“I know you have that book! You always have a book about everything! You’re just hiding it to make me miserable!”

Even from her hiding spot in the library’s mezzanine, Buffy could hear Giles’ sigh, down on the first floor. She didn’t need to crane her neck and look to know he’d be cleaning his glasses by now. If anyone asked her, what he needed was to kick Cordelia out of the library altogether. Weren’t people supposed to be quiet in places like this one? The other students down there, seated at the tables and pretending to study, weren’t making a noise louder than the occasional scratch of pencil on paper.

“Miss Chase, I assure you that I have no interest in hiding study material from students. Now please take a seat, or I’ll have to ask you to leave. You are disrupting your peers’ work.”

Giles’ voice remained polite and controlled, but Buffy imagined added inflections where he was lying or bending the truth. It wasn’t study material Cordelia was demanding; she wasn’t enough of a ditz to start ranting about demons and wishes yet again, where so many people were listening in. But it was obvious that she was back to trying to convince Giles that her world, the ‘true’ world as she called it, was much better than this one. As for disrupting anyone’s work, it was only wishful thinking on Giles’ part.

The unusual crowd – because six students was a crowd in this library – was only interested in observing the most scandalous couple in the school’s rumor mill. Buffy should have known that coming to the library to get some studying done during her free period was a bad idea; the curious looks that continued to follow her should have warned her. She had lasted less than ten minutes down there before the looks had become unnerving and she had retreated to the mezzanine. One boy had started coming up the stairs, to pester Buffy or for legitimate reasons, she wasn’t sure, but a dark glance and an ominous cracking of her knuckles had changed his mind. She had caught Giles’ eyes while the boy had scrambled back down, and there had definitely been a flash of amusement there.

She and Giles had of course nothing to feel guilty about, and any other day Buffy would have endured the stares without a second thought. However, with someone else altogether on her mind, someone who was making her daydream and smile and blush for no particular reason, she had preferred to get out of the way. Anyone looking at her might think these were signs of guilt.

Waking up in Spike’s arms had been a lovely experience, especially since it had given Buffy time to assess her feelings about the night. She had slid off him during the night, to end up lying against his side, his arm curled around her waist, her hand resting over his chest. He took small breaths in, sometimes, and his skin was warm beneath her palm, warm wherever she touched him. She could have let that fool her, but she didn’t. She didn’t need to. Unlike what she had feared, there was nothing she regretted – except maybe having fallen asleep too fast.

She could still remember the sleepy tone of his voice when he had awakened and blinked lazily at her, sexy without even trying.

“’Morning, luv. Ready for more or you want breakfast first?”

She had taken him up on the breakfast offer, but not on the rest. He had not been too happy to hear she intended to go to school rather than miss any more classes, but his grumbling had been good-natured, and his promise that he’d be waiting for her when she returned more than enticing.

Now that she was sitting cross-legged on the mezzanine floor, the hard wood of a bookshelf at her back, her books and notebooks spread out around her, it was difficult to remember why she had thought going to school and confronting suspicious gazes might be more important than staying in bed with her lover.

Sparks danced up her spine at the thought and she bit her bottom lip not to grin like a lunatic. She couldn’t wait to go back.

Trying to refocus on the make-up work she had to do for her literature class, she thumbed through her textbook, looking for the text she was supposed to analyze. The bent corner of a page stopped her; the book had been new when she had received it, and she definitely had not marked the poetry page so. When she glanced over the words on the page, her heart tightened for a second and she knew without a doubt who had creased the corner; those were the words Spike had whispered to her as she had been falling asleep, as soft as his hands on her. She could feel his touch just reading the poem to herself, quiet words that barely stirred the silence.

“I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire…”

The end of period bell chimed, echoed by the phone on the first floor. Buffy was still reading as she gathered her things and stood, the open book propped on top of the rest. It was a beautiful poem, and it could have been written just for them. That was probably why Spike had creased the page for her to find it. It might even have been his way of telling her how he felt. Although how she would make him admit as much…

“You can’t do that. The Council—”

Giles’ words, shocked and incredulous, distracted her enough that she slowed down and glanced at him as she was passing by the checkout counter. She was the last student in the library, everyone else having hurried off to their classes. His eyes flickered toward her and he frowned as he listened to the phone.

“Of course I am aware of it. I am her Watcher, I know where she lives.”

She stilled completely at that, her heart picking up speed as she wondered who was on the other end of the line and what they were telling Giles to make his face drain of color like this.

“No. No, I didn’t know about that. I do know they struck a bargain and he is helping… What do you mean, was?”

That last word shattered Buffy’s mind.

Dropping all she held, she started running, and she was out of the library before her books had finished spreading over the library’s floor. She ran out of the school, and continued all the way back to Spike’s apartment, ignoring the stitch that made her breathing painful; ignoring the fear that was threatening to paralyze her if she stopped to even think about it.

She could hear the sirens and smell the smoke two blocks before she arrived.

Blind to anything but the blackened entrance of the building, she tried to rush in, only to be stopped by firemen covered in soot. It took three of them to drive her back beyond the fire truck, where a line of curious neighbors was watching the proceedings.

“Miss, you can’t go in there, my men are still working, there’s nothing you can do except let us do our job.”

The words slid over her like icy slime. She struggled to find her breath and the force to tell them. Each word was a stab through her throat, but she had to. Maybe it wasn’t too late yet.

“In the lower level. In the apartment. He can’t get out. The sun, he’s… ill. He can’t… You’ve got to help him.”

Two of the men immediately ran back toward the building, shouting to their colleagues. The last one stayed just a little longer, and when Buffy met his eyes, she knew he understood what she wasn’t saying. Too many people in Sunnydale knew about vampires. Would he help her, help Spike, or go tell the others not to try so hard?

“Stay safe. If he’s in there, we’ll find your friend.”

Hours seemed to trickle by before someone came back and talked to her in a quiet, calm, too reasonable voice. There was no one in the lower level apartment. Her friend had to have escaped. She would find him soon.

Numb, she retreated past the thinning line of observers and sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. The truck left first. Then the police cars. Night fell, and found the street empty save for her.

Spike did not come out of hiding to come to her.

Ignoring the yellow tape warning of danger, she found her way in, then down. The doorjamb where Spike had last waved at her that morning, where she had come back for a quick kiss, seemed naked without a door to hold. The apartment was charred beyond recognition. She had heard someone say that was where the fire had started. Her boots made quiet flopping noise as she stepped through water turned black by ashes, soot and remnants of what had once been furniture. There was nothing for her to find, except the confirmation of what she had known since hearing Giles pronounce that innocent word. Spike was dead.

Her mind too blank for grief, she trudged back to the street. She ought to have known it wouldn’t last. Of course it couldn’t last. Every time she was happy, something happened to ruin her life. This time, she had even taken Spike down with her.

An angry fire sparked inside her at the thought of him dying like this, trapped and without a way to save himself. The anger dissolved the blankness and the pain beyond it. She was done with lying down and taking everything that was thrown at her. This time, she would fight, and fight dirty, until she got what she wanted – just like Spike had taught her.

She wasn’t sure how she got back to Giles’ apartment. When she banged on his door, he opened with a glass of alcohol in one hand and a lost look in his eyes.

“I didn’t know they would kill him,” were his first words, and Buffy’s fists clenched even more tightly.

“If I thought you did, you’d already be in intensive care.”

Pushing past him, she strode to the bookshelves that covered an entire wall.

“At least when he was trying to break me down, he wasn’t doing it behind my back, unlike your Council.”

There were too many books in front of her, but she had to start somewhere. She picked one out and started flipping through the pages, reading bits and pieces here and there.

“They’re not my Council anymore. And you’re not my Slayer. Spencer—”

She glanced back to throw him her nastiest glare, and he nodded in reply.

“I guess you don’t care to hear about Spencer.” A few seconds passed, and he seemed to realize what she was doing. “Be careful with that book. It costs more than I make in a year. What are you looking for anyway?”

Exasperated, she dropped the useless book down and turned fully toward him.

“You know what I’m looking for. Where is it, Giles?”

He finished his glass in one long gulp and stepped over to the kitchen counter to refill it.

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb on me. I’m not Cordelia.”

He had never looked as old, as tired, as beaten down as he did when he looked back at her.

“It’s not the answer, Buffy. You—”

“It’s my answer and it’s my choice. Now where is the damn book?”

He couldn’t hold her gaze for more than a moment. With a muffled sigh, he came to the bookshelves and reached behind a row of carefully aligned books to pull a smaller volume from behind them. Buffy grabbed it from him instantly. A piece of paper was sticking out from between the pages. She opened the book and recognized right away, on the drawing on the left hand side, the pendant Cordelia wore around her neck.

“It’s not that easy,” Giles said with another sigh.

“Nothing ever is.”