"It was hideous. Blood everywhere. I froze up... like totally. So much for slayer reactions... and none of us saw it coming. It just came from outta nowhere. Bam!" Buffy twirled her stake as she spoke until she remembered that she was still in Sunnydale's suburban streets and some way from the graveyards where she planned to vent her confusion. She pushed her hand back into her jacket pocket with a slightly guilty look.

"Yeah, well, your lot don't exactly have a sterling record for being aware of these things." Spike pointed back and forth between himself and the slayer and raised an eyebrow. "You were all on the short bus when it came to Red an' Glinda."

"And it wouldn't have taken the mighty Spikismo, fortune teller supreme, by surprise? You were as shocked as the rest of us when the wedding fell through."

"I was surprised by the depths of Harris's stupidity. Doesn't mean I'm surprised the watcher was there to pick up the pieces. There's been a tension between the two of them goin' back to the last time Red played with our heads... just like the awareness between the two of us was ten times more acute after the time she tried it when The Littlest Hobo took to the road."

Buffy decided to let the last part of that assertion slide. "But it's... icky. He's like twice her age."

"Actually, pet, he's a fraction of her age... which makes them both mature adults an' that's probably a novelty for the poor bint." The vampire cast his eyes upward as he walked along in silence for a few yards before he spoke again. "You ever watch any of those old films your mum has on video?"

Buffy shrugged. "Sometimes." Then she seemed to deliberately peel away a layer of her defences and force a more honest answer. "I used to watch them a lot... after patrol, when Dawn was sleeping... after Mom..."

Spike nodded slowly and his hand inched toward the petite blonde before he pulled it back.

Buffy had seen the gesture, though, and her own arm twitched in response before she reminded herself that they were trying to be friends and they wouldn't manage that if they let the physical side get in the way again. Things had been going so well over the last couple of days and she didn't want to be the one to break their fragile accord. She shoved her hand even deeper in her pocket.

Spike covered by doing the pat down routine and lighting a cigarette before he continued. "You remember one called 'To Have and Have Not'?"

"Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart and the funny old drunk guy?"

Spike exhaled a long plume of smoke in something that seemed close to a sigh. "That's the one, pumpkin."

"Hey, pumpkins are round and fat and orange. Are you saying I'm fat?"

Spike rolled his eyes heavenward. "It's a thing. Alright, sweet pea?"

Buffy appeared vaguely mollified by the comparison to the delicate, fragrant flower and deigned to let him continue.

"Anyway, 'To Have and Have Not'? You know the scene... 'You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?' That freak you out?"

Buffy's puzzled look rapidly turned to one of comprehension. "It's different," she argued.

"Yeah, it is. Bacall was nineteen when she met Bogey and, if memory serves, he was married to someone else at the time. Anyanka's got a thousand years an' change on the clock and her an' the watcher are footloose an' fancy free. It feels different to you because you've been thinking of Anya as your contemporary an' Rupert as a second dad.

I'm not sayin' that there won't always be a special sort of feelin' 'tween you an' him but that's a little girl's way of lookin' at the situation. If you don't want to lose him, sweetheart, then you're going to have to look at it like a grown up."

"You think she means more to him than I do?" Buffy asked with a quiver in her voice.

"Wouldn't like to say, sugar plum. They've been together for a week under extreme circumstances. That sort of thing can make for big changes in someone's feelings. Maybe it'll be one of those holiday things that can't survive when they come back to their normal life. Maybe they'll be another Bogey and Bacall but I think if you play the selfish card an' try to make him choose, then you'll all three be more miserable because of it."

Buffy hunched her shoulders and stuck out her lower lip in a pout. "Don't wanna!" she protested in a resigned tone of voice.

"But since it's Rupes you will, anyway..."

"But since it's Giles I will anyway," the slayer agreed. She flicked a sidelong glance at the vampire beside her, just as his eyes turned her way and some silent communication seemed to pass between them. "Last one to Restfield's gates washes the mugs when we get back," she half shouted as she broke into a run.

Spike tossed his cigarette into the gutter and took off after her... not that he was in any hurry to overtake her. He kind of liked the view from here.