Buffy would never be able to fully recapture the intense gratitude she'd felt on the lip of that crater -- staring out at the devastation that had once been her home and had often been her hell. Oh, how she'd smiled. And oh, how undeniably proud she'd sounded when she announced to everyone that Spike had been their particular saviour. Proud and happy. Perhaps it wasn't the romantic love that she'd passed off to him in the moments before he'd burned up, but it was something. Heartfelt and sincere and somewhere beyond the realm of romance.

Whatever it was, it made him part of the club. Self-sacrificers Anonymous. It wasn't a bond to be taken lightly, especially not with her own life and the lives of her sister and her friends riding upon what Spike had accomplished. In a very real way, she owed him everything.

Still -- that didn't make him any more bearable or her any less disconnected. Spike would have his singular glimpse of sincere affection and then she would go back to being what she always was: the Slayer.

"You're not allowed. Can't abide anyone beating me on the death score. We're tied, now. Deal with it."