Spike leaned on his arms against the ferry railing, the sharp wind cutting across the sound biting into his skin. It felt - good.

Clear.

Spike inhaled, deep and unnecessary, but also good, cold and fresh with hints of tobacco from the smokers sitting on the top deck.

"Does it help?" Oz leaned next to him, so quiet and so seldom noticed by the people around them that sometimes Spike wondered if the chipectomy had been completely buggered up and he was hallucinating the wolfling too.

"Does what help?" He felt himself down, patting for cigarettes before remembering with a growl that he'd smoked the last and tossed it overboard five minutes from the dock. "Fuck. Bugger." Shoving away from the rail, Spike stalked across the deck to loom over a moribundity of goths. "Spare a cigarette, mate?"

"Yeah, sure." Black lips quirked in an impish smile that gave the lie to the reputation, and he passed over a silver case. "You do your own hair?"

Flipping open the metal, Spike breathed deeply of the mingled scents of clove and vanilla before snorting and selecting a Marlboro and handing the case back. "Yeah."

"It's nice."

Spike flicked a brief disinterested glance at the boy's electric blue bob. "Yeah. Thanks." He handed back the cigarette case and made his way back to Oz, lighting up.

"Not very social are you?"

Spike snorted smoke through his nose like a dragon. "Not my type, mate."

"Mind telling me where we're going?"

Spike looked at Oz, only to find him staring out across the Sound, looking as if the answer didn't matter much to him one way or another. Made answering easier, as if it didn't matter to Spike either. "Little place called Lofall." As if Spike's last and best hopes weren't just outside of that town. Somewhere. "Least I am," he added, as if dismissing the whole thing. "You're tagging along."

"There's a place that has good seafood in Bremerton." Oz shrugged. "It's my day off."

"Right." Spike took another drag off of his cigarette, tasting clove residue in the tobacco and wishing he'd thought to take two when the boy wasn't looking.

"Why're you going there?"

Spike smoked viciously until the heat burned his fingertips, and he tossed the butt into the Sound with a snort. Wasn't that the million dollar question?

He watched the tree line of the island coming closer, stark against the lit sky, and turned around to let the cold of the railing dig into the small of his back. "Somethin's buggered up." Spike gestured to the back of his head. "Up here."

"The chip can't be firing."

"The sodding chip isn't the problem."

"Was there something else up there?"

"Dunno." Spike examined his fingernails, the same shade of midnight blue Oz was wearing, equally chipped. "Can't remember." He flicked a fleck of blue onto the deck. "That's the problem, innit." Spike turned his face to the stars. "Been tryin' to remember for three weeks now, mate, what happened to the bloody chip, but the last thing I remember before wakin' up in your bed's Sunnydale. Then...things in between," and it was that part that worried Spike the most.

"So why there?"

"There's a bloke who lives just outside the town limits. Demon," Spike added, as if that was necessary. "Gonna see what he knows 'bout whoever's undoing Initiative work around here, seein' as he's the who's what of the local demons."

"Why?"

Spike, his face turned to the moonlight, didn't see Oz go very still next to him.

"Guess something went wrong," Spike said finally. "Guess the one who did it's the only one who can undo it."

"What if he can't?"

What if? Spike licked his lips, tasting tobacco and paper and the bitterness of clove. "Guess I'm buggered in that case."