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Chapter Text

Harmony eyed the booth in front of her with trepidation. She was fairly sure that Angel wouldn't be able to track her to a randomly selected payphone on the other side of town. Probably. It's not like she would be the first suspect – or even one of the last suspects, considering her less-than-friendly relationship with the person she was about to call. Cordelia might have made the suspect list, but not Harmony .

Chapter Text

Lorne moonwalked his way through the door to Fred's office, a coffee cup with breakfast muffin perched on the plastic lid in each hand. He gave a dramatic swirl to face his favourite Texan sugarplum only to find himself conspicuously alone. He pouted a little – what a waste of a dramatic entrance!

It wasn't like Fred to be late. Then again, it wasn't entirely unlike her to get waylaid on the way to the office, or distracted by something that needed immediate research and thus a detour to the Wolfram and Hart resource library.

He settled himself behind her desk, reorganising it in a way that made sense to him, while he waited for her to appear. He had a really juicy tale to share over coffee...

***

Buffy preceded Frank into her office and was surprised to come face to face with a rather vibrantly-green demon. She barely remembered to keep walking so that Frank didn't end up walking into her.

They had seen many demons on their way through the building and it was making the Slayer incredibly uncomfortable, but she didn't get the same kill evil demon vibe from this guy. He reminded her of Clem in that way.

“Oh Freddikins, you didn't,” he gasped dramatically.

Oops , thought Buffy, her name is Fred, not Frank. She was glad that she had saved herself the embarrassment and not actually tried to use the girl's name.

The girl in question shook her head vigorously.

“I didn't tell her! I found her! She was outside the building and she already knew.”

The demon looked surprised, but obviously trusted Fred's word.

“Well, since this little crumbcake is already here perhaps you should go and fetch the reason that she travelled half way around the world?”

Fred looked torn. She obviously couldn't take Buffy with her but it would be rude to leave her alone.

“Don't worry about the Slayer,” Lorne said, “I'll keep her company until you get back.”

Fred turned to Buffy, who pre-empted her question.

“Go. Now that I'm here in the belly of the beast, the reasons to avoid him are less with the convincing. And I really don't want to have to search him out myself. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Fred understood that – even without whatever special demon-sensing powers the Slayer had there was a lot about Wolfram and Hart that would creep a girl out. She only prayed that whatever plans Angel had to take them down from the inside would be effective.

Before she left, she cast a worried glance between the Slayer and the demon.

“He's one of the good guys, you know.”

“Don't worry. I won't slay him,” Buffy said with a smile and a wink.

Fred was visibly relieved – no matter how hard she tried to hide it – and smiled back. She left the office with a little wave.

Lorne picked up the coffee and cake he had brought for his friend and offered them to Buffy.

“Don't worry about it, Creampuff,” he said when she made to object, “I'll buy sweet Freddie another when your honey pie gets here.”

Since it would undoubtedly be cold by then too, and Buffy wasn't one to waste good coffee, she happily accepted the cup.

***

Fred was unsurprised to find that Spike was diligently annoying his grandsire as she had predicted. When she made her way into the CEO's fancy office, the incorporeal vampire was sitting on top of the desk. It was obvious that whatever paperwork Angel was trying to work on was currently covered by the ghostly behind.

Spike was also singing. Well, if one could call a vaguely-musical repetition of the words I know a song that will get on your nerves singing. The poor guy must be incredibly bored.

“Hello Fred, what can I do for you?”

Angel spoke through gritted teeth with an enforced calmness that did nothing to hide his extreme irritation.

“Actually,” she said with a nervous smile, “I think it might be something that I can do for you. I had an idea and wanted to run a couple more experiments with Spike here..”

Fred could almost hear the silent Thank God! as the tension drained from her boss' shoulders.

Spike swirled around on the desk, sending various pens and papers flying. He didn't usually put up much of a fuss when Fred wanted to try out some new idea. Because he really really wanted to be solid again. But he was so close to breaking Angel this time...

“What about me? Don't I get a say in whether I feel like being poked and prodded?”

Though he growled the words at her, the pout on his face made his anger more adorable toddler tantrum than pissed-off Master Vampire.

Fred couldn't help herself from smiling at him.

“Of course you get a say, Spike. If you don't want to come with me so that I can show off the exciting new addition to my office then you are perfectly free to stay here and keep channelling your inner nine-year-old. I'm sure Angel will be happy that you are choosing him over -”

She didn't need to finish the thought. Spike had swooped across the room and through the door at a speed only a vampire could match.

Fred was unusually silent as they made their way through the halls. It made Spike suspicious. Usually there was no way he could stop the little scientist from expounding on whatever new experiment or invention she was working on that day. Especially on the days that she was working on his little incorporeality problem.

Just before they reached the door he heard a sound that froze him in his tracks. Laughter. The tinkling bell of delight that made his unlife worth living. There was no way it could be anyone but Buffy.

His Slayer. Here.

His eyes widened in panic and he was about to bolt away into the deepest, dustiest corner of the building that he could find. She didn't need to see him like this. She didn't need to know that his grand sacrifice had led to this.

“Don't run,” said Fred just as the thought to do so was forming in his mind, “she knows you're here.”

Spike's expression was a mix of delight and terror. She knew. She knew he had failed. That the Powers had brought him back for further torment.

“I didn't tell her,” Fred said. “She just turned up outside the building this morning and said that she knew you were back. She won't leave without seeing you.”

She gave him an understanding smile, her eyes sparkling with kindness.

“I figured that the reunion might be a little easier without Angel hovering over you both.”

Still, Spike didn't say a word. Buffy was here. When he first came back, that was all he had wanted. He'd even stooped so low as to beg his grandsire to call her. Now, months later, he was starting to believe that Angelus was right. Buffy didn't need to see him like this. She had moved on. Was living the high life of a semi-retired Slayer and didn't need the reminders of Sunnydale haunting her. Literally, in his case.

Why had she come? Did she really care about what happened to him? He had never managed to completely convince himself of that. Not since the soul, at least. She'd said that she loved him, down there on the Hellmouth, but he couldn't believe that she meant it. It was a kind gesture – or perhaps pity – that let her say the thing he most wanted to hear, right as she knew that he was dying.

It was safe then. She could say it because she knew that she would never see him again. She would never need to take responsibility for the words; to act on them. As painful as it was for him to know that now, it had been a comfort. As the flames sprang up and consumed him in agony those words, however insincere he had known them to be, were a soothing balm for his battered heart.

And now... now she was here. Now she would confirm what he knew. Because up to now, when he really needed the comfort it brought him, he could pretend that maybe she had meant it. He could fantasize that she truly cared and was waiting for him. Now, he would go into Fred's office and that fantasy would be shattered for good. Because she would tell him that she didn't mean it. He was right when he rejected her words on the Hellmouth.

He didn't want to hear it.

Fred watched as Spike paced outside her office door. What little excitement had been evident when he realised just who had come to visit him had vanished. His expression was growing steadily more panicked.

Finally, she could take no more.

“Spike, stop being a big baby and get on in there! Do you really think that Buffy would come halfway around the world just to shout at you?”

Spike grumbled, but stopped his pacing.

“Wouldn't put it past her,” he said, before striding through the office door to meet his doom.

“Spike -” the desperate hope-filled whisper of his name made him think that he had misjudged his Slayer. She was staring at him with tears pooling in her eyes as if he were the very thing that sustained her existence.

She reached up a hand to touch him, then remembered that he wasn't there to touch and faltered. Her hand dropped to her side and balled into a fist and she directed the frustration of their incomplete reunion back at him.

“You bastard!” she shouted. “You left me!”

Spike gave Fred a look, eyebrow raised to emphasise his point. Buffy paid no attention to the silent interaction. Her eyes were focused somewhere around his knees and her knuckles were white with the pressure of her clenched fists. She was only barely holding the tears back.

Her next words were much quieter, heavily laced with her pain.

“ You didn't believe me and you left me,” she said. Then her voice raised again. “And then you came back and you didn't tell me! I had to find out from freakin' Harmony that you were all undusty. ”

By the end of her diatribe, her voice had broken and she had lost the battle against the tears. Fred and Lorne made their way back through the door, giving the couple some privacy. They mirrored each other with shocked expressions and silently mouthed 'Harmony?' when the distraught Slayer let slip her informant's identity. It was completely unexpected, but with a shrug from Lorne they agreed without words that they wouldn't get the young vampiress in trouble with their boss.

Neither Slayer nor incorporeal vampire noticed the door shutting behind Fred and Lorne. Buffy had slumped down to a squat, as if making herself smaller would somehow diminish her pain. Spike stood, frozen by the inconceivably vast distance between himself and the woman he loved. His instinct was to gather her close, shield her with his body as best he could from the emotions that were visibly tearing her apart. Knowing that even this pitiful gesture of comfort was denied him left him feeling more impotent than that damned chip ever managed.

His brain refused to work, to provide words that might somehow do something. Instead, he stared dumbly as she cried and incorporeal tears streamed down his face to drip from his nose and chin into nothingness.

***

It was a couple of hours later that Angel made his way to visit Lorne and discovered the empath demon in deep conversation with Fred. While this was not an entirely unusual occurrence, the fact that the young scientist had dragged Spike off for another round of testing made him suspicious. There was no way she would have been finished with her experiments this quickly. Something was up.

“Hello, Fred,” he said.

She startled at his words. As the CEO, vampire stealth came in handy more often than he would have thought. It was almost fun to sneak up on his staff and catch them doing something that they shouldn't be.

“Oh, hi Angel!”

If he hadn't already been suspicious by her mere presence, the squeak in her voice and sudden increase in her heart rate all but confirmed that she had lied to him this morning. Which was very much not like Fred.

“Shouldn't you be down in your lab, torturing Spike with your latest ghost scanning contraption?”

She was obviously flustered.

“Why sure, I was just checking something with Lorne here. I wanted to see if we could work out a way for him to scan Spike.”

Lies. Every word. There was no way that was the real reason she had left her lab. Had she even gone there to begin with? What on Earth did she want with Spike if she wasn't with Spike? Something was very, very wrong.

Deciding that his business with Lorne could wait, he focused his attention entirely upon the nervous girl.

“You know, you never did explain what it was exactly you were going to do to Spike today. Let me walk you back to the labs and you can fill me in on this exciting new development.”

Fred gave Lorne a rather panicked look, knowing that there was no way out of this. She stood and allowed Angel to hold the door for her as they left.

***

Angel stood frozen in the doorway to Fred's office. Of all the things he might have expected the sight of Buffy sitting on the floor with her knees drawn to her chest, tear tracks staining her cheeks and a wistful smile on her face as she chatted to Spike, had not even made the list.

What was she doing here? Surely it was important if it brought her all the way from Italy. There was no way he was going to let Spike distract her from whatever mission led her to seek his help. How did she even find out he was here? His team knew better than to go behind his back.

Then he realised that she must have crossed paths with Fred and Spike in the hall. It would explain why she was so cagey when he discovered her with Lorne. She didn't want him to think that she had deliberately betrayed him.

Irritation filled him at that, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Buffy,” he said, “what happened?”

There was an urgency to his tone that confused the Slayer. What did he mean, what happened? - surely that was obvious! Spike was back!

She stood abruptly. Suddenly she was so thankful that Spike wasn't solid. If he had been, she would have taken out her frustration on him. Her biggest regret, beyond the refusal to accept her feelings for him before it was too late, was that she had been so quick to lash out at him in anger. Just because he could take it didn't make it right.

Despite what Xander had assumed about the mess in the bathroom, she had never thought of it like that. Their whole thing had been based around violence and her refusal of him, even while she was letting him be physical with her. The night when she realised that she had finally pushed him so far that he had actually left her, she had cried long and hard and wished she could see him just one more time.

And then he had come back. With a soul that he had sought out for her . But the soul had made him weak when she needed him to be strong and though she hadn't used her fists, she had hit him over and over with her words.

And she had lost him again. This time permanently – or so she assumed. The Hellmouth had fallen, but it had taken her soulmate with it. She had known better than to hope for another chance.

When Harmony told her that he was back, she had sworn to herself that she would never again lash out at him in anger. Yet the very first thing she had wanted to do when he walked into the room was smash her fist into that perfect nose. She was a monster.

So, despite the frustration and desperate need to touch, she was glad for his ghostliness. It meant that she could take out her frustration on the vamp that truly deserved it.

Her fist met Angel's jaw with a satisfying thump.

Chapter Text

There had been much shouting and posturing (on Angel's part) until eventually Buffy couldn't take it anymore and stormed out of the office. Spike quickly followed, unable to bear the blistering glare that his grandsire was sending his way. He hovered awkwardly halfway down the hall, still uncertain whether Buffy actually wanted to spend any more time with him.

She got to the end of the hall and turned.

“Well, are you coming?” she asked impatiently.

He dashed to her side with a silent swish of incorporeal leather, grinning like a little boy. She actually wanted to spend time with him.

“Where to, my lady?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and continued trying to find her way back out of the building. Now that she had her vampire at her side she was desperate to leave.

She faltered after a few more steps. She didn't know if he could leave. And it was still morning – could sunlight dust a vampire-ghost?

Spike sensed her distress and made to put a comforting hand on her shoulder before realising the futility of the action and shoving his incorporeal clenched fist into the incorporeal pocket of his incorporeal duster.

“You ok, love?” he asked.

“Yes. No. I don't know. I need to get out of this place.”

He could tell from her stance and the way her muscles were twitching that the high concentration of demonic energy within the building was really starting to bother her.

“Let's go then,” he said, leading her on the shortest route he knew to get outside.

One of the few benefits of his incarceration here at Angel Inc. was the time it had given him to explore every nook and cranny (or at least all the ones not sealed against incorporeal entities) and he was able to quickly take her to a back exit onto a side street almost as far from the main exit as it was possible to get. Just in case Angel removed his head from his backside long enough to send someone to intercept Buffy.

Crossing the threshold, she gave a sigh of relief. The demon tinglies were significantly less on this side of the building.

“What about you – do you... I mean can you leave? Lorne told me you were bound to the building. Plus, daytime.”

Spike strode confidently down the street, gleefully spinning once he reached a point where the sunlight broke through to dance on the sidewalk.

Tears prickled in Buffy's eyes. He was beautiful. His face alight with happiness that she had not seen from him since... well probably the last time that she saw him in the sunshine. Not that she had really paid attention then, what with the him-trying-to-kill-her thing and the speech about rotten squirrel babies.

“I'm bound to the building alright – 'f I try and leave the city limits then it's poof an' I'm back in Angel's office.”

Her smile brightened impossibly.

“Does that mean you can come with me, back to my hotel?” she asked.

Her voice was nervous, almost shy, and seeing her reflect the lack of confidence he himself was feeling allowed Spike to find his inner big bad.

He leered at her, tongue curling behind his teeth and eyes smouldering. There was no doubt what it was he wanted to do in her hotel room.

Except for the fact he couldn't even feel his dick, let alone actually do anything that would get his girl off.

“You're a pig, Spike.”

The words were familiar, but the indulgent tone made it a term of endearment rather than the insult it had been in the past.

“Oink oink, love,” he said, the grin never leaving his face.

***

They didn't go straight to the hotel. Instead they wandered around Los Angeles enjoying the sunshine together. While they walked, their conversation remained light. Spike told her some stories about Fred and Lorne and some of the better torments he had devised for Angel (which she had pretended to disapprove of while a secret smile glinted in her eyes).

Over an al-fresco lunch, Buffy told him about Dawn. Then as they wandered into a park, she spoke of Italy and the trials and tribulations of trying to find and organise a horde of baby slayers. They laughed together as she explained about Andrew and his attempt to become the most Watcher-y Watcher that ever Watched.

It was only when dusk settled and the colours faded to grey that they finally headed to the hotel. Buffy led the way up to her room, her nerves returning with every step closer to her door. She fumbled with the key card for a moment before finally getting it to unlock.

“Come in, Spike,” she said. The invitation was unnecessary but oh so important in its symbolism.

The closing door brought with it an uncomfortable silence. They both knew that the time for catching up the past few months spent apart was over. The privacy implied by the sealed door meant that it was time to broach those topics that both of them had avidly avoided all afternoon.

Neither wanted to start a new and potentially painful conversation.

When Buffy ended up sitting on her bed, clutching her knees to her chest and looking like a lost little girl, Spike finally decided to take action. With a dramatic leap he sprung onto the bed, intending to land on his back beside her. Except somehow the energy he put into doing so had to him sinking down into the mattress.

Buffy giggled.

Mission accomplished. He pulled himself up through the quicksand bed until he rolled off onto the floor. Standing again, he gingerly lowered himself to sit across from his Slayer.

“You big goof,” she said.

Unintentionally ridiculous as it had been he had managed to return the spark to her eyes, so he couldn't be anything other than pleased with himself.

Somehow that moment of silliness was what they needed to prepare them for the serious conversation to follow. It made remembering Sunnydale and the pain associated with it that much more bearable. It made honestly discussing every horrifying moment of their sexual relationship just a little bit easier. It made forgiving one another, and themselves, all the sweeter.

They talked and cried and talked some more. It was exactly what they should have done before; but between soul-craziness and the First, and Buffy's adamant refusal to acknowledge her own feelings, it hadn't been possible.

The inability to touch was excruciating for both of them. They were innately physical beings and being forced to communicate through words alone was painful. Which was nothing unusual for Buffy, who had always had a non-mixy relationship with verbalising her feelings. But even Spike, to whom the words came easily, found watching his girl in pain and knowing that he couldn't take her into his arms hurt.

And once they had thoroughly cleared the air, the impossibility of physical intimacy was a new form of torture. They made up for it as best they could: planning a future together – even if that meant that Buffy had to relocate permanently to LA.

When Buffy could no longer keep her eyes open, they lay side by side on the bed and Spike stared at the ceiling, imagining that he could feel her warmth snuggled into his side.

***

It was still fairly early in the morning when Buffy woke. As much as Spike had tried to convince her that they should enjoy another day in the sunshine together, Buffy was adamant that they go back to Wolfram and Hart so that she could speak to Fred and see if there was anything else that could be done to free him. She had come up with a theory about the soul-flame induced scars on her hand being somehow important and was impatient to discuss it with her new scientist friend.

Eventually Spike had succumbed to the inevitability of doing whatever his lady desired and so they found themselves walking back into the belly of the beast, almost exactly 24 hours after leaving.

Spike wanted to head straight to see Fred, but Buffy insisted that she speak to Angel first, so that she could calmly make sure that he understood exactly who was getting her cookies. It was a stupid metaphor but the idea that Buffy would not only be choosing him over Angel, she would be making sure that the great foreheaded git knew it... that idea gave him all sorts of warm fuzzies.

On the way to Angel's office, Buffy stopped to say hi to Harmony. It was only polite, after all. Especially considering that she wouldn't have reconnected with Spike without her.

“Hey Harmony, I think I owe your boss a few words. Is he here?”

The vampiress looked grinned and nodded.

“He just went into the office,” she said, pointing out his door.

Buffy looked at Spike, silently putting her foot down about following her into the office. They both knew that him being in the room with Angel would do nothing but make the screaming match of the previous morning start up again right where it left off.

“Fine,” he pouted, “I'll just stay out here with Harm like a good little boy.”

Buffy rolled her eyes but trusted him to keep his word.

“I won't be a minute,” she said and made her way to the door that Harmony had indicated.

He watched his Slayer disappear into Angel's throne room before turning back to the pretty blonde secretary.

“I wanted to thank you, Harm. I know you didn't do it for me, but getting her here...”

He trailed off, unsure how to properly convey his appreciation without coming across as a pathetic wanker.

“Don't mention it,” said Harmony. “I mean, actually never speak about it again. In fact, there is nothing to speak about. I have no idea what you mean. What are you even talking about?”

She paused to pull an exaggeratedly confused face before continuing: “Oh, but I do have a parcel for you!”

She shook a smallish box and made to pass it over to him. Spike waved his incorporeal hands in the air, reminding her that he couldn't take it.

“Oh, right – you want me to open it? It feels heavy.”

Spike shrugged. He had no idea who would be sending him mail, and there was every chance that it was something he should get Fred to have a look at (because really, who would send anything to a ghost for non-evil reasons) but while he was still distractedly thinking about the who and the how of him receiving mail, Harmony took the initiative and ripped the box open.

There was a bright flash and a box of nothing. If he'd stopped to think, he would have realised there was definitely something fishy about that. If he had paid attention to the way that the flash coincided with the sudden ringing of every phone in the building, he might have been worried.

As it was, he was impatient. He figured he'd given his girl enough time to make her case to the poofter, but now he was antsy to see her again. After finally getting her back he started getting antsy almost as soon as she was out of his sight.

This morning, he had barely refrained from following her into the bathroom while she showered. The only thing that kept him pacing on the other side of the door was the fact that it was a bathroom.

He strode across the hall and imagined that he could hear the leather of his duster swishing around his legs as he moved. It was something he often found himself doing – remembering sensations and sounds and textures and tastes. It made him feel more connected to the world.

Except today, that connection felt really real as he walked face first into Angel's door and connected. Solidly.

Seconds later, the door opened and Angel was glaring down at where he lay on the floor.

“Spike? What -?”

Angel didn't get to say anything further because Spike's hand landed on his overly shiny shoe and squeezed. Before he realised what was happening, the younger vampire had stood, stolen his blood and touched him several more times.

He might have complained, but Spike caught a glimpse of the girl trying to look past Angel's bulk and stopped paying attention to him, absently thrusting the mug back into his grandsire's hand.

“Buffy,” he gasped.

It was almost the exact way he had said her name that night after her resurrection. The awe and hope and love in that one word was overwhelming.

She elbowed her way past Angel, who had been stubbornly refusing to let her see what was happening. Spike's fingers raised to meet her face and he barely hesitated before tracing her jaw. Tears sprang to his eyes and as he raised them to meet Buffy's he saw glistening pools threatening to spill from her own.

It hit them both then. He was corporeal. Solid. A physical being once more.

He grabbed her left hand in his right and began to run. Oblivious to the shouts from Angel and the general noise and confusion of the office, he knew only the feel of her warm hand in his and the delighted giggles that escaped her mouth as he tugged her deeper down into the building.

He wanted to touch her. God, did he want to just take her into an empty office and fuck her through the desk. But she didn't deserve that. At least, not for their first time in this new and fragile start to an actual relationship.

So he ran until they came out in the underground garage and helped himself to one of Angel's fancy vamp-safe cars. Before Buffy could protest, he opened the door and pushed her into the passenger seat.

“Relax, love. It's Angel's. I'm only borrowing it, and the glass is necrotempered so I won't be at risk of a tan so long as we keep the windows closed.”

That was good enough for Buffy. Angel might not exactly be happy, but it wasn't like they wouldn't return it later. Much later. Maybe in a couple of days...

It was only when they were almost at her hotel that something occurred to her.

“Spike,” she asked, “how did you get the keys?”

He looked over at her with that devilish naughty-schoolboy grin that she loved so much.

“Swiped 'em from his pocket when you pushed through the door.”

Ok, she amended her earlier thought. Angel was going to more than unhappy. He was going to be pissed. Really pissed.

But right now, in that moment, Buffy was too blissful to care. By some miracle she had been given her vampire back, and this time she was going to cherish every second they had together.