A Two-Part Harmony, Part I

Title: A Two-Part Harmony

Rating: R

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Notes: There are pairings that scream to be written because you can think of so much beauty that the couple can express through their love, because there is something transcendent in the idea of the two of them together, and because as a writer you yearn to give meaning to that passion.

And then, there are Spike and Harmony.

Zyrya, a lovely writer and person, won me in the Writercon auction. She wanted a pairing that I would never have considered writing otherwise, and I'm very glad she did. This 'ship deserves to be explored, if for no other reason than the two vamps most involved don't seem to have given it a hell of a lot of thought themselves. Harmony was there from the beginning of BtVS to the end of AtS, but as far as I'm concerned, we never saw enough of her. And she and Spike are hot as well as funny on screen together.

I hope they are also hot and funny in Two-Part Harmony.

Thanks: To DorothyL and Keswindhover for the beta, to Devil Piglet for fashion advice, and, because it bears repeating, to Zyrya for encouraging me to write this pairing and for providing so many insights into the characters.

Winner of Best Spike/Harmony at the Harem of Spike Awards.

Winner of Best Het Fic in the Wanton Folly Awards.

Nominated in Best of Rare Pairings, Best Short Completed Fic, and Best M/F Fic at the Fang Fetish Awards.

Part One

Season 4 of BtVS. A few hours before dawn, about a week before "The Harsh Light of Day"

Being a vampire sucked.

Harmony slouched back into the corner of the booth, hoping she wouldn't be noticed by the other occupants of the bar.

Being inconspicuous was so not her thing, but this place was way scarier than she'd expected. She'd taken the advice of a female vamp she'd met in a graveyard, which just showed that you shouldn't trust someone just because she was wearing Hilfinger. The vamp had told Harmony this was a demon hangout, and she'd expected to find it full of vampires. But there were lots of different kinds of things here, and Harmony didn't even know what most of them were. Some of them had horns, and tails, and all kinds of weird extra limbs, and most of them were icky colors. They all scowled a lot. (She supposed that made sense; it would make her totally cranky if her antennae clashed with her scales.) But Harmony didn't know what to say to any of them and she felt really out of place.

The vamp who'd told her about the bar wasn't there, and she didn't recognize any others of her own kind. Besides which, the room was nasty and would have turned her stomach even without her new supernaturally keen sense of smell. The gross vinyl seat beneath her was split, with its stuffing popping out. And the table in front of her was covered with the sticky sourness of beer that had been spilt a lot earlier than this evening.

But she just couldn't bear to spend another whole night all alone, with no one to talk to or anything. She'd done that too many times since the creepy twilight when she'd clawed her way through damp earth and found herself grubby and hungry, crouching in a cemetery, her favorite Versace dress hanging from her body like a filthy rag. What had her mom been thinking to bury her and her best designer wear in all that awful dirt?

The vamp who'd turned her must have died at the high school, or else he was just a dead-beat sire, because she'd been left to figure things out all on her own.

The eating part wasn't hard. She'd worked that out within the first hour when she'd seen a man walking a dog. She'd been so hungry, she'd followed her instincts and bitten him. Then she'd grabbed his yappy little puppy and discovered that just because she wasn't human any more didn't mean she couldn't regret an impulsive dessert. Dog blood didn't taste nearly as good as human, and she had still been picking Cocker Spaniel fur out of her fangs at dawn.

Harmony slouched over her drink, staring at it suspiciously. When the bartender had made it clear that he didn't have the ingredients for a Screaming Orgasm, a Mango Margarita, or even a Mojito, she'd asked for white wine. What she'd been handed was either a really bad vintage, or—she decided not to think of any other possibilities.

Okay, so she was stuck in this stupid bar. She'd still come a long way from that first morning after she'd been turned. Then, she'd learned stuff the really hard way, by trial and error. The scars from her first encounter with sunlight had terrified her even more than the pain, but they'd healed up during a day spent hiding in a mausoleum and had been invisible again when sunset let her go out in search of a bath and something decent to wear.

She'd followed home a woman who was wearing what looked like Armani. Not Harmony's favorite designer, but acceptable. So even though the dress had turned out to be a knock-off, Harmony had approached its wearer, pretending to be a crime victim. She'd asked to use the telephone, and had gotten inside the house. There she'd helped herself to a warm meal, a hot shower, decent makeup, some fairly stylish clothes—and found a mirror.

Harmony had been really panicked when she'd found out she couldn't see herself in mirrors. Getting dressed was a nightmare, and she'd been completely miserable until another vamp had told her she looked gorgeous and picked her up outside the Bronze, where she'd gone to sniffle over her lost reflection and eat some ex-classmates.

Jerry had been kind of a dork, but he let her stay in his crypt and told her a lot of vamp rules, some of them helpful and some of them boring stories that sounded like stuff Willow and Mr. Giles used to say. It was hard to pay attention, but he was her new boyfriend, so she tried to smile and nod a lot. She was glad she had made the effort when he finally mentioned that she would show up in photographs. Duh! Like he couldn't have told her something that important first thing instead of going on and on about respecting sires and clan feuds! Geeks had no sense of priorities.

She'd rushed to the mall and spent a couple of hours in a photo booth, taking picture after picture of herself. What a relief! It was pretty humiliating to realize her skin tone had changed so much the dress she was wearing totally washed her out and that the foundation she'd been using clashed with her new, paler complexion, but she still looked amazing, even when she got all lumpy and fangy. There was nothing wrong with her that a complete makeover and a new wardrobe couldn't cure. And she was going to look that good forever, with no wrinkles or anything—well, unless you counted what happened to her forehead whenever she got really hungry. Besides—she didn't even have to try to stick to a stupid clothes budget any more! And shoplifting wasn't scary now that she could just eat any security guard who tried to arrest her.

Her enthusiasm had been a little dashed when she'd returned to the crypt, laden with bags of shoes, clothes, and cosmetics, and with her belly full from the blood of other shoppers she'd eaten in the dressing rooms. She'd sung out a greeting to Jerry, only to find a pile of dust where her dorky boyfriend should have been.

And one false fingernail that someone had lost in the fight that killed him. As if she couldn't have guessed who was responsible even if she hadn't recognized that unflattering shade of nail polish.

Buffy is so mean. It was just like her to wear such a tacky pink and to stake someone else's boyfriend when she didn't even want him for herself.

So now Harmony needed a new boyfriend. Or, at least, a new crowd to run with.

The old crowd was gone. Even if they hadn't been mortal enemies now, on account of Harmony being a vampire, Cordelia had gotten poor and gone to LA, and the other girls she used to hang with were dead or in college. She hadn't communicated real well with her parents when she was alive, and she guessed that being dead would just make things worse. Besides, they were boring and old.

Starting over won't be easy, but I just need to do what I did in high school. I have to find the most popular kids—uh, popular vamps—and smile and laugh at what they say until they like me. Then everything will be okay again.

So, here she was, all by herself on the torn vinyl seat of a booth in a sleazy bar, a glass of some disgusting yellow stuff in front of her, waiting for something to happen, and hoping it would be something good. The sun was coming up soon, so she'd have to leave. She'd have gone already, but she was afraid to make her way past the purple guys who'd been hanging out by the door for an hour now, shoving each other and making loud jokes in a language she didn't understand.

As she was trying to gather the courage to stand up, the door was flung open and two guys came in. No, two vampires came in. One had dark hair and was okay-looking, but his appearance barely registered in Harmony's consciousness. She was too busy staring in unbreathing fascination at his companion.

The vampire in the lead was—well, he was almost short, but he seemed to take over the whole room the second he strode through the door, shoving scaly demons out of his way absent-mindedly as he stalked up to the bar. Leather coat, platinum hair, nice cheekbones and— She gulped as he turned around and scanned the room, seeming to catalog and dismiss its occupants with one glance.

Really, really amazing blue eyes.

Harmony shrank even further back into the darkness of the booth as a hulking demon at the bar objected to being pushed. The blond vampire didn't respond to the complaint with a word or even a flicker of his eyelids, but as he turned back to face the bartender, his fist flew out and caught the protesting monster in the gut. The big demon went down, and the vampire shoved a scuffed boot into the creature's heaving belly as he boosted himself up onto a bar stool.

"Jack Daniels," he said. "And leave the bottle."

All the other demons in the bar seemed to hunker down, and even the purple gang by the door got quiet, as if they were afraid the blond vampire would notice them.

Wow. Gorgeous, brutal, and he has a really neat accent.

She sat for a while, watching him drink and talk to his companion. There was something about the way he held his glass and the set of his shoulders that made her stomach flutter. She put a hand to her chest. Nothing was happening there, but she knew that if she'd still been human, her heart would be beating really, really fast.

There was no way Harmony Kendall would pass up an opportunity like this. She set a cautious foot out of the booth, smoothed her hair, and pasted on her best smile.

I just hope he's not gay.

Spike had intended to discuss the next day's drilling with Brian, but half-way through his second drink, he found himself trying to explain about Drusilla again.

"You haven't a clue, mate. How could you? You never saw my Dru." He took a swig directly from the bottle before refilling his glass almost to the brim. "There's no one like her. She's dark, mysterious. Lovely, of course, but not in any way you'd imagine." Spike squinted, conjuring up the familiar image in his mind, searching for words to describe her. "Not classic features or anything like that. Unique. Yeah, she was unique. Nothing about her was what you'd expect. You could never know what she'd say, who she'd kill, or what beautiful horrors she was seeing with those dark, criminally insane eyes. They're the most amazing eyes there ever were. I spent a century staring into them, and I never got near their lunatic depths. I could have lost myself in those eyes forever. I would have, if she'd let me."

Spike sighed. Brian, the stupid git, was staring blankly at him. Useless ponce.

Useless unlife. Not even the Gem would do him any good if he couldn't stop mooning over a bitch who was so far around the bend she'd rather date someone who looked like the spawn of Bambi and a slime monster.

He chugged his next drink more rapidly than he had intended, dropped his glass on the bar, and swung around to face the vamp who'd been lurking behind him for the past five minutes.

He'd sensed it as soon as he'd entered the bar, of course, but he'd also felt it cringe away. It was moving now, though, and moving towards him.

And there it was.

It was—it was a blonde bint in a pink outfit.

Spike blinked. He hadn't been expecting a serious threat, but he hadn't been expecting this either. He leaned back against the bar, eyes drinking her in.

Long hair. Luscious tits under some skimpy, silky thing with lacy frills. Long, sexy legs. A short skirt and ridiculous high heels that made the legs look even longer and sexier. His gaze swept back up from ankle to thigh to breasts—lingering there for a bit—and finally back to her face. Perfect features. If someone sat an artist down and said, "draw me the most beautiful bitch you can imagine," that face might be the result. And it was wearing a come-hither smile directed at him.

He met her eyes. Bloody hell, those eyes! Green and sparkling, with an utterly vacuous stare that matched her insipid grin.

Spike slipped off the bar stool, his boots digging deep into the gut of the Zarthruaz demon that was still moaning at his feet.

He's looking at me! Harmony gazed into electric blue eyes.

"Hello, Barbie."

He's talking to me! She forced her smile wider as she took a few steps forward. His head tilted to one side and one eyebrow flew up. That eyebrow had a really sexy scar through it.

He's smiling at me!

"So, pretty thing, what grave did you crawl out of?"

Oh, no! I hope that's a vamp pick-up line and doesn't mean he's teasing me because he's figured out I'm new. Harmony opened her mouth to respond, but only the tiniest croak came out. She panicked for a moment before she realized she hadn't taken in any air to form words.

"Bat got your tongue?" He was definitely teasing now.

"I got killed when there was a big snake and the high school blew up!" Harmony's words tripped out in a rush.

"So, the Barbie doll can talk after all."

She didn't like being called that, but she could tell from his expression that he wanted to play more than dolls. She ducked her head a little and looked up through her lashes flirtatiously. "I'm Harmony."

"Well, hello, Harm." Something about the way he drawled out the words made her feel as if he'd tossed her to the floor and started to rip her clothes off. She liked that feeling a lot.

But she had to get this name thing worked out. "Uh, Harmony."

"As in, peace and—? I don't think so, pet." His smile widened as he watched her reaction. "Now, that is an adorable pout." He motioned to the bartender. "A drink for the lady," he said.

Harmony opened her mouth to thank him, but he had already turned away and was talking to the vamp next to him about some boring tunnels and digging. He even used the word "boring," and she let the words wash over her as she tried to think of something to say to recapture his attention. She should talk to him about himself, but she didn't know anything except that he could hit really hard. And that he could talk.

"Your accent is so cool," she gushed, interrupting him in mid-sentence. "Are you, like, English or something?"

He turned back to her slowly, his eyes so cold that for a moment she was afraid he would hit her. "Yeah," he said, and started to look away again.

An idea tumbled into her brain. "That's kind of by France, right?" she followed up desperately.

This time, the corner of his mouth twitched, and she thought—hoped—he was starting to smile again. "Yeah, kind of."

"I was going to go to France after graduation, but there was the big snake, and I got bit, but not by the snake, of course, because that wouldn't have made me a vampire, and I thought I could go anyway, because I'd gotten a passport before I died, but then I was afraid I'd burn all up in the airplane before I ever got to see the shops or anything. But you got all the way over here from, like, England, right?"

"Yeah," he said for the third time. "There are ways, pet."

"I knew you were way smarter than Jerry." She gripped her glass tightly, dreams of Paris couture dancing through her head. "Did you take, like, trains or something?" she asked hopefully.

"Not exactly," he said. "Brian, you can tell those wankers that if we don't get through that bedrock by this time tomorrow, I will use their own tools to play dentist and they can find out how much fun it is trying to feed without incisors—"

Harmony was starting to feel desperate. There had to be something she could do to really get his attention. Actually ripping off her clothes might work, but this wasn't the right place for that. She needed to be charming. And witty. Her brow creased until she almost morphed into vamp face. What to say?

She was trying so hard to think she didn't realize he'd dropped his empty glass on the bar and was heading for the door until he was halfway there. She was standing, frozen, holding her own drink and wondering if she should call out to him, when he looked over his shoulder, and cast her a glance that made her stomach flutter again. He didn't say anything, but he raised one hand and crooked his finger.

Harmony squeaked with excitement and pointed at her chest with her free hand. "Me?" she asked.

"Yeah, you, Barbie. Come on." He turned away, and she scurried to follow, realized she was still holding her drink, and rushed back to drop it on the bar, spilling half the contents in her haste. He was already out the door, and she had to run to catch up, stumbling into the back of his leather coat as her high heels slid out from under her.

"I'm serious, mate," he said, not stopping his conversation with Brian, although he slipped an arm around her waist, steadying her and steering her towards a huge, old car. "I want to get the Gem and be out of this pathetic excuse for a hellmouth by the end of the week."

He yanked open the car door and Harmony stared doubtfully at the mess inside. He didn't wait for her to get in, but strode around to the driver's side, barking out questions about drill bits and tolerance levels.

Harmony slid onto the seat gingerly, thinking about her own tolerance levels, and trying to avoid the worst of the mess of food wrappers, cigarette packs, and empty liquor bottles that littered the interior. She cringed when her foot slipped and a napkin smeared with ketchup, or blood, or some other goopy thing that was sure to stain came perilously close to her Pradas. Almost before she'd closed the passenger door, the car took off, and she had to grab hold of the dashboard to keep her balance. She tried to peer out the window, but it was covered with black paint or grease or something.

He was steering with one hand and lighting a cigarette with the other. He seemed to be paying only the slightest attention to the gaps in the black paint as he drove. Harmony stopped trying to understand what he was saying to Brian, who was crouched in the back seat, and concentrated on reminding herself that she was already dead, so a crash couldn't be fatal.

In a few minutes, he parked. At least, Harmony decided that's what he'd done, although at first she thought he'd accidentally run off the road and into some bushes. But when he got out of the car, he started throwing some branches over it, so she decided this was a hiding spot. She looked around nervously, wondering where she was going to wind up spending the day.

"Down here!" he called, and she turned, only avoiding a turned ankle thanks to her demon-enhanced muscles. Even her vampire eyes could barely make out the opening where he and Brian had disappeared into the side of a hill. And when she followed them inside, the place looked creepy and slimy.

He stopped suddenly and took her arm. "Don't worry, pet," he said. "The entry way's not much to look at, but my flat is pretty comfy. The last owner got staked before I came back to Sunny-D, but from the looks of things, she took an interior design course from Ann Rice."

As he finished speaking, they emerged into a cave with rough walls covered with lots of crimson hangings and pretty screens. It was lit by some nice lamps, and there was a big bed with an upholstered headboard and lots of pillows and throws tossed over pink sheets. He apparently wasn't into making his bed each morning—or evening—but the place wasn't too cluttered. The biggest mess was on a big table covered with blue-printy-looking things and maps.

"Like it?"

She turned, and saw that he'd dropped a red curtain between them and the passageway where they'd entered. Brian was nowhere to be seen.

"Uh, yeah, uh—"

"Spike." He was pulling off his leather coat.

"Uh—excuse me?" She looked around in confusion.

"Spike is my name, you silly bint. I thought you might be interested in knowing it, seeing as we're about to shag."

"Oh." The coat had been tossed over a chair and his t-shirt followed it. She gulped as he reached for his belt-buckle.

"Or were you expecting something else?" he asked. His jeans hit the cave's floor.

"Oh, no, not something else," she assured him, staring. "Well, maybe something a little less impressive."

He laughed and moved forward, and a moment later, his mouth was on hers, and it felt so good she forgot to be nervous or scared. Even though he was another vamp, she didn't feel quite so cold inside with him touching her, and his lips and tongue were waking up nerve endings she hadn't known she had. Jerry hadn't been this good at kissing, or at running his hands along her body until every inch of her seemed to be screaming that something wonderful was about to happen.

None of the guys she'd dated when she was alive had been this good at it either.

Soon, Spike moved on from kissing her lips and feeling her up to pushing her down on the bed. She let him do it, because it still felt good, but she couldn't help wishing things were moving a little slower.

Kissing had always been Harmony's favorite part. What came after was nice too, but she'd never really found it worth the mussed hair and wrinkled clothes and sweatiness and all the rest of the mess. Of course, she didn't get sweaty any more. But otherwise it had been the same with Jerry as it had been with human guys, a lot of grunting and body parts getting mixed up together before the guy made some faces and went to sleep.

Spike had been about to tear off Harmony's clothes, but she'd squealed in dismay, so he forced himself to undress that incredible body bit by bit. A few minutes later she was squealing again, but dismay didn't seem to be the motivating factor any more. Those green eyes were easy to read, and right now they were broadcasting equal parts of pleasure and surprise.

For all her willingness to fall into his arms, Harmony didn't seem half-experienced in bed, not by Spike's standards. No worries there, though. She wasn't the brightest bitch he'd ever encountered, but he thought she'd be amenable to training, at least in this one subject.

He slipped his hand between her thighs. It had been a long time since any bit of him had vacationed in such a sweet spot, and he was in a hurry to enjoy his holiday.

Harmony's legs spread open obediently, and Spike yielded to impulse. More intensive training sessions could wait until he was a tad less distracted.

For the first time since Dru had left him, he felt just fine.

This was good, really good, and Harmony suddenly thought it might get even better, sort of like she was climbing up a mountain, and when she got to the top something wonderful would happen. Every time Spike thrust into her, she got a little closer to that peak, then fell away, as if she'd stumbled back a step. But the sex was still better than it had ever been before, and, without thinking, she wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles and pulling him as far into her as she could. She gasped with the force of it, and, just for a second, she thought she was going to reach the top of that mountain.

But Spike's eyes grew darker and he shouted wordlessly, his back arching up as he thrust into her hard one last time. He collapsed, gasping and clutching her shoulders before lying still and cold on top of her.

Harmony tumbled down the mountain. She felt cheated, as if someone had dangled a pair of Manolo Blahniks before her eager eyes and snatched them away. Her legs dropped back to the mattress beneath her, her whole body drooping with disappointment and frustration. She was so sad, it took her a minute or so to remember what she was supposed to say now.

"Oh, Spike," she cooed in his ear. "That was sooo wonderful. You are just the best, baby."

He raised himself up, cocking his scarred eyebrow at her. Then he rolled her over and brought his hand down hard on her ass.

"Ow!" she squealed, more from shock than pain.

"Liar!" he said, swatting her again.

"Ow!" she said, and added, with surprised sincerity, "No, never mind. I like that. Do it again."

Instead, he rolled her on her back, grabbed her hands and held them over her head, and jumped astride her. "Later," he said, "but only if you're a good girl and don't tell any more fibs."

"I didn't—" she started to protest, but stopped as she stared into those amazing blue eyes. Her stomach fluttered again, and she wondered if he had some special demon power that let him see right through her.

"Very naughty of you, not to tell the truth," he said. "But I don't think you'll lie to me again." His lips were against her cheek, then brushing her ear. Other parts of him were rubbing against her flesh, and she was starting to climb that mountain again. She gave up all thought of struggling, and waited to see what he was going to do next.

He released her hands and his lips moved to her throat, as his hands slid down her body. "You won't lie to me, pet, because you won't need to. I'll make sure of that."

Ten minutes later, her fingers twisting through his hair, her head flung back against the pillows as her body quaked under the pressure of his hands and tongue, Harmony finally discovered what was at the top of that mountain. She screamed, shifting involuntarily to vamp face as Spike lifted his head from between her thighs and began to laugh in triumph.

"Say it now, pet!"

"Oh, Spikey," she moaned. "That was sooo wonderful! You are the best, my sweet platinum baby."

"That's my good, truthful girl. Now you've earned that spanking."

Harmony squealed and laughed as she was flipped over onto her stomach.

Early the next evening

“You’ve got the weirdest stuff.” Harmony directed her comment to the prone body lying on the bed behind her. She’d poked and prodded Spike when she woke up, but he’d only grunted and muttered something about dozy cows who should bugger off, so she’d started poking and prying into his belongings instead.

She'd opened the dresser and found some shirts (all black), a spare pair of jeans (also black), and no underwear at all. Well, she'd already guessed her new guy wasn't a clothes horse. She'd have to steal him a few nice things.

There was some peroxide. Easy to guess what that was for. The box labeled blasting caps was a little more confusing. The chains coiled in the bottom drawer were downright worrying.

Next to the chains was a rose satin jewelry box. When she opened it, a little ballerina popped up and started dancing to some silly music. Harmony smiled. She'd had a box like this once, but hers had been tacky. This one was real old, and the ballerina was porcelain with a tulle dress, instead of all molded plastic.

"Oh, look at this sweet, old-fashioned stuff." She held up a locket. "What's in here? Pictures, or locks of hair, or—teeth?" She stared at the open locket. "Baby teeth. Were they from someone's kids, maybe?"

At last one of her comments drew a reaction from the figure on the bed. "They were someone's kids, all right, but not Drusilla's precisely."

"Who's Dolores? The woman who used to live in this room?"

"No, Drusilla is the woman I spent the past century with. And when she comes back, I don't want her finding some silly bitch has been pawing through her things."

Spike was out of the bed now, standing next to her and taking the locket away. He turned his back as he rearranged items in the jewelry box.

"Coming back?" Harmony didn't like the sound of that. "Where is she?"

"I don't bloody know. But when she comes to her senses—never mind." He was leaning on the dresser now, his expression grim.

Oh, she dumped him. That's okay then.

"No problemo about the locket. It's not like I'm not all into the evil now, but that is so not my fashion statement." Harmony pulled aside one of the wall hangings—well, cave hangings—and continued her explorations. "And did Deidre wear this too?" She held up a long, lacy gown. "Sheesh, did she stop reading In Style with the July 1776 issue?"

Spike snatched the dress away. "Leave her things alone. And her name is Drusilla, you dink."

His tone was harsh and he trying to loom over her, but he really wasn't tall enough to loom. The way he was glaring was really hot, though.

Harmony stepped closer to Spike and pouted, her lips almost reaching his. "How come you're so fussy about her name, but you call me 'Harm?'" She ran one hand along his arm, carefully manicured fingernails scraping against his pale flesh and raising the fine hairs that covered flesh and muscle. "Makes me wonder if you want me to hurt you?" She reached down, grabbing for his cock, but his hand intercepted hers.

They stood for a long moment, staring at each other, and she licked her lips in anticipation. His grip tightened on her wrist, and he tossed her on the bed. Laughing, she spread her legs to give him a good view of what he had there in his cave with him—nothing like that to make him forget fusty old what's-her-name—but instead of jumping her bones, Spike turned and picked up his jeans and t-shirt.

Harmony sat up. "What are you doing?"

He rolled his eyes. "Getting dressed. Thought even you could work that out."

"But—?"

"Listen, Harm. I came back to this Slayer-infested burg for a very specific reason, and it wasn't to shag the queen of the Sunnydale mall rats." He paused to pull his shirt over his head. "There's a Gem hidden somewhere around here that will let me avenge myself for some old insults that are still smarting pretty hard, and might even get me Dru back."

"But—but, Spikey, what about me?"

He sat down on the end of the bed with his back to her and reached for his boots. "You stay where you are, and when I'm done with this night's work, I'll show you how to play some more. In the meantime, be a good little vampire, and stay out of trouble—and out of Dru's things."

"But what can I do?"

He stood up, not bothering to turn around. "How can I explain to you that I really don't care? Go find yourself a nibble if you're hungry, but don't expect me to rescue you if you get in trouble."

He was gone. Harmony plumped the pillows behind her and sulked. It would serve him right if she left and didn't come back.

She ran her hands along her body. But it wouldn't serve her right. The philosophy Harmony had lived by worked just as well now that she was dead. Mostly, she just went after what she wanted, and right now she wanted more of what Spike had done to her last night.

His old girlfriend wasn't a problem. Harmony had seen lots of couples break up during her high school career, and all her instincts told her that Dagmar was gone for good. Besides, there was no way she was going to waste her time worrying about a rival who had probably never even heard of Alexander McQueen or Juicy Couture.

And if Spike wanted to get out of Sunnydale, that meant she could talk him into going to France as soon as he found his Gem thingie.

But did Spike like Harmony enough to keep her around? He had talked to her kind of mean just before he left, but most people did that at least sometimes. It didn't mean he'd dump her. No, he'd liked the way she'd flirted, and he'd said he'd be back.

Of course, lots of guys said that.

Then she remembered she was in his bedroom, so he really would be back. She lay back on the bed and hugged herself, reassured at last.

She had a boyfriend. She had a cool guy who was really good at sex and who scared everyone around him and who would take care of her and take her to France so she could finally have all the clothes she wanted. She belonged to someone.

Being a vampire wasn't so bad after all.

Early evening, just before the start of "The Harsh Light of Day."

Spike jerked awake. Light! There'd been a flash of bright light. He sat up, staring around in fear, until he realized he was in his bedroom, deep underground, with no one but Harmony for company. She was perched on the end of the bed, dressed in yet another bit of clingy, silky, pastel-covered, lace-trimmed fabric and holding something in front of her face.

Another flash, bright enough to have woken him, but only artificial light. Not dangerous, just annoying. Like the click and whirring noise that accompanied the flash. Like his companion.

"What are you doing?" He flung himself back down on the bed.

"Getting dressed." Harmony scowled down at the square of paper in her hand. "I thought this top was a perfect match for my lip gloss, but it seems a shade off to me now." She shoved the Polaroid in front of his face and plopped herself down next to him, her face inches from its image in the photo. "Is it? Or is there a problem with the color in that camera? Because, if there is, getting dressed is going to be an even bigger pain than it is already."

He stared up at her. "You take your picture every sodding time you get dressed?"

"Well, sure." She reached over to the table that held a bedside lamp and picked up several more photos. "Bunches. How else can I tell if my eye shadow is on straight or if my hair looks good?"

Spike closed his eyes and moaned.

"Seriously, how do I look?"

He pried his eyelids open to see that she had struck a fashion-model pose, gorgeous legs sprawled across the bed, golden hair flowing down her back like something from a bloody advert, head tilted to display her enchanting profile, and magnificent tits thrust upward. "Like a perfect narcissist," he said.

She preened happily. "Thank you!"

Spike shut his eyes again. The whisky had been getting him nowhere; he'd realized that at last. So he'd focused on getting the Gem of Amarra. Things had improved then, but he'd still needed something to deaden the pain that came rushing back whenever he wasn't actively working on that goal. So he'd picked Harmony as a substitute for the whisky, and she was proving to be a pretty efficient surrogate. Like the Jack Daniels, she dulled for a time the agony of missing Drusilla and the bitter memory of having his ass kicked by Angel and Buffy.

And, like the Jack Daniels, she gave him one hell of a headache.

Harmony was shuffling through the pile of photos, beaming proudly at her own image. "Do you think they make bigger Polaroids? Like, one that could take a full-size picture of me, like a full-length mirror? Where could I steal one like that? Because when we go to France, I'll really need it for shopping."

Spike sat up and reached for his jeans.

"Is there any way we can get cable down here? Or have some magazine subscriptions delivered? I mean, I try to get to the mall and steal them regularly, but—can you believe it?—I missed the last issue of Cosmo, and—"

"Brian!" Spike bellowed down the corridor. He was annoyed to hear a note of desperation in his own voice.

"—and without TV, you really miss seeing what everyone is wearing right away, even before the magazines come out, and what if all the really in colors have changed, and—"

Spike yanked a shirt over his head and headed out of the bedroom without a backwards glance.

Harmony pouted. Her Blondie Bear had left her alone again. She looked at the Polaroid and cheered up. Even if the lip gloss wasn't a perfect match, she looked hot. Not that Spike would pay attention, now that he'd gone into that dippy tunnel with Brian. It would be hours and hours before he came back to play with her some more.

She pulled out a darker tube of lipstick, and wondered how it would go with the cute little blouse she'd found last week just after she'd killed the boutique's sales clerk for suggesting she needed to wear a size 8. She reached for the camera again.

Maybe she'd go see what was happening at the Bronze. With any luck, she'd find someone she used to hang with in high school.

Her stomach growled.

With better luck, she'd find some people she'd never liked, and she could eat them.

Part II

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