Story Notes: Written for a Seasonal Spuffy round -  It's pretty ordinary and kind of retro for me. I've been playing mostly in various possible futures lately, but this is a Season Five AU fic that follows a non-canon encounter between Spike and Buffy that leads to the events in this fic.  Thanks are owed Eowyn who read the beginning of it a long time ago when it was just a bunny and smacked me around until I cleaned up the most egregious of the canon issues (Not all of them, I'm sure. Don't blame her - she tried!) And more thanks to my two wonderful betas - Always_jbj and Just_Sue - who had to read the whole thing and catch my other errors and inevitable typos.  Any further mistakes are probably due to my incessant fiddling and not at all their fault.
 
Disclaimer: Joss's characters, my twist on his Season V