She took inventory. Full dark, but the uncurtained bedroom window shone grey with night-mist. Clock, red numbers, 2:30. No sounds from the bathroom, so he wasn't in there. That left only one option.

After all the day's turmoil, not to mention putting extra wards on the house to keep safe one half of the Cup of Xet and then hearing long telephoned confessions from Willow and Andrew and Dawn about disobedience and the loss of a valuable acquisition, he'd gone quiet. He was exhausted, she had thought, and well the idiot should be. So she'd organised a quiet picnic supper out of the contents of the Fortnum hampers, and they'd spent the last evening of their honeymoon curled up together, eating and reading detective novels in front of the fire.

He hadn't got very far in his Allingham, though. Every time she had looked up, he was staring into the flames, his face closed off. That presaged another one of his nightmares, she thought now. His vision must have come back to haunt him.

She got out of bed, shivering in the sudden cold. Season was on the turn – winter would be here before they knew it. Pulling her robe off the bedpost, she wrapped herself up and went to search for him.

On the way down, the lit candles on the entryway table did make her smile. Even if he didn't believe, he did the ritual for her. He did so much for her. The smile carried her down the hall and into the kitchen.

He stood in the open doorway to the world, looking outside: a silhouette, edged in silver by the mist. A slouch of his long body against the doorjamb, a rattle of ice in the tumbler of Scotch in his hand, a deep drag on the unapproved cigarette in his hand. As he blew the smoke out, she said quietly, "Honey, you're going to catch a cold, letting in the night like that."

At the first sound of her voice he tensed, then made himself relax. "Did I wake you, darling? I'm sorry."

"I missed you, that's all. I can't sleep well without my bed-hog." She went to him, her hand rubbing his back. Warm skin, maybe still too a little feverish, through the silk of his robe – "Bad dream from this afternoon? Vision hangover?"

"Yes. But no matter." He took another sip of Scotch, then held the glass out to her. A smile tickled the edges of his lips. "Would you like some?"

"You bet." Ignoring the glass, she stood on tiptoe to drink the taste from his mouth. His lips opened for her, letting her tongue dip in and enjoy. She really did prefer her Scotch this way, even with the faintly nasty tobacco accompaniment. Then, her hands caressing his chest, she said, "That was nice. I'd like some more, please."

"All right. Er, let me just put this out, 's hard to juggle." Easing around her, he went to the table where he'd already set out an ashtray. She didn't like the way his shoulders tensed again even before he crushed out the cigarette, and she couldn't figure out what caused it.

Then she saw the vase of roses, still red, still fresh. I sodding hate roses, he'd said when they were together in the vision– she'd never heard that much sincere loathing in his voice, and she'd certainly never heard it about some stupid flowers. But she knew better than to ask straight out. Small questions lead to big sales, she thought, calling up a memory of their first night together.

He took a long, long drink, his throat moving in a way that made her want to bite at it. Then he turned, sending her a sideways grin. "Didn't you want more?"

"Always." Two steps, and she was locked in one of his arms, lifted up to drink more easily. They kissed until long after the Scotch was gone, until her knees were weak. He slid her down his body and set her on her feet. Swallowing hard, she said, "Hmm. Yes, that was nicer. More is good."

His hand cupping her bottom, he said, "I rather liked it too, darling."

"Of course you did." She allowed herself one little lick just under his Adam's apple, which as always made him shudder in the right way, then said briskly, "Now I'm kind of hungry. Do you want something to eat?"

"Is that a serious question?" Smiling down at her, he pressed her into him so she could feel him hardening.

"We'll get to that too, honey. I'm talking about actual food."

"Spoilsport. No, I'm not hungry." A little kiss on her neck before he let her go. When he stopped smiling, though, she could see the nightmare still was there.

That gave her the strength of mind to force herself to stagger to the refrigerator. As she opened it and looked in, she said, "Why don't you put on some music? Dawn and Andrew gave us a couple of lovely mix-CDs as wedding presents, and I was listening to the portable stereo when I was washing dishes this morning and you were talking to Tom, and – what?"

"You actually want me to select some music?" he said, laughter just underneath his words.

"Oh, good point. No, you find me something to eat, I'll pick a CD."

"I don't know what you want–"

"Yes, you do. More than in choosing music, anyway."

"Christ, you're impossible," he sighed, but he came up behind her, arms on either side of her, and looked into the fridge. "Any thoughts? Meat, bread, cheese, chocolate, fruit?"

"One or two of those would be good, yes. Not too much, just a nibble or two." She kissed his jaw, then slid around him to where she'd left the stereo.

She could hear him mutter, "Just a nibble or two. Right," and she grinned. She knew him – he'd treat this like a research problem and figure out the perfect combination. Leaving him to it, she chose a nice mix-CD and put it in the machine. Soft guitar, kind of jazzy vocals and syncopation, which she approved of – even if his snort suggested he didn't.

She went back to the table and curled up in a chair. He took a little longer to arrange whatever he was fixing on a plate, then he came over to join her. Even as she inspected and sampled her perfectly chosen snack – a few grapes, a small hunk of her favourite Stilton, and another piece of fudge – she noticed that he angled his chair so he didn't have to look at the roses.

They sat like that for a minute or two in the stream of guitar music and night-quiet, he occasionally sipping his Scotch, she nibbling her food. He put his feet on the rungs of her chair, so that slowly, oh so slowly and secretly, he could pull her closer. She'd have laughed at him, or more likely jumped him, except those pain-lines were back across his forehead and around his mouth. They deepened whenever he looked out the window, too, which meant it wasn't just the flowers.

So she ate, and planned, and finally said around a mouth of cheese, "You didn't tell me how Willow and the juniors sounded during confession."

He stared into his Scotch, rolling the liquid around the sides of the glass. "Penitent, of course. They know they left behind a valuable piece of merchandise–"

"Oh, that's my department, honey. And believe me, I'll be taking it out of their skins when we get home." When he smiled at her, she added, "No, I was talking about their mental state. Their, um, Watcher-y state."

"Not my, er, department." He tossed back a mouthful of drink.

"Their Watcher-y state is very much your department, thank you."

"No, it isn't." He looked down at his glass. "Almost out. Excuse me, darling."

As he went over to fetch the Macallan, she said, "Honey, why do you think Dawn and Andrew stay with us?"

"Free satellite television and our well-stocked fridge," he said, pouring himself a good splash.

"I know that was meant to be funny, but come on. You know that they were sent to us because we can care for them, but more because you can instruct them in all things Watcher."

"I don't think so." His hands flat on the counter, he looked away, out the window. Softly he said, "I wasn't a good enough Watcher to instruct anyone."

"That's so much bullshit." When he turned to stare, she said, "No, I'm sorry, but it is. I don't know how many times I have to tell you this."

A long pause for guitar music and night-quiet and his pain. She pushed away her last bits of food, because she could feel the moment of change coming, just as she always had done as a vengeance demon; at that bleak thought, her own face tightened. But he was watching her more closely than she knew, and he said quietly, "What are you thinking?"

"Just a bad memory. I keep having them here."

"I'm sorry, dearest. Sod it, I knew we should have gone to Paris." Carrying his Scotch, he came back to his chair, taking her hand as he sat down. "Are you all right?"

"Don't re-direct, honey. We were talking about you." But her fingers laced with his, held tight. "I'll trade you. One bad memory of mine for one of yours. And it has to be relevant."

He gazed at their interlocked hands for a long moment, then said, "All right. After...after the Eyghon thing, the first time, when Randall died...I came home. Well, came here, to be precise, my parents were on a long holiday. I, er, confessed everything to my father."

"Not a good time, I take it."

"No, to put it mildly. But I deserved worse. I deserved far worse." When he looked up at her, she had to stop herself from throwing her arms around him and telling him it'd be all right. She had to let him talk, even though it hurt. "He took me out in that field, and he went through an exhaustive catalogue of the various ways I'd let him and Mum down, the ways I wasn't fit to be a Watcher. He was right, of course, he was right up and down the line. And then he said that apparently I didn't care."

"Oh. Oh God, honey, I didn't mean to bring that back to you yesterday."

"No, it was fair–"

"It wasn't. It wasn't ." A connection suddenly snapped into place. "That's why, after the whole raising-Buffy-from-the-dead badness, you just laid the truth out for Willow and expected her to behave. Because you had – I mean, you completely over-corrected with the tweed and the everything, but still, you behaved yourself like a Watcher should."

"But it didn't work, did it? Then or now, since she and Andrew and Dawn went off again today. So you see my father was quite right. Not a real Watcher." He reached out for his glass, took another sip. He swallowed like his throat hurt.

"No. No, because Willow is better now, and you said Dawn and Andrew get it too. You're teaching them just fine–"

"I've told you a memory, Anya. Now it's your turn," he said, his face closed down.

"God, you're aggravating," she said under his breath. When he looked at her over his tops of his glasses in characteristic insistence, she added, "Okay. Okay, fine. This house – it's older. England is older, more like what I've known. It's easier to remember...it's just easier to remember here. Yesterday when we came down to breakfast, I remembered what it was like to be Aud. A draughty cottage, and my mother shouting at me, and– me." She didn't know how to put it, exactly.

"Even before the session with the watch?"

"Yes."

"It hurts you to remember?" he said quietly, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.

"No. It's just – it's like when I fall asleep on my arm and it goes dead, there's that tingly pain while the arm comes back to life. That's what remembering Aud is like, kind of – oh, I'm not good at explaining things like you are."

"You are very good at explaining things." He leaned forward to kiss her, just a gentle brush of lips. Then he whispered, "I want to hear about who you were. All of you."

"Not Anyanka, though."

"Yes, even Anyanka." Another kiss, warm with Scotch and love. Close, so close, he smiled at her. "Different, better choices. But we have to know where we started."

"Wise-ass," she said, making him laugh. This was the moment, she could feel the change. Putting her hands on either side of his face, she said, "Okay. Last question. Rupert, tell me why you hate roses, and why you haven't told me this fact before."

"Oh." He tried to jerk away from her, but she held on. "Anya, stop."

"No. In the vision, you just said it like it was a crucial element of your life, but, but I grow roses, honey. I bring them into the house all the time. You've never said a word."

"Because you love them."

"Well, yes, but you sounded like they're the source of utter pain." His face, oh God that sharp-drawn face, confirmed it. Her fingers tightening, she said, "Please, Rupert."

"This is not pain I wish to share, Anya." His coldest Watcher-voice – he must be in agony, she thought. She leaned up to kiss him, and he closed his eyes, his hands biting into her waist, his mouth taking hers. More Scotch, more love, more anger.

When he had to let her breathe, she pulled back to gaze at him. "Okay. I'll just get rid of the things. Problem solved."

"What are you talking about?"

"No more roses ever, for whatever reason. We'll get rid of them all, starting with these." She scrambled out of the chair and went around the table to get the vase. Cold glass under her fingers – it was definitely getting colder in here, they should have at least shut the back door.

Before she could do anything, he was there behind her, his arms on either side. She could feel him shudder, just as he did in the grip of his nightmares, but he said evenly, "Anya, just fucking stop. I've never told anyone."

"Tell me."

It must have been easier because she wasn't looking at him – he leaned heavily against her, his breath against her neck, and said, "It was...it was Jenny. The night she died."

She set down the vase so she could hold her hands to her, start a gentle rocking to soothe. "Tell me about the dead girlfriend," she said again, as softly as she could.

Another shudder, but still that unnatural Watcher-trained evenness in his voice. "We'd been fighting. But we'd reached a better place, she'd said she was coming by, and when I came home that night – there was opera playing on the stereo. I hate opera far worse than roses, by the way, always have done."

"All right-thinking people do," she said, holding him tighter.

He managed a shaky laugh before he dropped his head onto her shoulder. She could feel the shivers cascade in him, nothing but a river of pain, and she almost stopped him from going further. She hadn't known what she was asking, she thought numbly, she shouldn't have asked. But: "There was opera, and candles, and roses – all leading up to my bed. You remember my Sunnydale apartment–"

"Upstairs, in the loft. I remember." Oh God, she knew where this was going. The image in the vision – roses of blood, and shattered glass.

"Yes. So I picked a rose from the arrangement, and I walked up the stairs. Roses and a drink in my hand, and I was so happy. I smelled the rose, and then I saw her lying in my bed, and–" His arms convulsed so that she almost couldn't breathe, he wasn't breathing, and he finished in a rush, "And she was dead. Angelus had left her there for me to find."

"Rupert, oh my God–" She turned around to find his mouth with hers, kiss away the salt-tears he'd tried to suppress. He wasn't a man who cried easily, she knew. Another kiss of saltwater grief, before she said, "The roses are gone, I'll dump them all. Don't ever think about it again."

"No, that won't work." He brought his hands up to cradle her face, a mirror to what she'd done moments before. "I can't give in to it. I shouldn't."

"For once in your life, my honey, make it easy on yourself," she whispered.

"But I have, dearest. I married you," he whispered back.

"Yes, this looks pretty damn easy." She brought her thumb up to catch one of his last tears, then licked it off. She needed to taste the hurt she'd caused, share in the sorrow. "I'm so sorry. I pushed, I always push when I shouldn't."

"It's all right. I've been avoiding so long, I'm rather good at it – but perhaps I need to be more constructive in my approach."

"And you say you're not a Watcher," she muttered. "Good God."

"No, really." He leaned past her and pulled one rose out of the vase. She was close enough to feel one last shiver, before he put the rose to his face, took a deep breath. Then he opened his eyes. "There you are. My wife, quite alive." His voice barely broke on the last word.

Almost there, almost there. She always pushed where she shouldn't, but – "Rupert, one more thing. How could you ever forgive Buffy for Angelus?"

"Anya, bloody hell!" Dark vengeance in his eyes: she knew what that was like. But he let it go, fading like mist. Slowly, quietly, as if he were learning the words in a new language, he said, "Because she needed it. That's what I told her."

"Okay. Now forgive yourself, because you need it a whole lot more."

"God, Anya–" He took his glasses off and threw them on the counter somewhere, then let his weight bear her back onto the table. When her back touched the vase, sharp edges hurting, she tried to tell him, but he was before her. With one sweeping movement, he sent the vase and the roses flying onto the stone flags. And then he was kissing her, saltwater grief and Scotch and Rupert-taste. She brought him as close to her as she could, her hands in his hair.

More sounds of breaking – there went the plate, she thought -- as his weight pushed her further onto the table, as he slid on top of her. God, he was heavy, but he was perfect, it was so good. His thigh pressed between her legs; she rode him as he slid higher and higher. When his mouth found hers again, she arched up hard into his hand on her breast, into the press of his leg. "More. More is good," she said indistinctly.

He nipped at her neck, oh her favourite, then raised himself up. Although his hips never stopped moving, his silk-covered cock tantalising her, not enough never enough, he stared down at her with eyes gone dark. Mist had crept in to silver him, sharpen his edges.

And she realised he still had the rose in his hand. He'd cut himself on the thorns, there was blood on the flower, but he didn't seem to notice. Even as he slid against her, higher and harder, with finger and thumb he dropped petal after petal on her breasts, red and soft and wet. "There we are," he said, voice still shaking. "My wife, quite alive, and covered in roses. A better memory."

She couldn't say anything. But she helped him tear open his pajama bottoms, free him for her. She brought him into her, her legs around his back, her hips angled so he could go deeper. She lifted to meet him, up and down and around, and although she couldn't speak, she could moan her pleasure and her love. She breathed in the scent of roses when she came, and she held him when he followed, shivering like he'd never stop.

There were still tears on his tongue when she kissed him.

But when finally he rested, his body heavy on hers, all the warmth in the world on this cold night, she could find words again. "So, honey, are we good?"

"Quite good," he whispered, his bloodied hand finding hers. They lay together for a few moments, hands clasped, listening to guitars and night-quiet. Then, with an odd little catch in his voice: "Of course, with various nightmares and work horrors and unwanted guests, I fully anticipate your berating me about this sodding horrible honeymoon for the rest of our lives."

"Don't be idiotic. It's been perfect, Rupert." When he blew out his breath in disbelief, she slapped him on the back to make him understand. He had to see: "No, really, honey. Much better than your stupid old Paris."