She was a freaky little chit. Reminded him of Drusilla, in a way - all big eyes and dark hair. It was more than looks, though - more in the way she moved; drifting along one minute like her feet didn't touch the floor, only to segue into a birdlike motion - something in her delicate hands and slender neck. The man beside her was all tension and nerves, looking at her like she'd run away or break or suddenly start screaming. Much like Drusilla.

The little bird moved closer to him, looking at the ground as if cataloguing the inconsistencies in the polymetal floor, as if counting the cracks or trying not to break her mother's back. Her eyes suddenly snapped up and met his, and he found himself staring into their depths - pools of oil, dark and glossy. She smiled, then, and reached out a hand to touch his face lightly. Her fingers were warm, and Spike thought that he'd not been touched so gently in three hundred years.

Her companion was looking the other way, so he didn't notice when the girl took a step closer to Spike and walked her fingers along his jaw before sliding them up to touch his temple.

"Mmmm," she hummed. "How did you do that?" Her tone held wonder and genuine curiosity, untainted by fear or self-consciousness. "How did you get it out? Mine's forever and ever."

Spike leaned in and sniffed her, smelling the usual stale air and clean skin and faint machine odor of those who lived aboard ships. He did it again, closing his eyes. It took two more deep draws before he smelled it - the metal, the electricity - hidden deep inside; the same faint scent he'd smelled in himself for so long, so long ago.

"Poor little sparrow," he murmured. "I can make it all end, if you like."

She leaned in, and her heat and the faint musk of her secret skin twined with the other, making him almost sick with the obscene juxtaposition of clean femaleness and the tang that brought to mind white coats and excruciating pain. Her satin cheek brushed his jaw, and he felt the demon stir.

"River!" Her companion had turned, his voice scandalized, rebuking his errant charge.

The girl looked at Spike, and pulled her hand back slowly. "No, thank you," she said, as if he'd offered her tea rather than bloody death. "I have things to do." She turned and joined the tall man, tilting her head toward his hissed remonstrations, that faraway smile playing about her lips.

Spike watched her go.