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“Angel, it’s your little sister Buffy here. Just wanted to reconfirm that you are picking me up tomorrow. My flight lands at 2:30, see ya then.”

William ‘Spike’ Giles rolled his eyes as he listened to the message. To say he had just had a bad day was an understatement. To say it had just gotten worse, after listening to the answering machine, was just rubbing salt into his wounds.

Spike clicked off the answering machine and turned to glare at his best friend come roommate.

“Something you forgot to tell me, mate?” he asked, making no attempt to hide his anger.

“Yeah well, it was sort of a last minute thing. I was going to tell you, I swear it just slipped my mind.”

Spike was not buying it.
Angel and Spike had been best friends since high school. They’d gone to separate colleges but both shared the dream of moving to New York to pursue their respective careers, Spike’s in finance and Angel’s in IT. At first they’d shared a rent control apartment to cut down on costs. The more successful the pair became, the higher up the rental scale they rose, but they had not moved out on their own. It was as though they needed each other to keep them grounded and not loose sight of where they had come from.

Spike did not share the same affection for the voice on the answering machine as his roommate did. Buffy was Angel’s younger sister. In the same way that Angel and Spike’s friendship had been instantaneous, with Spike and Buffy they had started fighting on the day they first met, back during in the boys’ freshman year. And the animosity had never stopped.

“And the fact I hate your sister with the heat of a thousand suns has absolutely nothing to do with this selective amnesia?” Spike asked as he raised his eyebrows.

Maybe it was time to move out; at twenty-nine he was making more than enough to live on his own. However there was something great about still living with Angel, no matter how high up the corporate ladder the two of them climbed they still had a certain college mentality. It was as though they were still teenagers at heart.

“Look, I was going to tell you, I’ve just had a lot on my plate. What with the merger and all.” Angels small IT company was in the middle of being bought out by a larger one, and while he stood to gain a lot from it in the meantime it seemed to be taking its toll on him.

“Why is little Miss Priss coming to the New York anyway? Got some last minute wedding gifts she wants to add to her bridal registry?” How Buffy had found someone to marry her was beyond him. Some poor sod named Riley had drawn the short straw. An army man as well, you would think a disciplined man would know better than to marry someone as flighty as Buffy.

“More like return them. She and Riley broke up last week. Apparently serving his country wasn’t enough for Riley, he wanted to serve one of the women in his platoon as well.” Angel’s jaw ticked in anger.

As much as Spike didn’t like Buffy he couldn’t help but feel for her. He knew only too well what it was like to be cheated on.

“Look, Spike. I know you love nothing more than pissing Buffy off, but I am asking you, for her sake, can you take it easy on her? Talking to her on the phone… I’ve never heard her so broken,” Angel explained, his eyes clouding over with sadness. Turning away he got himself and Spike a beer each from the fridge.

Spike sat back on the couch and took a large swig. It was hard to imagine Buffy as Angel had described her, broken. As much as her strength and conviction pissed him off, he equally admired it. She was a spitfire. Half the time he picked a fight with her was because he enjoyed their verbal sparing. It made him feel alive, and though they had never spoken of it he suspected she felt the same way. It pissed him off to know that some git had taken that from her, all for the sake of a quick tumble in the back of a tank.

“Alright, I’ll cut her some slack, but only because you asked me too. I wouldn’t do her any favours.”

****

It was the worst idea that she had ever had. As the plane circled over JFK airport, waiting for landing clearance, she was starting to regret her decision to visit Angel. Sure, she needed to get out of town, leave Sunnydale and all the craziness that was her broken engagement. Riley never had a good sense of timing and cancelling the wedding so close to the date was no exception. One month before the ceremony not only made her look like a pathetic fool but it had also given her a lot of work to do in a short space of time.

But it wasn’t the calling and cancelling that she hated, after the fourth of fifth one she had gotten the spiel down pat. It was the looks, the stares, and the hushed whispers as she walked into a room that had driven her to make the trip to see her brother. Unfortunately, that also meant seeing Spike.

The prospect of seeing him was not a pleasant one. It wasn’t one thing that drove her crazy about Spike. It was everything. He always had some snappy comeback or unflattering nickname to call her. She didn’t even want to think about the field day he was going to have with the news of her broken engagement. She closed her eyes fighting back the tears. One of the reasons New York had been a good idea was that she could blend in. No longer be the town outcast. No longer be that girl who was left at the alter. Buffy laughed half-heartedly at that, she didn’t even get to the alter. And now she probably never would.

“Miss, you need to put your tray table up,” the hostess advised as she walked past.

“Thank you.” Buffy lifted the table as she prepared for landing.

“Business or pleasure?” the hostess asked.

“Neither,” Buffy paused as she looked at the city below her. “A new life.”





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