"Because you love her, you dumb git," he said to himself, and stopped walking. He was dumbfounded. He knew there was a fire between them. He'd even accepted how deeply he'd begun to care about her well-being, and that of the Niblet. But...love? The kind of love he'd once clumsily tried to put into verse?

The memory of being alone with her on the porch, he just couldn't let it go. She'd been a little restless, almost pacing as she'd shared just a scrap of her night with him. Spike had felt his body following, unbidden, each move she made, in some sort of absurd and ethereal dance with Buffy as the lead.