As the morning sun creeps over the San Francisco Bay area, one apartment, in an old tenement, has blackouts against the windows. They’re the bedroom windows of the vampire known as Spike.

It’s been an eventful night, and the state of the room; the discarded clothing, the knocked over maquettes and the sleeping Slayer next to him, should all add up, perfectly, to a morning Spike has looked forward to for a long time. But he’s been awake for hours. He’s absent-mindedly stroking a tiny kitten, the ginger one who looked at him first, in his lap. But he stares into thin air, not focussed and unsettled. Still thinking about the couple killed in his dream.

The couple he killed.

His silent thoughts are interrupted by a rustle in the bed next to him. With a twinkle already shining in her eyes, Buffy Summers turns to him, smiling. “Hey.”

Spike doesn’t really focus for a second. Is still somewhat absent until he realises he needs to speak. “Hey.”

Buffy sits up, wraps the bed sheet around herself and, with a smirk, asks him: “So… you evil?”

Spike stares at her, the question coming from out of nowhere. She pulls a face that says ‘oops.’

“Sorry. Awkward time and place to reference an ex, even in jest. Mouth one. Brain Zero. Needless to say, I’m a little gun shy about mornings after.”

Spike just stares at her, but is deeply relieved. He’s still smoothing the kitten though and Buffy asks him again.

“So just to be clear… that’s a no on the evil?”

Spike grins as he drops the kitten on the bed and gets up. He’s awake now, the dream still unsettling him, but he hides it behind a chuckle. “No more than usual.”

Buffy looks at him – she knows him better. “Are you okay? I really didn’t mean to jump into the deep end of the awkward pool. But you kinda seemed off before I said anything.”

He shakes his head and grabs his clothing, starts to get dressed. “Nah, it’s nothing. Just…”

And then he sees himself, from his dream, as clear as day – ripping throats out. He shakes it off. “Weird dream is all. Still a bit out of sorts from it.” He then bends down to her in the bed and kisses her, reassuringly. “But I am well beyond ‘okay’.”

Buffy leans into the kiss and then, when she pulls back, looks inquisitive and mischievous. “Unfair. Why don’t vampires get morning breath?” Spike tells her it’s probably because they don’t eat the same diet, and Buffy jokes at how he’s gross to her now. She gets up and pulls her shirt on.

Spike watches her and smiles with the same glint in his eyes. “Well, if you haven’t got another engagement, perhaps we could perform our respective morning ablutions and then further discuss the state of my evilness. Because, while I don’t quite feel evil, I believe I may have crossed the line into naughty.”

Buffy chuckles at him and then looks him up and down. “I think you crossed that line sometime last night, mister. But just to be safe, I think a comprehensive field test might be in order.”

But then, Spike’s cell phone starts ringing, annoying them both. Spike takes a look at the caller ID and sighs in annoyance. “Bugger! That’s Dowling. Are all your old boyfriends trying to sabotage us?”

Buffy instantly disagrees with ‘boyfriend’ – they had one date – and it was half of one! But Spike is concerned suddenly. Something has rattled him more now.

“He needs me to check out a murder scene. Possible vampire involvement.” Buffy asks instantly if he needs any help.

“Maybe for the staking part. This is just the boring I.D. bit. Making sure it’s really a supernatural crimes case. Can’t imagine there’s anything terribly interesting about it.”

Less than half hour later, Spike is stunned. He’s staring at the couple dead on the floor in front of him, lines around their bodies, police tape everywhere. Spike doesn’t even hear Detective Robert Dowling approach him. “Spike? You okay? You look… Man, did you know them?”

Spike, wearing a black cloak and hood in the early morning sun, stands in the shade and shakes his head. “Ah… No. They looked familiar for a moment, but never seen them before.”

By now, Dowling has passed the tape and is on his knees, examining the corpses. “Neck bites are consistent with a vampire attack, but the way they’re torn apart… I wasn’t sure. Even zompires didn’t get this savage. Plus, we cleaned all of them out of the city. And most vampire victims have their blood drained, not spread all over the scene. Your typical vampire kills aren’t usually this…” He sighs, trying to find the right word. “Messy.”

Spike doesn’t take his eyes off the dead couple. “Right.” he confirms. “Vampire bites have a euphoric quality. The vic usually doesn’t even fight back. But it can be messy if the perp wants it to be. If it’s personal, like. Or if he’s sending a message.”

As he walks away from Dowling, however, he finishes with another theory, one that he’s too nervous to bring up. “Or he was just plain enjoying himself.”

Spike walks the streets through the alleys for a while. Takes a longer way back to the apartment than usual, going through the dream in his head. When he reaches his apartment, he walks in quietly, ignores the six kittens scattered everywhere and turns to Xander. His friend looks at him.

Five minutes later, after a rather hasty dose of exposition, Spike is standing in front of Xander – who has put a considerable distance between them. “So let me get this straight. You killed those people?”

Spike yells back, frustrated. “No! Of course not!” He begins to pace back and forth across the apartment, Xander watching him like a hawk. “I mean, I couldn’t have, could I? I was with Buffy all night. No way I could’ve slipped out without her knowing. And all the blood at the scene. I don’t have a drop on me.”

He reaches the window, and then begins to pace again, this time in the opposite direction. “I suppose what’s bothering me is that those were definitely the people from my dream. And while I’m ninety percent positive I couldn’t have snuck out, killed them, cleaned up and snuck back in… Well, it’s that ten percent, isn’t it? That’s why I had to tell someone I can trust. Who trusts me. Y’know?” He turns to Xander, scared, with fear in his eyes.

And Xander stands there, in front of his friend, with a stake in one hand and a crucifix in the other. “Oh, totally.”

Spike is incredulous! “Really?”

“Don’t take it personally,” Xander quips.

“No, not at all,” the vampire sighs. “You’re walking around accessorised like bloody Van Helsing just as a fashion choice.”

Xander lowers the stake, but only slightly. “Hey, I’m not saying you want to be slaughtering innocents. But it’s not like this sort of thing doesn’t have precedent.”

He brings up the First, and how it controlled Spike through a trigger years ago. Spike didn’t know that was happening either. Spike nods. His friend has a point – and that’s why he doesn’t trust himself with this alone.

Xander still doesn’t put the stake down completely, but does step closer to Spike. “Well, the fact that you recognise that is a huge step. Huge. Dr Mike would be so proud of you. I’d pat you on the back if my hands weren’t full of stakes and crucifixes and such. Just one tiny issue – I’m completely unqualified to answer the question at hand.” He turns, awkwardly gesturing to Spike with his hands full.

“We have to bring in Giles and Willow.”

Spike stares at him and his answer comes extremely quickly. “Oh, Hell no.”

He sighs and explains his feelings. “They’ve never fully trusted me. They especially won’t like the fact that Buffy and I are back to whatever we are. Willow’s going to be protective because of what I did when I didn’t have a soul. And the librarian’s more tightly wound than a monk at a nude beach.”

“Exactly my point!” Xander shouts, louder than intended. “They’ll be thorough. They won’t sugar-coat the situation.”

“They’re liable to stake me on the spot!” Spike yells. It sounds like a joke, but Xander knows it’s not. He tries to reassure the vampire.

“They’re good people. With the power and resources to figure this out. And they’ll have Buffy’s best interests at heart. Which is what you want, right?”

Spike looks down at the ground and sighs again. “I know I’m going to regret this.”

“Relax,” Xander says, smiling. “They’re your friends. It’ll be fine.”

Soon afterwards, down the hall, in the apartment of Rupert Giles, surrounded by red mystical energy and screaming at the top of his voice, Spike screams back at Xander.

“THIS IS NOT MY IDEA OF FINE, HARRIS!”

Spike is hovering in the air, surrounded by magic as Willow and Giles waste no time in trying to help Spike. Xander looks at the crackling energy and is surprised by it’s intensity. He can’t help but notice how eager Giles seems.

“Hey! What’s with the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak? Spike came to you openly and honestly!”, he yells at his friend.

Giles sighs and turns back at Xander, detriment on his young voice. “One: the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak are not real. They’re a silly spell from your childish comic books. These are the Scarlet Bonds of… Never mind. It’s not important. The point is you must recognise the danger. It is imperative we exercise the utmost caution.”

Willow, for her part, looks terribly upset. Guilty. “Spike, I’m sorry. But even after you got your soul, there’s been a history of…”

Spike struggles to speak, but nods at her. “I know. The bloody First Evil. Hell, I suppose it could be another Siren, or mind control or… or I’ve just finally gone off my head.” He looks directly at Giles and Willow now. “Look, I get it. Don’t even mind. I’ve just got one favour to ask, all right? Don’t tell Buffy. Not yet.”

“I won’t lie to her,” Willow states, defiantly.

“Ain’t asking you to,” Spike sputters. “Just wait a bit to say anything. Until we know more.”

Giles snaps at him for a moment. “You’re motivated by purely selfish reasons.”

“Sure,” Xander tells him, hand on his shoulder. “And you should be too. Ever think Buffy might not cotton to you treating her snuggle-bat like a criminal without any proof?”

Giles looks up at Willow, looking slightly guilty for the first time. “I suppose it’s only decent to try to have some answers for her.”

“Okay,” Willow says, nodding. “But let’s hurry up getting those answers. And I can start here: this isn’t the First Evil again. There’s no trace of it’s energy.”

Xander is delighted, waving his arms in triumph! “See? That was quick and painless. Okay. Go on with the testing! I figure we can wrap this up in, what, five minutes?”

Giles then turns to look at Xander, regret on his face. “Ah. I’m afraid the remainder of the examination will be more invasive.” Xander is not amused, and then gets angry when Willow tells Spike it’s likely to hurt. She apologises one more time, and Xander then tells them to forget it. But Spike, thankful for his friend’s defence, tells him to drop it.

“Harris, shut it. Take the Slayer out. Doesn’t matter where. Tell her I’m busy with the police. And you, magic lot,” he says, looking at the ground with nerves. “Do what you’ve got to do.”

Later that afternoon, Xander and Buffy are on the porch of a house in Oakland. They’ve knocked repeatedly on the door, the home of Andrew Wells. But so far, their knocks have been unanswered. Buffy turns to Xander as he knocks for the tenth time. “Xander. I’m happy to provide moral support, but are you sure about this? You’re the only one who acted like it’s a big deal.”

Xander nods. “Which is why I have to do this. And why I need someone more enlightened supporting me. Thank you, by the way.”

Then, an exasperated and annoyed Andrew answers the door. “Enough with the knocking. Jehovah’s Witnesses take a hint better. You might as well come in if you’re going to make a spectacle of yourselves.”

He lets them in, rather annoyed look on his face. Xander gets straight to his point. “Okay, look, I’ll get right to it: I was a jerk. I admit it – seeing you kiss that guy flipped me out. Not because you’re gay! Honest! But, you know, all this time you’ve been in the closet, or on the down low, or on mute…”

Buffy interrupts him, gently nudging Xander aside. “I think you made that last one up.” She turns to Andrew, puts her hand on his arm. “What Xander is trying to say is that we are all totally cool with you being gay. We’ve known forever. And it’s fine. It’s great!”

And then Andrew, instead of smiling or being relieved as she expected, turns away from Buffy and looks at the ground. “Is it? How is it great if you’ve known all this time, and I didn’t? What does it say about me that I couldn’t figure out something so basic without a magic potion turning me into a totally different person?”

Buffy smiles at him, cutely. “Um… So you really didn’t have a clue?”

Andrew turns to look at her. “I guess maybe, on some level? But you know in The Sixth Sense when you find out the big twist and it’s like ‘Ohhh!’ You realise it was always there and you didn’t see it, and you feel like an idiot that you missed all those obvious clues.”

He turns now to his computer screen, staring at his own reflection. “That potion didn’t just give me powers. It made me confident. Sure of myself. In a way, I’ve never been. After we won the fight, kissing Clive seemed totally natural and the second I did, it was like ‘Duh, Okay. That explains a lot.’ Then the potion wore off and I was just me again.” He turns away from the screen, and, talking to nobody in particular, asks a question out loud. “Are my eyes really that close together?”

Xander comes towards his friend, takes him in his embrace. “And I acted like the supreme idiot, with all my overcompensating and ‘You go, girlfriend!’ – I am so sorry. I was the only jerk who made a big deal out of it. In front of the guy you like, too. No wonder you ran off.”

Andrew turns to Xander shaking his head and waving his hands. “No! Xander, it wasn’t you. To be honest, I appreciated your reaction. Because to everyone else, it wasn’t a big thing at all. And I get that it shouldn’t be, in the larger scheme of things. But, whether it should be or not, it’s a big deal to me.” He looks at Xander, straight in his eyes, gratitude beaming from him. “And it helps not being the only one.”

Xander turns to him and smiles and then looks at Buffy with a grin. “Well, some of us take into account how other people feel.”

Looking at Xander, Buffys scowls. “I won’t even dignify.” She turns to Andrew, serious for a moment. “Look, Andrew, there’s nothing wrong with how you felt. I also may be guilty of not seeing what’s right in front of me. But if it wasn’t Xander, why’d you run away?”

“Clive, of course.”

“He didn’t seem to mind you kissing him. Looked kinda into it, actually,” Xander suggests.

“Sure, superhero me, with the rippling biceps and powers and confidence,” Andrew says sadly. He then gestures down at himself. “And then I turned into this…”

This time, Buffy reassures him. “Okay, I don’t know the guy, but again, he seemed to like ‘this’,” she says, gesturing at him. “You’re the one who was freaked out.”

Xander then moves between them, his voice calm and collected. He lets his words flow out like they’re sacred. “Allow me to give you the perspective of someone who’s been in therapy three whole months. You’re upset that you spent all this time avoiding something you should’ve figured out. Understandable. But how are you dealing with it? By avoiding it. Falling into the exact same dysfunctional pattern.”

He stops and gestures to his head. “Boom. I just blew your mind, didn’t I?”

Buffy grins and shakes her head. “Xander may have put it in the most obnoxious way possible, but he’s not wrong. You make mistake after mistake, and each time, you say to yourself, ‘I’ll be on guard from now on. I’ll never do that again.’ But you do. Because no two situations are exactly the same. New things are scary. So you do what feels comfortable. What feels safe.”

She reaches for Andrew’s hand now. “The voice inside you says you’re protecting yourself. But all you’re doing is doubling down on the pain you’re used to. Sure, if you take a chance, you might get hurt. In a way you haven’t before and that could be horrible.”

She looks at Xander who nods enthusiastically, and then turns back to Andrew. “But you might also be happy. And don’t you deserve a shot at that?”

“I don’t know if I do,” Andrew says, sitting on his chair, looking at the floor. “I’ve done things, hurt people…”

Buffy marches towards him, turns the chair towards her and raises her voice. She points at herself as she speaks, more exasperation in her tone with every new beat.

“Hello? I know! You’ve turned me invisible, framed me for murder, summoned a demon to poison me and put my mind in a robot body! Just for starters. And I say you deserve a shot of happiness.” She comes towards him and yells in his face. “So take it!”

“Yes, mistress,” is all Andrew says as he stares in awe at her. Buffy chooses that moment to exit on a high and leaves through the door silently and alone, her job complete.

Xander turns to Andrew, serious look on his face. “That didn’t turn you on?”

Andrew shakes his head. “More gave me cosplay ideas.”

Xander looks at him with a grin. “You’re definitely gay,” he assures him.

In Giles’s apartment, a pentagram has been inked onto the floor. Spike is chained in the centre.

He’s still screaming.

The lights in the room are out, and a eerie green glow fills the room, echoing Willow’s energy. As she looks at Spike, clearly upset, she turns to Giles. “Okay… I think we’ve eliminated everything.”

The young boy turns to her. “There’s the brain venom of the Arabian cockatrice…” Willow raises her voice at him. “They’ve been extinct for centuries!”

“I know, but we want to cover all possibilities.”

Willow notes Giles’s eagerness, but stands defiant. “We keep this up and we’ll kill him.”

“You’d have to anyway if this goes the way it’s looking,” comes a weak voice, as Willow turns to the blond vampire in pain on the floor. “That no one and nothing is making me kill. That I’m doing it, because part of me wants to…”

Willow grimaces at the sorrow in his voice: his defeat. She’s determined to find a way to stop it now. “There’s one thing we haven’t tried. You said you had these visions when you were asleep, right? Giles…” she says, her resolve face staring down at the child. “Start the Somnolence incantation.”

A few streets away, Xander and Buffy as discussing Andrew as they walk home. Xander is obviously still feeling guilt over his mistake. “You think Andrew will be okay? Maybe I should’ve told him about all the apps available for the dating gay man. They’re very specialised. There’s one just for ‘bears’ which is…”

Buffy turns to him. She raises her eyebrows at her friend. “Xander, I have the internet too.” Then she shakes her head and grins. “He’ll be fine. He just needs time to figure things out. Like all of us.”

Her attention turns to her cell, ringing in her pocket. She answers it and hears Giles, somewhat loudly, as if he’s shouting over something. “Giles? Yeah, we’re not far from there. Is something wrong?”

In his apartment, Spike trying to contain his screams, Giles speaks as quickly as he can. He looks up at an image that Willow has found in Spike’s head: the couple from the other night – now vampires – prowling the streets. “There is that distinct possibility. We’ve heard rumours of a vampire nest in the area. Could you perhaps investigate?”

Buffy looks about. The street they’re on seems quiet, off to the side. There’s a boarded up storefront in front of her. “We’re here. I’m gonna hang up and arm up.”

She replaces the phone in her hand with a stake, and, as Xander pulls the boards away from a window, she enters the store, warning him to stay behind her.

Xander protests, telling the Slayer that he’s been doing this long enough now – she doesn’t need to coddle him. Then, the vampires come down from the rafters, snarling wildly, separating him from Buffy.

“Then again, coddle away.”

The male vampire swoops forward, transforming into a bat as he does so, knocking Buffy from her spot. She impales a stake straight into the female, but the stake doesn’t take. “I hate these new breed vampires!”, she yells loudly.

Xander moves to aid her, his own stake in his hand, but then he stops. “Wait. Do you smell something burning?” He turns and sees the store is ablaze, a huge fire encroaching on them, clearly set deliberately. He turns to Buffy, still battling. “This is inconvenient.”

Buffy spins, her hands pushing the bat towards the flames with her arms and using the momentum to kick the stake harder into the female. The vampires go to dust instantly. “It has its pluses.”

But surrounded by flames, Xander isn’t too sure. They appear to be trapped. “I think the minuses win.”

“You’re familiar with the fireman’s carry?” Buffy asks.

Xander smiles. “Yeah. You want me to pick you up?”

Seconds later, the rest of the store goes up, an accelerant taking the roof off with it. Buffy falls from the roof, Xander on her shoulders. She lands and puts him down, turning back at the blaze.

“That was no nest. That was a trap, with undead bait.”

Xander looks up at her from the floor. “There’s something I probably should’ve mentioned before…”

In Giles’s apartment, Spike is dressed and unchained. He looks down as his phone beeps and turns to Willow. “Dowling says they observed standard vampire victim protocols on the couple. Their drawers at the morgue were secure with garlic and crosses. Empty now.”

She smiles, pleased. “Someone set them free. And it wasn’t you. You couldn’t have gotten near them either.”

And then, enraged and angry, Buffy storms into the apartment without knocking, Xander trailing sheepishly behind her. She demands to know what’s going on.

Giles, stuttering slightly at the Slayer’s mood, begins. “Let’s begin with the good news. Clearly, Spike is not murdering innocent people.”

“Clearly?” Buffy is stunned. “There was a point where that was unclear?” Willow looks at her, gently. “We didn’t want to say anything until we knew for sure.”

But Buffy is not impressed. She turns to Xander, her anger rising even more. “We? My friends were conspiring behind my back? Hold on, did you only take me with you to Andrew’s to get me away from them?”

Xander cowers and steps back slightly, waving his hands in his defence. “I think what we should focus on is the fact that you actually proved quite helpful.”

Spike, who’s been quiet since Buffy entered the room, reaches forward now, addressing them. “Settle down. All of you.” He turns to Buffy, her face still like thunder. “Buffy, they didn’t tell you ’cause I asked them not to. Not until I knew more.” He pauses, hesitating. “I was afraid of losing you.”

Looking at him sharply, Buffy’s tone is more like an instruction. “Lying to me is not the way to prevent that.”

“I know. Which is why I’m going to tell you everything,” he tells her. He pulls her closer and then turns to the others. “Can we have a moment?”

Piling out into the hallway outside his own apartment, Giles, feeling guilty about his earlier haste, sighs deeply. “I find myself feeling quite sorry for him. It’s not as if we have many more answers than we did this morning.”

“Yeah, but telling her is the way to go. Trust me,” Xander says. “Keeping secrets doesn’t lead anywhere good.”

As Dawn comes up the stairs, schoolbooks in hand, she stares at them all, questioningly. “Hey. Why’s everyone in the hall?” Then she stops and her face goes pale. “Don’t tell me Spike and Buffy are at it again?”

Xander turns and smiles at her. He puts his arm around her and gestures in front of them. “Let me get you up to speed, wise scholar.”

As Xander and Dawn move off talking, Giles turns to Willow and asks if they should consult further on Spike, but Willow is already heading for the exit of the building. She calls back to Giles without looking at him. “In a little bit, okay? There’s something I have to do, too.”

“Aluwyn. We have to break up.”

In the house they were in the day before, Willow is standing before Aluwyn, the Saga Vasuki. She has a look of sorrow on her face, her regret palpable. The snake demon raises to her full height to look Willow in the eyes.

“I figured out why things were so awkward yesterday. I don’t feel safe with you. I can’t trust you. It’s your nature. You’re a trickster. You play games and hide the truth, and I needed that when we met, but now… I need something different.”

The snake’s tail rattles in response. Aluwyn reaches out to Willow with her arms, but stops short of touching her. “I am what I have always been. For you to expect me to change…”

Willow understands, but talks, calmly and gently. “I didn’t. I don’t. I changed. It’s not fair. But it happened. And I can’t pretend it didn’t.”

The Saga Vasuki gestures to her chest – her heart. She says that she could try to adjust. Willow smiles, but shakes her head. “I don’t think you can. You’re an immortal. Immortals seem to have a really hard time changing. And the truth is, it’s wrong of me to ask you to.”

Aluwyn is angry now, her tail rattling more. “No, it’s wrong for you to be this selfish and self-righteous. So what if I don’t give you all you need? Get it elsewhere. I didn’t expect monogamy from you.”

Willow is sitting now. “I expect it from myself. That’s the problem. Aluwyn, I don’t think I can be the person I need to be… if we’re together.”

She receives a silent look from the demon. “I hope we can still be a part of each other’s lives.”

And the demon rises to her full height, towering over Willow. Her eyes glow a sinister yellow, and a red shade seems to cover her for a moment, a darkness Willow hasn’t seen before. “For your sake, you’d best hope not. Get out of my sight.”

Instantly, Willow feels herself tingling all over. She doesn’t have time to react, as she looks about and realises she’s been transported, teleported back to her apartment.

Buffy stares at her surprise return in shock, spoonful of mint chocolate chip still in her mouth.

Willow gives her a look as if to say ‘don’t ask’ and stares at Buffy with the whole tub of ice cream in front of her. “You know, repeatedly going to ice cream for a comfort is not a healthy way to deal with problems.”

Buffy edges the tub forward with one hand. Speaks around the spoon in her mouth. “Want some?”

“Goddess, yes,” Willow sighs, and pulls the chair out from the table.

Some time later, the pair have finished the ice cream, spoons still in the empty tub. Buffy is listening to her friend, intently. “Huh. Interesting notion about immortals not changing. Maybe that’s why they don’t work so well with regular people.”

Willow smiles at her. “Well, Spike did change. He got a soul. And I certainly have issues with who he was before. But I have to admit, who he’s been since is a pretty decent guy.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agrees, but she looks away for a moment, remembering. “But who he was before had a hardcore bad side. And for better or worse, where we’ve been affects where we are. I guess I’m realising I don’t know him as well as I think.”

“Did you break up with him?” Willow asks.

“No,” Buffy says, shaking her head. “Part of me wanted to. But, we mortals have patterns too. Mine involve running away, punishing myself and feeling like I don’t deserve to be happy. And he does make me happy. He really cares about me. I like who I am when I’m with him. I like who we are together.”

She picks up the spoons, gets up and walks to the trash, disposing of the tub. “So, I’m not gonna rush into a decision this time. I’m gonna find out who or what is doing this to Spike – and take it down. And then I’ll see if Spike’s who I hope he is, or who I fear he is.”

Willow smiles. “You know, doing one of those things might accomplish the other.” Buffy nods back.

The research will begin shortly – after another tub of mint choc chip…