It's not fair. I can't go through this again! What if she kills you? Or vamps me? Oh, God, she's gonna turn me into some kind of freaky hybrid immortal super-humanoid with fangs and a pulse, I know it.

She won't kill me. Look, she's writing me all manly and comforting and sweet. Probably has a picture of me on her desktop. She likes me.

So? She likes Angel, too. And! she's a nutso feminist, fish, bicycle, yadda yadda.. It's all a big red—a red—dammit, what's the fish?

Er, herring? We've been over this in a hundred different fanfics. I'll love you till I'm dust. Beyond! Ghost, human, vampire, weird-arse hybrid—the odds are very, very good that at the end of the story you and I will shag happily ever after.

But she's unknown! She hasn't even seen every episode of season seven! She can't possibly understand the bond—

I'll love you when you're wrinkly, bald and incontinent.

And drippy and snotty, too, I hope. Ew, I hate my nose.

Ah, pet, you know you're most loveable when you're in tune with your emotions.

She's completely unpredictable! And her title's wigging me.

Don't worry, it's only a silly metaphor about you hiding your vulnerability behind a tough shell.

Spike... look out the window. I think she might mean it a little more literally than that...

Huh. Is that Oz?

Armadillo

By Stultiloquentia

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" bellowed Spike, and burst into flames.

Fortunately, Willow was standing ready with a garden hose. Spike dashed back into the shade cast by the big stone barn and growled like an irate bear while Willow doused him down. "No more," he told the witch with a scowl.

"You lasted four minutes that time! I'm sure it's the nightshade flowers. If I just tweak—"

"Willow! One more tweak and I won't have any skin left for you to test it on. Lemme catch you a nice vamp guinea pig, an' you can—"

"I told you, this isn't just any old chem experiment, it's tied to your astrology chart. Any other vamp would poof before they got one step!"

"So poof them. I'm done. Buffy and Wolfboy'll be here any minute. I'd like to shower before they—" The sound of a car engine drifted across the back lawn. "Hell."

"Here's the turpentine," said Willow.

A minute later, Buffy's laughter sounded inside the house, and then the door swung open, revealing her pink-sundressed figure. Spike paused his ablutions to admire her strong, slim shoulders and bare neck, and reflected that England's unusually hot summer did have a few advantages even for him. She caught his eye, grinned, and jogged toward him, followed by a neat little redheaded man Spike vaguely recognized as Willow's former beau.

Willow ran out to meet them and threw her arms around Oz with a shriek.

"Hi Spike. Catching some rays? You don't look too singed."

"I smell like burnt compost. Spike the diurnal wondervamp is not open for business."

Buffy laughed again. God, she was pretty. Barely aged in the five years since Sunnydale's collapse. "Grumpy?"

Spike squinted at her and Oz, feeling weirdly embarrassed. Caught without his night on. "Stuff still doesn't work. Just makes me feel all tingly, and then spontaneously combust."

"Uh-oh. I like you non-combusty." She leaned in.

"Hey, no touching, pet; I'm all bear grease and turpentine."

Buffy hastily aborted her offered kiss and stepped back a pace. "Well, get ungreasy. I missed you. And Oz has fun stuff for us to research."

Spike glanced at the happy redheads still conversing on the lawn, and nodded. "Meet you inside."

"Mmkay." Buffy backed into the sunshine, winked, and turned to join the others with a wiggle of her hips.

Tossing away the oil-soaked rag, Spike ducked into the barn, which these days housed a lot of weapons and gymnastics equipment, and headed for the showers, shedding his t-shirt and jeans as he went.

***

"Yumei's fine," Oz was saying to Buffy, when Spike found them in the kitchen.

"Yumei: slayer?" Spike murmured to Dawn, who was removing bowls and glasses from the cupboard.

"The one he found in Vancouver about a year after the Calling," she confirmed. "You missed that drama; you were off having your own with Buffy at the time. He thought Buffy'd died, and tried to call Sunnydale, and there wasn't any Sunnydale, so he called L.A., and then he drove to L.A., just in time to see—"

"Shit. Poor bloke."

"Yeah. He thought everybody'd died."

"You need help there, Nibblet?" Spike asked, pushing himself away from the counter.

"Nah, it's just chili. Grab yourself a drink and we're good to go."

"Wait, there's a second hellmouth in Canada?" Buffy yipped as Spike shut the cupboard door and turned back to that conversation, sliding an arm around the Slayer's waist.

Oz looked amused. "Yep, in Saskatchewan, just south of Moose Jaw. It's just a little one."

"Where's the first one?"

"In Quebec. Under the parliament buildings."

"That must be a party," Spike surmised straight-faced, then cackled as Dawn and Willow groaned and Buffy smacked him on the ass.

To Buffy's assurances that she could find people to rotate onto Canada's evil-fighting roster, Oz replied gratefully, "Yeah, I'll go to London with you. I want to talk to Jay about the wolf pack up around Torngat, and," he swung a long black instrument case off his shoulder, "I've got something for one of your relics guys."

"Whoa, whoa!" Willow vetoed, palms rising in alarm. "You brought a magical artefact here? This is a sanctuary, Oz. All weird stuff stays far away."

"Me excepted," Spike put in.

"It's not volatile!" Oz exclaimed, mildly nonplussed. "It's just interesting."

"In any case, no unveiling before dinner," Dawn declared. She pushed a steaming bowl of savory chili into Oz's hands and pointed him toward a chair. "I'm starved, and if you open that now, we'll all go into research mode and we'll never get to eat—or talk anything but shop!"

***

A couple hours later, bowls disposed to the sink and coffee cups set aside, Willow consented to see Oz' mysterious object, and the group gathered in.

"Is it ... a ukulele?"

"Close. It's a charango."

Dawn lifted it out of the case, then squawked and jumped, nearly dropping it. "Oh, my God. It's hairy."

"Turn it over."

"Oz, what the hell is this?"

"It's—"

"An armadillo," Willow finished for him, as Dawn passed it to her and Buffy. And so it was. The neck and soundboard of the instrument were made from beautiful, red-stained wood painted with rows of glyphs. The body was an armadillo's shell. Buffy plucked gingerly at the strings. The sound was mellow and light, though rather out of tune.

"It has ears," said Spike, peering over Buffy's shoulder. "Aw, that's cute."

"That's the most repulsive thing I've ever seen!" Off four sets of raised eyebrows, the Slayer amended, "Well, top one hundred, maybe."

"I got it from an old Argentinean dude in Montreal," Oz said. "He told me it was just a curiosity—an heirloom, but I don't believe him. Look at these markings." He flared his nostrils, abruptly lupine. "And it smells of magic."

"Uh-huh." Willow set her hand over the soundhole and shut her eyes. "Its aura's all funky. Not alive, but not quite inanimate object, either. I can't read the glyphs, though. Dawn?"

"Nope. We'll have to ask Ammar."

"We'll drive down first thing tomorrow. Might look harmless, Oz, but after the episode with the Min statue we're real careful about where we store our funky relics."

"Sure," said Oz. "Sorry."

"'S okay," Buffy consoled him. "It doesn't seem to be pulsing death rays at us, and I'm pretty sure we weren't tailed by demonic ninja armadillo thieves on the way from the airport." She handed the charango back to Dawn, who stashed it down next to the sofa, out of the way of feet and elbows. The Slayer made a show of yawning, and smiled serenely at her friends. "Boy, I sure am jetlagged. Clock schmock; I'm calling it a night. See you all tomorrow!"

With that she grabbed Spike's hand, and dragged him unresisting up the stairs.

***

"Mmm," purred Buffy, stretching like a cat under Spike's body as he slid his hands up her ribcage to her breasts and lipped along her jaw. "Missed you, missed you, missed you."

"Thought you'd never get here," Spike mumbled between kisses. "Was sure you'd been held up in Rome by some Immortal wannabe tryin' t' start Armageddon, and I'd spend my whole three weeks letting Willow grease me up and set me on fire."

"I'm the only one who can do that," Buffy punned smugly, reaching for him beneath the sheets. Then she pouted. "Three's too short. Stay four. Stay—ah—a hundred."

Spike released her nipple with a pop. "Can't. Neither can you."

"The world's upside-down," Buffy muttered.

"What, me touting responsibility? You're right. 'M crazy. Let's stay here forever."

"That's the problem," Buffy said later, tracing idle circles over her lover's silent heart. "We don't have forever. I know we're doing good work, and, Spike, you know how proud I am of you, right? For doing what you do and staying with Angel, especially after what happened to Nina, but—God. What if we're just wasting time? What if we're supposed to make a go of it after all, really being together, not just this, 'Hey babe, thanks for the great sex, love ya, see you next year'?"

Spike felt his throat tighten, kissed her hair. "Oh, sweetheart..."

"Because," Buffy blinked fiercely and burrowed, hiding her flushed face in his armpit. "I think I could. It's been good being apart; I know we both had some growing up to do; I know how important it was to you to be—free. But..."

"What, love?"

"I—"

He stroked her neck and shoulders and let her hide.

"I don't 'love ya.'" She raised her head and suddenly she was right there, nose to nose and gazing at him intensely. "I love you. And you're driving me insane."

Spike squeezed his eyes shut and felt Buffy shift her weight so she could cup his face with her hands. She kissed him, just the barest brush of lips on his, until he helplessly opened his mouth and let her swarm inside. Instantly they were kissing frantically, Spike thrusting and straining up off the bed, Buffy grinding down.

"Oh God, Slayer. I missed you, too. Oh God, I can't, I— Oh God yes. Anything. I love you. I love you, too."

***

"Bloody fuck! It's gone!"

"Dawn?" Buffy poked her head around the corner to the drawing room, clutching coffee and wondering just when her sister had mastered the effortless switch from California sweetheart to North London punk.

Dawn was on her knees with her butt in the air, rooting around under the overstuffed wingchairs. "Oz!" she raised her head to bark.

Oz and Willow ambled in from the kitchen, rumpled and blinking in concern.

"It was right here! You all saw me put it back, right?" Vague nods all around.

"Oz?" Dawn rose and stalked over, hands on her hips, looking far more put together than any Scooby had a right to at 9:30 in the morning. Oz looked up at her. "I'm thinking that 'inactive' magical artefact you carried into the house isn't quite as inactive as you said." She picked the velveteen-clad instrument case up off the coffee table and flipped the lid. It was empty.

"Uh." Immediately the three Scoobies fanned out and started peering under furniture.

"Guys. Duh. I just did that."

"Who'd steal an armadillo?" Buffy wanted to know. "Who'd steal an armadillo without the case? Is it an expensive armadillo? What's the going rate for armadillos, anyway?"

"Please stop that," said Willow, clutching her hair.

"Pfbbt."

"What's the racket?" Spike inquired, bouncing down the stairs with no shirt.

"This could be serious, Buffy! I mean, sure, it looked all cute and harmless ... in a hairy and disturbing sort of way ... but we know nothing about this thing except that it's magical. It could be like Osiris' Urn or Aladdin's Lamp, or something."

"Willow. Big, strong, cool and collected superwitch. We'll get it back. All systems go to recover the Banjo of Doom. So again: who would want it? Oz, any clue?" Buffy took charge.

"I ... really have no idea. Instruments often summon things, though—ghosts, djinns. Aladdin's lamp might not be too far off."

"What I want to know," said Willow, still rubbing at her temples, "is how anything could get past the house wards without my knowledge. I'm gonna go set up a trace spell, but if anyone broke in they're probably savvy enough to block my tracer, too."

"Well then, we'll find 'em the old fashioned way. Well, maybe not completely old fashioned— Will, is there a scanner in the house?"

"What, you mean for picking up magical—"

"No, a scanner—attached to the computer. For pictures and stuff?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah."

"We should send whatever info we have to Ammar, even a rough sketch. Oz, can you remember any of the symbols well enough to draw them?"

"Sure, I'll try."

"Good. Dawn, hook him up with a sketchpad and get Ammar online. Willow, do you want me to walk the perimeter while you check the central wards?"

"Yuh-huh, there's an estate map in the hall table. Start behind the carriage house and go west."

"I'll come with."

"Spike, it's daylight!" Spike cocked an eye toward the window, and indeed, the sky had turned grim and stormy, threatening rain. Buffy bit her lip, but finally shrugged. "Okay. Find some clothes. And a big umbrella."

***

"Buff, about last night..."

Buffy grunted, grasped the weathercock and hauled herself up the last few feet of roof to the top of the carriage house. "Here," she said, thrusting a small green stone on a leather cord into Spike's hand. "Reading first, relationship crisis second."

Spike obediently dangled the pendant over the copper rooster while Buffy fished in her pocket for Willow's checklist and a pencil. "It's glowing."

"Great. That was easy." She struck a line through weathercock east air elementals and looked dubiously at the slide and jump to the ground.

"Need a hand, Slayer?"

She shot him a look and skittered forward, tucking into a neat somersault and landing lightly. Spike vaulted over her head with a smirk.

"So, yeah," Buffy picked up before Spike could speak, looking apprehensive but stubborn, "Last night. Before we got distracted, I meant to say: the living on different continents thing? Tired of it."

"You are, are you?"

Brow wrinkling, the Slayer twisted Willow's paper between her fingers. "I want you, and I want more with you. Like, the same base of operations. Mutual social lives. Possibly a house."

"Two Toyotas and a cradle in the nursery," said Spike, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"What?"

"You're nesting, Slayer. Clock's ticking, right? 'S just natural, and there've been plenty of triggers lately—Dawn's all but engaged, Rupert, God help us, is spawning—"

"Again, what? When I said I thought we were wasting time, I didn't mean—that clock. Jeezus. You're deranged. Besides, you can't even—"

"I know!"

"Spike! Chill.

"Spike. I mentioned reorganizing the Roman hub to Giles. Talked to him a bit about who could replace me and what kinds of jobs I could do instead. He was making noises about roving agents—I think he wants to play M—but I wanted to talk to you and your people before we got carried away. I'm not buying baby magazines, I'm trying to figure out how to spend more time in your demulcent and delightful presence!"

"You've really thought about this. In the context of ... me."

Buffy sighed quietly and turned to face him; now there was an old tiredness behind her eyes. "Did you expect someone else?"

Spike looked down. "N-no. Not after ... but ..." He shook himself and looked up at the clouds. "Where's the next ward?"

Gracefully, Buffy let it go. "North." She consulted the tattered list again. "Ah, crap, this one's gonna be muddy."

***

"How fascinating," said Ammar in his beautifully inflected English, dropping his eyes from the webcam to peer at Oz' best rendition of Dilly's decorated front. He started up a browser and began scrolling through a list of musicology links. "Legend reports," he enlightened wolf and girl over the phone line as he clicked, "that an armadillo must study at a conservatory for five years to become a charango." Three minutes later, Ammar peered again at the drawing, then at his screen, then at the dictionary settled in his lap. He smiled, blinked, and pushed his spectacles halfway up his high forehead. "I will do better tomorrow, with the assistance of the documents I have just requested, but my deduction, Mr. Oz, is that your particular beast was left the option of returning for an advanced degree."

For a moment, thoughtful silence reigned.

"Huh," said Oz, as Dawn's eyebrows slowly rose. "You're saying it comes to life?"

"Periodically reverts to its original form and becomes animate, yes."

"So it most likely didn't get stolen at all, but just woke up and wandered off."

"Yes."

"Terrific."

***

Back downstairs, evidence lined up. Oz determined that the latch on Dilly's traveling case was looser than he remembered. Dawn, squinting askance at the rug, claimed she saw a paw print. And one of Willow's slippers was damp.

"We are so dumb," Dawn groused, flinging Buffy's boots into the hall from the depths of the coat closet. "Why didn't we guess sooner? When in doubt, it's undead."

"I guess the ninja jokes got us a little excited," Willow answered from her station at the coffee pot, having aborted her check of the house's wards. "Buffy's probably still jetlagged, and Spike's brain never turns on—"

"Oi!" protested Spike from the back door.

"—before noon," Willow finished with an eyeroll.

"Hi guys," said Buffy, propelling her vampire the rest of the way inside and collapsing into a chair. "Please tell me you have more fascinating results than we do."

"Sort of," Dawn began, right before Spike hollered and pitched something roughly football-sized violently across the kitchen. Everybody looked at him. And then at the something, which had legs, and was moving fast.

"Beer! I was looking for my beer!" the vampire wheezed, flailing at the low open cupboard behind him.

Oz located a broom and swept a balled-up armadillo out from behind the refrigerator.

***

Something else was rolling around on the floor: a big Tupperware tub. Spike picked it up and plucked at the torn saran wrap cover. Buffy did a double take: he looked—forlorn? She went to him, crooked a finger over the rim of the tub and peered inside. It was empty, save for perhaps a quarter-inch of Willow's irreplaceable potion. The armadillo, apparently, had gotten hungry.

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Hey, everybody, Dilly did a good thing!" she cracked. "No more stinky suntans for Spike!" Spike raised his head, a line forming between his brows. Buffy reached out and pressed it away with her finger. "Hey. It's not like it was turning out to be all that useful."

Spike wasn't laughing. Tossing the tub in the sink, he knocked her hand away and made for the front door, slamming it noisily behind him.

Buffy stared for a second, then turned back into the room. Dawn was cradling Dilly, who was currently headless. The other two were watching Buffy—Oz impassive, Willow looking pissy. "He cared about that stuff, Buffy," Willow said. "I worked hard on it, but Spike wanted it."

"Oh, fer God's sake!" Buffy exclaimed, feeling much put upon. "I understand it was a fun challenge for you, but it really wasn't that useful! I mean, imagine: 'Oh no, there goes a bad guy out into the sun! I'll run and catch him as soon as I slather my entire body with magical glop!' And Spike's already scary good at getting around in the day. And he did nothing but bitch and moan about the smell!"

"Do you even know your boyfriend?" Dawn inquired helpfully.

"Argh," said Buffy, stomping toward the door. "Today is a stupid day." She poked her head outside, sprinted back through the kitchen to grab the big black umbrella Spike had dropped on the porch, and sprinted back out.

***

Spike had made good headway in under a minute. Buffy put on a burst of speed and caught up with her sulky lover where the grassy private lane met the road into the village. "You can't walk all the way to the pub," she told him, pointing at the sky. "It's miles. Come back and get the car." Spike only glowered, but consented to turn around and collect the rented VW.

Buffy let him drive, But hopped out again before he'd cut the ignition in the gravel patch that served as the Dog & Monkey's parking lot, marched ahead of him to a dim, quiet corner booth and ordered the Newcastle Brown. By this point Spike was looking sheepish.

"I'm—" Buffy smacked her hands down on the table and Spike shut his mouth. Given the choice she'd have done this outside where they could stomp around and flail a bit, but at least the booth was private and the pub all but empty, and she doubted Dougie would bat an eyelash if he overheard odd conversation.

"Ok, Spike, here's the thing: Willow said she thought she could make you some sunblock. I thought it'd be cool. Dawn thought it'd be cool. Giles had a conniption until Willow told him she could bind it to your I.D. and make it useless for other vamps to steal. You, however, were cool and snarky and cynical about it from the beginning. I honestly thought you couldn't care less if it worked or not, and were mostly being nice to Will. But as soon as I turn cool and snarky, too, to lighten the mood when the freaky undead ukulele thing eats all Willow's hard work, you get all—shirty!" She flung up her arms and leaned forward. "What gives?"

Spike lost the ovine look and bristled. "You're right: Red did spend long hours on the goo. Damn shame she lost it, an' it wasn't nice to joke."

"Uh huh. That must be why you slammed out the door half fang-faced instead of consoling her."

"I wasn't fang-faced!"

"Not the point!" Sigh. Switch tactics, shall we? Public venue precludes proper brouhaha. Buffy counted to five, dropped her voice and slid her hand forward. "Spike. I'm sorry, okay? It's not like I can read your mind. Still kinda dense here, sometimes."

Big, independent vampire though he was these days, there were some intonations and looks Spike couldn't resist. He melted like a Hershey Kiss on the pub seat, reaching out to caress her fingers and lace them with his own. "You didn't think I cared at all? Are you very, very dense?"

"When have you ever moped about not being human? That was always—" She bit off the end of her sentence.

"Well, I don't bloody brood about it, do I! But—are you telling me you've never fantasized about traipsing around in daylight with me? Going to beaches and picnic parks an' sodding petting zoos?"

"Um. No?" Buffy peered at him, fascinated and somewhat appalled by the déjà vu. "I might have, once. A long time ago. But you know that isn't who we are. We're night people, who get off on danger and intrigue and rescuing dumb Americans from getting eaten by vampires running phoney Jack the Ripper tours. We belong in the dark. You're the one who made me come to terms with that." When her wording made Spike look grim, she rephrased: "The dark needs people like us in it.

"And also? Sodding petting zoos?"

That made him laugh and finally pick up his beer. "Okay. Hitting things is fun. Hitting things under the many-splendoured stars, with you ..." —he affected a fruity tone— "bloody brilliant.

"'S just," Spike continued, reverting to his normal deep rumble, "we're changing, Buffy. We've been a lot of things together, mostly fraught and violent, but never—domestic. Makes a bloke question different things." He rushed on before she could comment. "And bein' around Will long enough to take a crack at her crazy project ... the promise of sunshine ... never been a possibility before, yeah?" Sheepish again, fingers tapping nervously at the back of his neck. "'Cept for the Gem of Amara, and I had, uh, different priorities, then. So I got ... attached. To the idea."

"Which you disguised by acting like an ass." Buffy was annoyed—with herself as much as with him. She should have twigged it. She'd seen him cover his hope like that often enough before. "I get it," Buffy told him, meaning both the sun craving, and the compulsion to misdirect. "But you listen: I don't need you, or want you, to be what you're not."

"You give the sweetest pep talks," said Spike dryly. But there was no small humility in his smile. "I know. I know it, love."

***

"Ammar called back while you were gone," Willow advised when the pair re-entered the kitchen an hour later, "and gave us the translation for Dilly's markings."

"Okay. I'm taking a leap and assuming they weren't apocalyptic," Buffy said, cocking an ear.

"...And if you move—up one, yeah—you've got a minor 7th, very useful for playing the Star Trek theme song, but not much else," drifted in from the back steps. Buffy peered through the doorway, where the werewolf was teaching the key to the universe how to play the once-again-exanimate charango.

"So what's the deal?" Spike asked.

The witch's expression turned a little sad and lonely. "He's ... he's just a pet! There's nothing portentous about him at all. He was somebody's pet, and they loved him and didn't want him to die. So they turned him into this beautiful traditional instrument and magicked him to come to life—well, unlife—on certain days of the Aztec calendar. It wasn't a good thing to do, I guess ... misguided and kind of creepy, but not actually malicious."

Buffy crossed her arms, absorbing the weird explanation as only a Sunnydale vet could. "But now the family's gone and the armadillo's still bumbling around, all by its lonesome? Just getting passed from owner to owner?"

Spike looked sad, then irritated. "Aw, hell, do I have to feel sorry for him now?"

"No. He ate your special goop."

"No, I do. Got common ground, me an' Dilly there."

Buffy's hand crept mischievously toward the hem of Spike's t-shirt. "Tough shell, soft tummy?"

Spike pinned her to him, vamped, and bit her ear. Beneath her indignant shriek he clarified, "Both undead, darling."

***

Once upon a time, Buffy had measured time in bouts of normalcy. Three days, Sunday to Tuesday, between the vamp raid on Quadra St. and the things whose exoskeletons Willow dissolved with dish soap, then two weeks until the Ghora hatchlings, then two-and-a-half, oh bliss, until Dawn's mishap with the Min statue. Normal days had been cherished, savoured like fairground candy, marked with smiley faces in diaries long buried under the ruin of Sunnydale's suburbia.

Nowadays, she cherished different things: the faint aroma of blood and Tabasco emanating from the mug a few feet away, the yellow shine of lamplight on heavy curtains, and the cool tingle at the small of her back that told Buffy her demon lover was close by. Nowadays, she loved that tingle.

She thought of the things Spike had said in the pub, and other things he hadn't. Damn it all, now he was making her think too much.

Buffy tried to picture herself as an old lady. Her imagination lobed up a white-haired figure with a plastic rain bonnet, orthopedic shoes and an axe, stalking through a graveyard under a wandering moon. She imagined her geriatric self coming upon a fledgling vampire. She planted her well-supported arches in the grass and brought her weapon to bear, but before she could swing, a glorious fury of leather and grace leapt from a nearby mausoleum and took out the fledge in a single blow. Spike pivoted in her fantasy, moonlight sweeping across bright eyes and smooth youthful features, kindly relieved her of her axe, and offered his arm.

She'd never stop slaying. She knew beyond doubt that whatever the years did to her appearance, her Slayer strength would never desert her. But what else might? Looks? Lusts? Vampires were like German Shepherds: they needed regular exercise.

"What will you do when I get old?"

No reply. She turned. Football scores: apparently more interesting than foolish and premature insecurities of girlfriend.

"Spike?"

"Bloody Liverpool."

Buffy stuck her lip out and whimpered.

"Eh? I'll love you when you're wrinkly, bald and incontinent."

"Oh ... good."

She poked at a spot of flour on the tiles with her toe.

"Have you ever ... ever fantasized about turning me? Getting around the whole 'death do us part' thing?"

This time Spike's response was immediate. "Room temperature pussy? Bleh, never goin' back."

"So glad your priorities are clear." Spike's idiotic humour cheered her up, though, and she went back to her baking.

A moment later, she felt a slight change in air pressure behind her, and cool hands slipped into her front pockets. This was Spike's favourite pose—thumbs stroking bare skin, sneaky fingers delving down to the sensitive crease where pelvis met thigh.

"Buffy, love?" All of a sudden his voice was smooth and intimate and serious. He really did pay attention. "We've got to stop this. We've driven it into the ground. There is no foregone answer; we'll know the answer when we get there.

"But turning? God, I'd never. You know, don't you?"

"I know," said Buffy, feeling as stupid as he had earlier that day. She clutched his wrists. "I know. But, well, we were joking earlier about you and Dilly, but really I'm the—I'm like the pet who's gonna die, and you'll go on and on and find other p-people to love, and you should, but—"

The horrible vampire was howling. Buffy elbowed him, hard, and he fell over and howled some more from the tiles, half-propped against the fridge.

"Sorry! Sorry!" He wheezed. "'S just—"

"No, sweetie, I am not your pet armadillo. You know what I mean."

"Oh, baby, but you are! I could write such a poem..."

"Shaddup!"

***

"Spike?" Willow offered hesitantly a few days later. Spike raised his head from Buffy's lap and quirked an inquisitory eyebrow. "I, um, tweaked the nightshade flowers. There's not a lot of it left, but..." She held out the Tupperware tub. Spike looked back at Buffy, who shrugged nonchalantly, but set aside her book.

Spike slathered up his arm and stuck it past the porch railing into the midday sun. Five minutes passed. Ten. "If it lasts for fifteen minutes," said Willow with assurance, "it'll last all afternoon." It did.

There was enough goop for one good day. Buffy and Spike started early and drove to London, just for the sake of giving Giles a fright—and handing the hapless armadillo over to Ammar. Missions accomplished, they left the car in the council lot and strolled to Camden Market, pausing in a drugstore, where Buffy blasted herself with the sample bottle of Dolce Vita. They bought shish kabobs and window-shopped, attracting yellowjackets and repelling everybody else. They went to the petting zoo in Regent's Park.

Later, Buffy looked for likely picnic spots; Spike looked for likely spooning spots. They settled down not too far from the duck pond. Buffy grinned up at the sun and stretched till she popped. "It's moving too fast," Spike observed, returning from a chip wagon foray, "but it feels good."

"It feels weird," Buffy replied, shaking herself. "Oh, you mean the sun. Yup, too fast. Everything's too fast. I've been trying to solve that puzzle for the past fifteen years."

Spike stared at her, recording her changes, expression flashing from madcap to serious and back again. "You were right, love. Play it while you've got it. Stock up on memories and cash everything else." He fed her a chip and swooped down for yet another salty kiss. "I guess that's all anybody can do."

FIN

July 24, 2005
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