for the support."

She didn't look back, walking away for the final time, and no more footsteps followed her. Restfield's gates just made it into view before the sobs wracked her frame.