It had been a long time since Buffy had followed any kind of formal training schedule. When Giles had suggested it, a few days after she had started school, she had looked at him with a mix of amusement and incredulity. He was twice or maybe even three times her age, and she was the Slayer. Any kind of sparring, she had been sure of it, would end with him in the hospital.

But her amusement had since faded into a grudging respect. Unlike what she had expected, Giles was rarely sparring with her. Rather, he was directing her through exercises that initially seemed senseless, but that now appeared to have a point. She suspected that asking her to jump ropes on the first day had been a test of endurance, as he hadn’t asked her to repeat the exercise since. Instead, he had been focusing on two things, as far as she could tell.

Every few days, he slapped a blindfold over her eyes and asked her to predict where an enemy was by using her other senses. The first time he had proffered the blindfold, she had made a crude joke about his kinks and it had been rather entertaining to see him blush and stutter his outrage. She had quickly come to appreciate the value of the exercise though, and she was trying to keep the teasing to a minimum. His cooking skills seemed to decrease exponentially when she embarrassed him.

The other fighting technique he was focusing on was the use of a sword. Buffy had protested about that at first; her favorite weapon, apart from a plain old stake, was her crossbow, and as she had demonstrated, her aim with it was excellent. But Giles had launched into a lecture about what kind of demons she could expect to meet on patrol now that the town didn’t have a strong vampire Master any more, and Buffy had picked up the sword, not because he had convinced her, but because the man could outtalk anyone she had ever known.

To her own surprise, Buffy had discovered that she actually enjoyed handling a sword. The weapon had seemed cumbersome at first, too long and heavy, but under Giles’ careful watch she was quickly becoming used to the steel’s weight in her hand. And, as she reasoned, striking an enemy without getting too close and risking being hit herself couldn’t be all that bad.

“That’s better,” Giles praised her last series of steps through the library. “Though you’re still opening yourself on the left with every other strike. We’ll work more on that tomorrow.”

Turning her back on him to pick up a towel on the back of a chair, Buffy raised her eyes to the ceiling as she dabbed at her face. She had yet to hear the Watcher give her a compliment without immediately amending it in some way.

At the table in front of her, Cordelia was oblivious to what was going on around her, immersed as she was in one of Giles’ reference books. There were three more left in front of her, the last of a pile she had been slowly working through for almost two weeks.

“Finding anything?” Buffy asked, more to annoy her than because she really cared. Cordelia’s revelation earlier that day that, in this fabled world she kept talking of, Buffy lived in Sunnydale with her mother and had never been to Cleveland had struck a nerve, and she had been irritated with the brunette ever since.

Cordelia threw her a dark look that showed exactly she wasn’t duped by Buffy’s artificial interest, but her voice was honey-sweet. “Nothing. Thanks for asking. And thanks so much for all the help you’ve been giving me with it.”

Her voice had turned cutting on the last words; Buffy shrugged. She had better things to do than to look for a demon who supposedly granted wishes.

“Miss Chase, I thought we had agreed that you’d leave the library before nighttime?” Giles sighed. “I cannot continue to drive you home because you forget to keep track of time.”

“You didn’t notice night was falling either.”

Buffy wanted to roll her eyes at the pouting girl, or maybe shake some sense into her. As much as Cordelia claimed that everyone had been very different in ‘her’ world, she clung to Giles and Buffy as though they were her salvation. The book closed with the kind of sharp noise that, Buffy had learned, never failed to bring a reproving frown to Giles’ face. Cordelia clutched it to her chest as she stood, but Giles’ extended hand demanded it back before she had taken a step toward the exit.

“It would just go faster if I could take it home,” she argued. “Or if at least you helped me! I’m sure we could all get back to that other world if you did, and I promise you’d love it!”

Her pleading had no effect on Giles who added the book to the pile and picked it up to return the precious moldy volumes to his office.

“For one thing,” Cordelia added, her voice much quieter now, “where I’m from he’s not in Sunnydale anymore.”

She retreated back behind the table—behind Buffy—just as Buffy whirled around to face the library doors, where that sixth sense of hers screamed that Spike was coming in.

“Gotta love public places,” he commented, smirking for all he was worth. “Makes my life much more easier.”

Buffy dropped her towel to the ground, and the next instant she was ready, feet spread exactly as prescribed by Giles’ lessons, both hands holding the hilt of her sword and ready to lunge forward and swing. From the corner of her eye, she could see the entrance to Giles’ office. The Watcher was brandishing a cross in one hand and fumbling with a crossbow with the other.

“New weapon,” Spike noted idly. “Nice. But here I thought we had an understanding. What happened to our truce, Slayer?”

She pivoted to follow him as he sauntered over to the nearest table and leaned against it.

“I never agreed to anything,” she reminded him coldly. “And I certainly never invited you here.”

Cordelia was slowly backing away, muttering a string of ‘Oh God’ that Buffy completely ignored, just as she ignored Giles’ protests when Spike lit up a cigarette. Her mind was reeling as she tried to understand why he would come here. She couldn’t come up with one good answer.

“Let’s get to business then,” Spike said in an exhalation of smoke. “I found a demons nest last night. Five or six of them. Nasty beasties, taller than me and not half as good looking. They were doing a song and dance number, and I’m not talking about anything you’d see on Broadway.”

He stopped there and looked at Buffy expectantly. She did nothing but stare at him blankly and tighten her hold on her sword. If he thought she was going to fall for this kind of lame…

“What kind of demons? Can you describe them?”

Giles’ questions were unexpected enough that Buffy looked back and frowned at him. He was the one who had said she ought to stay away from Spike, and dust him if she had the chance. And now he was taking his word on the existence of an alleged demons nest?

She lowered her sword slowly and watched them interact, vaguely aware that she shouldn’t have been left out of the proceedings but too baffled to join in. Giles had clearly not forgotten that he was talking to a vampire, and not just any vamp but Spike. He was still holding on to his crossbow, though how that could be useful when he was flicking through the pages of a book, Buffy didn’t know. Spike looked a little amused as he described the shade of muddy brown of the demons, their approximate height and weight, and the ritual he had seen them perform.

Giles finally pointed at a drawing in his book, Spike agreed that it was it, and before she knew it Buffy was on her way to go stop the not so friendly creatures lest they brought hell on earth.

There was something very strange going on. Something extremely peculiar.

And the weirdest thing of all was that following Spike to that nest felt almost…familiar.

If he was entirely honest, Spike had not expected it to go so well.

He had not said a word that wasn’t true. He had seen the demons he had described the previous night, and he would lead the Slayer straight to them and help her get rid of the threat. What he hadn’t mentioned was that he had been on the look out for just such an occasion for the past few days, and he could have killed them on his own if he had truly wanted. But that wouldn’t have helped much, at least not unless the Slayer had seen him do it. Better to tip her off on the threat and tag along for it, offer his support. At least, that was the plan.

Her Watcher couldn’t have been any more helpful if he had tried. Just the right amount of suspicion balanced with some nervous alarm when he had figured out what the demons were and what bad mojo they were doing. The best though was that the Slayer had convinced the old man that she didn’t need him to come with her, which suited Spike just fine.

She was still suspicious, Spike was very much aware of that as he led her to the clearing in the woods, but she was also following him without threats. The best part had to be that there was absolutely no hint of fear in her scent. He had thought that might be an obstacle, seeing how he had almost killed her, but the girl was resilient. She had picked herself up very nicely. And soon she’d be ready for Spike to do the picking.

Considering the time it took her and Spike to get to their nest, the demons demonstrated a very disappointing level of fighting skills, and within a few minutes the fight was over, the ground turning grayish with spilled blood. At least, Buffy thought as she wiped her blade on one of her victim’s robes, she had finally gotten to use her sword for something other than practice.

Slow claps behind her reminded her if need be of Spike’s presence. He had taken down two of the demons with his bare hands, she had noticed. He could be such a show off.

“Nice fight, luv,” he said as he came closer. “Good to see you at the top of your form.”

She almost expected him to follow that with a declaration that now he would fight with her to the death as she was finally worthy of him. Her body tensed in preparation of his attack, and when he raised a hand toward her she started swinging her blade. But his movement was too slow to be hostile, and Buffy stopped when she realized that. Then froze when he made contact.

His thumb was practically a caress on her cheekbone, the rest of his hand cradling her face. She wanted to protest, demand to know what in hell he thought he was doing, but already he had withdrawn and she watched in fascination as he slowly brought the thumb to his mouth. He had swiped his finger along a small cut on her cheek, she belatedly realized, and his tongue flicked out in a practically obscene gesture to lick her blood from his skin.

Again, the protests started rising to her throat, and again they died off before she said a word. To watch him do this, to see his heavy-lidded eyes, the small smile curling his lips as he tasted her, made her wonder if that was what he had looked like, with his fangs in her flesh, if the pleasure on his face had been as obvious. It had been nothing but pain on her part, but it had also been more than that. She had been ready to die when he had first bitten her, but she had never wanted to live as much as when he had stopped. To see him now was reminding her of it, of the slow climb back to a semblance of normalcy she had started because of him.

She started shouting the instant she realized she was, just a little bit, grateful to him.

“What in hell is wrong with you?”

He blinked in surprise at her ranting, and took a step back when she raised the sword in front of her.

“Are you insane?” she continued, incensed. “You think just because you didn’t kill me you can… you can… do this kind of stuff? You pig! You… you… vile demon! I should take your head off right now and God! How wonderful would it be never to have to see you again!”

But despite her offensive stance, despite Spike’s immobility, despite the threats she continued to shout, she did not kill him. And she couldn’t have explained why not.

The Slayer’s unexpected verbal explosion left Spike speechless long enough that he still hadn’t said a word when she backed up a few steps, still facing him, before turning on her heel and walking away.

More by reflex than conscious design, he followed her, staying at a reasonable distance but keeping her in sight until she had returned to the school. The whole time, he tried to evaluate just how badly he had messed up. Getting a taste of her had definitely not been part of the plan—at least not this soon, but when he had seen that cut on her cheek, he hadn’t been able to resist.

Fuck.

Back to phase two, then. After the way she had screamed at him, it was probably best to stay away for a little while. And it had all been going so well…

His only consolation was that she had shouted, and threatened him, but in the end she had not tried to strike him. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, he reflected as he grabbed a bite before returning to his new apartment. He noticed with satisfaction that the ugly rose painting and the box of dusty cosmetics he had left on the sidewalk were gone before turning his thoughts back to the Slayer and deciding that the night hadn’t been a complete loss. They weren’t back to killing each other, so it could have been worse. All he needed was to be patient.