Author's Note: Yet another joyous chapter. I should update again on Monday since I don't have much time on the computer on the weekends... Enjoy, all!

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Bobbie, we ‘ave to!” Spike exclaimed.

“Buffy,” she corrected for the umpteenth time. “And I’m not doing it,” she insisted, arms crossed in front of her chest defensively. “It’s wrong. He’s been like a father to me.”

“Right then,” he retorted sarcastically. “Where’ll we look then? The public library?” He adopted a high pitched twang. “ ‘Excuse me, Mister Librarian, I’m looking for a comprehensive guide to demon markings.’ ” He pinched his nose and went on in a nasal manner. “ ‘Of course, Miss. They’re in section right next to how to make your very own nuclear device at home.’ ”

“Knock it off,” Buffy sighed.

Unfortunately, his hyperbole was on a roll. “Ooh! An’ since we’re givin’ up the hunt and all, we might as well jus’ go back to my place an’…”

Buffy opened her mouth to object.

“…play a nice round o’ Rummy,” he finished, not noticing her reaction.

She snapped her mouth shut before he could notice. Dammit! she chided herself. Get your mind out of the gutter with the sexy vampire already…

“’Sides,” he added in a more serious tone, “’s not like I don’ rip off the Watcher twice a week anyway. ‘E’s easily the most oblivious bloke on the planet.”

“You’ve robbed Giles?!” Buffy exclaimed in horror. “You…bastard!”

“Oh, now that was jus’ brilliant,” he rolled his eyes. “I can see why you leave all the quippin’ to your precious Jonathan.”

“He’s not mine, and he’s most certainly not precious!” she hissed.

“Good for you,” he said with false enthusiasm. “Way to fight that spell. Go you.”

Buffy ground her teeth together. “You are such an…ass!” she finally exclaimed, too outraged to come up with much else. Instinctively, her hands grabbed hold of the lapels of his duster and she yanked him roughly toward her. “Just. Shut. Up. Spike,” she hissed in a threatening voice, her face only inches from his.

His eyes widened in surprise for a second, and then once again with that odd sense of familiarity.

Buffy was feeling it, too, and her brow furrowed. “Are you getting that strange déjà vu feeling again?” she asked curiously.

He nodded, eyes still wide, and slowly licked his suddenly dry lips.

Buffy’s gaze instantly fell to that luscious lower lip of his, and she calculated it to be only a few inches from her own. I bet it’s sooo sweet… She licked her own lips thoughtfully, debating just how bad the idea that had just popped into her head really was…

“Buffy!” she suddenly heard a cry.

She leapt back from Spike as if she had been burned.

“He been giving you trouble again?” Jonathan demanded, eyes narrowed and crossbow in hand.

Buffy quickly shook her head, purposefully not looking at Spike lest her face flush bright red at what she had been so nearly tempted to do. “He was just spouting off his usual empty threats,” she explained.

Jonathan gestured for Spike to leave, and he wisely did so, vanishing back into the shadows. Buffy tried to suppress the little pang of regret she felt when he left her.

“Why are you out here?” Jonathan demanded. “And all by yourself, too. Didn’t the guys tell you I’d handle patrol tonight?”

“Uh…yeah,” Buffy confessed sheepishly, “but I just thought…you know, since I’d caused so much trouble lately…that maybe a quick little cemetery run wouldn’t hurt…and then I ran into Spike, and he wouldn’t go away, and…” She trailed off.

Jonathan gave her a smile. “It’s OK,” he assured her. “You should just be more careful – especially about Spike. He’s still dangerous, even with the chip. I don’t think you’re ready to handle him on your own yet.”

I was handling him just fine, thank you very much, she thought inwardly, but she kept up the helpless little girl act that would get her out of this unscathed. “I know,” she said, with eyes wide. “Thank you so much for helping me out with him. I was way in over my head.” Not, one voice inside her added. So, another voice – one that was less than pleased with her attempt to kiss him – countered.

“No problem,” Jonathan shrugged it off. “It’s what I do. Do you want me to walk you home?”

She laughed nervously. “I think I can handle that one my own,” she quickly insisted.

“Watch your back,” Jonathan warned, concerned, as he headed off of his patrol.

“You, too,” Buffy attempted to sound cheerful. She waited until she was sure he was gone before she spoke again. “Spike?” she asked hopefully, looking around.

“Here, luv,” said a voice right behind her.

She let out a little screech of surprise and turned around to face him with an irritated expression on her face. “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?” she demanded.

“Can tell me ‘s many times ‘s you want, pet,” he gave her a wry smirk. “Don’ take orders from you.”

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “That’s the deal. You are supposed to do exactly as I say.”

“No,” he countered, “’m s’posed to help you fight Jonathan, which ‘s exactly what ‘m doin’. There’s no clause I saw that says you’re the boss o’ me now.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Let’s just go get this over with,” she finally decided, “before Jonathan catches us again.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, indicating she should take the lead.

She rolled her eyes, and together they made their way to Giles’ apartment.

They were unaware of the figure that watched them from the shadows…

“What are you doing?” Buffy whispered.

“Reading a book,” he whispered back.

“Is that all you’re doing?” she demanded.

“’Course,” he insisted while slipping a bottle of Scotch into his jacket pocket.

She squinted in the darkness. “Well?” she finally said impatiently.

“’m lookin’,” he insisted. “Don’ get your knickers in a twist…”

Her knickers, unfortunately, felt exactly as if they were in a twist at the moment. Mostly it was from guilt at burglarizing Giles’ apartment in the middle of the night with a vampire. She had absolutely no idea what she could say in her defense if they got caught. And the scene in her dream in which Giles had caught her right before she grabbed the right book invaded her mind constantly, making her even more edgy than she had been while breaking into Jonathan’s place.

However, not even she could deny that some of it was due to the fact that her panties had been drenched through earlier and now had become distinctly sticky and uncomfortable. She shifted slightly, trying to alleviate some of the tension between her thighs and not think about how the perfect solution to that tension was less than ten feet away, searching through Giles’ bookshelves.

“This one looks promisin’,” he finally whispered, handing the book to her. “Let me try to find a couple more, though…”

Buffy heard a muffled voice and a creak upstairs and instantly lunged at Spike, tackling him to ground and hiding them behind the couch from anyone who might casually look in the living area.

Beneath her, Spike made a slight ‘oof’ing noise and this strange deflating sound.

Buffy attempted to slow her wild panting at being so tightly pressed up against him once more and waited for Giles to come downstairs. And waited. And waited.

“Christ, Slayer!” Spike hissed in annoyance, shoving her off of him and brushing himself off as he rose to his feet. “Overreact much?”

“B-But I heard…” Buffy insisted, trying not to moan out in protest when her body was separated from the wonderful feel of taut muscles beneath cool leather.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Watcher talks in ‘is sleep sometimes,” he practically growled, feeling cautiously at the bottle of Scotch he’d nicked and breathing a sigh of relief when it hadn’t broken in his pocket. A wicked leer crossed over his face. “I didn’t know better, I’d say you liked jumpin’ my bones every chance you can get…”

Buffy’s face turned bright red with embarrassment at being caught, and she hoped to god he couldn’t make the color out in the dark.

“As if!” she finally replied in an irritated whisper.

He chuckled and returned to his work, leafing through several books he’d pulled from the shelves.

Buffy scowled at the dark outline of his back as best she could to let him know just how much she hadn’t enjoyed being pressed up against him again.

Her mind, however, was doing a little happy dance. Did you get a feel of his abs? her right hand was saying excitedly. Nope, her left replied, but I got a quick grasp of ass… Very nice. Her panties were starting to feel sticky again.

Really, this schoolgirl crush on Spike had to end absolutely right now! Evil vampire, remember? the responsible part of her pointed out. Jonathan’s former archenemy? Killed two Slayers before?

But, oh, so beautiful…

“An’ these two should do it,” he finally said, handing her two more books.

She squinted in the dark, trying to make sure that he didn’t pilfer anything else of Giles’, while he put everything back the way he had found it.

Finally, he finished, and a cool hand pressed into the small of her back, indicating that they should leave. Buffy headed out just slowly enough that the glorious touch to her back never stopped, and he seemed content to leave his hand there as they escaped the apartment together.

“What now?” Buffy asked in her regular speaking voice now that the immediate danger was over.

He shrugged. “We got books. We look through them…an’ what happened to ‘oh, I’m in charge’,” he said in a squeaky little voice, “anyway?”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “I was just wondering if you thought we needed to do any more…” Her arms flailed around wildly as she tried to come up with an appropriate term.

“Thievin’?” he teased her. “Robbery? Burglary? Petty crime?”

“Stop it,” she scowled.

He flashed her a cocky grin. “Make me,” he challenged.

“Oh, I’ll make you…” Her hands clenched in fists. “I’ll make you…good.” She smacked her head at the lameness of that threat before he even got a chance to comment on it.

“I think hittin’ me was the idea there, Brady,” he taunted her, “not hittin’ yourself.”

“Buffy!”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“We need someplace where we won’t be disturbed to do research,” she said thoughtfully, ignoring their most recent exchange. “Let’s go back to your crypt.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Well, since you’re the one askin’, Slayer…”

“Ugh!” her face contorted in disgust – more because she’d missed the secondary meaning of that statement than because the idea wasn’t appealing to her. “I meant to work.”

“That’s what you call it then,” he winked.

“Argh!” she exclaimed, clutching at her hair. “Is everything that comes out of your mouth a sexual innuendo?!” she demanded.

“No,” he said with a delighted smile, “it seems everythin’ that comes out of your mouth is a sexual innuendo.”

Buffy let out a sigh of exasperation. “Let’s just go search for tattoos…” she began and then ‘eep’ed when she realized she’d done it again. What had that lecture in Professor Walsh’s class on Freudian slips been about again? Mortified, she quickly walked ahead of him, practically running into the crypt.

He followed her with a satisfied smile and shut the door behind the two of them.

The figure in the shadows watched the crypt for a few minutes, seeing a few candles light up in the windows. Once it was clear that he two weren’t coming out any time soon, he finally stepped out into the open.

Riley’s eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists. When Jonathan had first told him to keep a close eye of Buffy, he’d thought his friend had just been overreacting. After all, Buffy had been under a lot of stress lately with her papers and the slaying…

But now he knew for certain that there was something dreadfully wrong with her. He’d watched nearly flabbergasted all night as she chatted and laughed and hung out and flirted with that…that…vampire! She’d actually helped him out on his usual criminal activities. And now she’d gone back to his place to spend the night!

Riley debated busting into the crypt right then and there and staking that pathetic loser before he could even get a chance to touch his Buffy. But that would be contrary to Jonathan’s orders from when they’d met up in the cemetery.

“Just keep an eye on them and don’t interfere,” he’d said. “And report everything to me in the morning.”

And if there was one thing Riley knew how to do perfectly, it was how to follow orders.

Nevertheless, he promised himself that when this was over and his Buffy was back to normal, he’d make that undead scum suffer before he finally sent him to hell…

Buffy sat on the stone sarcophagus beside Spike, trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position while searching through the symbols in her text. Spike, of course, didn’t seem to find the cold stone uncomfortable in the least. She gave him a dirty look that was completely lost since he was too busy searching through his own book.

She shifted again and finally couldn’t take it anymore. “How can you possibly be comfortable?” she finally exclaimed. “My spine’s going numb!”

He looked up at her as if surprised to find that he wasn’t alone. “’d offer you the chair,” he said with a slight scowl, “but it seems someone destroyed it… Who was that again?” he asked sarcastically. “Oh yeah, you.”

“Well, I can’t possibly read like this,” she insisted, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Are you always so whiny?” he demanded.

“Whiny?” she exclaimed in disgust. “Whiny?!”

He gave her a lascivious leer and ran one hand up and down his thigh enticingly. “If you’re lookin’ for an invite to sit in my lap, luv, why din’t you jus’ say so?” he teased.

Her face turned bright red at just how appealing that offer sounded, and she quickly turned back to her book. “In your dreams,” she grumbled under her breath, hopelessly embarrassed.

He shook his head and flipped the page in his book to find… “Oy, Slayer,” he called her over. “This it?”

She scootched over to him and looked at the page from over his shoulder. “Yes!” she exclaimed in pure, unadulterated delight.

Outside, Riley heard her cry and flinched.

“What does it mean?” Buffy asked Spike, their thighs brushing lightly as they sat side by side and read.

He frowned. “’S from a spell,” he reread the section carefully. “’pparently, ‘s an enhancin’ spell…”

“Enhancing spell,” Buffy scowled. “What does that mean?”

“Well, s’pose you wanted to make somethin’ better. Your car, or a spell, or a racehorse, or whatnot,” he explained. “This spell does it.”

Buffy nodded slowly. “So Jonathan enhanced…himself?”

“Looks like it,” Spike agreed. “The symbol appears on whatever’s been enhanced.”

“What about to monster then?” Buffy wondered.

“’S a side effect,” Spike pointed to the passage. “All the nastiness that got cut out o’ your good friend Jonathan went into the monster.”

“That’s why he’s trying to defend it,” Buffy nodded slowly. “He doesn’t want us to find out he cast the spell…”

“Not jus’ that,” Spike commented. “Destroyin’ the monster reverses the spell.”

She smiled. “Guess we know what our next move is then. Good work…partner.”

He gave her a shy smile as well. “Same time tomorrow?” he inquired.

She nodded. “You know, I never would’ve believed it,” she began, “but we make one helluva team…”

He shrugged and looked away, seeming slightly…embarrassed? of all things. His reaction filled Buffy’s stomach with the strange, warm feeling.

“Good night, Spike,” she said softly, rising to her feet.

He rose as well, and for an instant their bodies were only a few millimeters apart. “’Night, Betsy,” he agreed before stepping away.

Her body visibly slumped when he moved away. “That’s Buffy,” she said in exasperation before leaving his crypt.

Riley had long gone by then and didn’t see her leave.

Uh-oh, Riley caught them in the act...well, not in the act he thought, but still... And do I sense definite sparkage between our two partners in crime? And is anyone else wondering what Spike is thinking about Buffy's little crush? To find out the answers to these and more, review, review, review! ^_^