"Justice," he repeated, transfixed momentarily by her concluding thought; by the way she held his hand. Spike understood what she meant without her having to say it. He wasn't always a bounty hunter, and she had no idea how much experience he had in following orders just like that. There was a time he wouldn't have cared. In a place where death was more of a taunting joke than anything, he sometimes wondered if he still did. (Too much time sitting at a bar had a tendency to allow an unhealthy amount of introspection on the matter.)

The obvious complication she had likely not realized stretched into the silence between them. Missing persons were hardly ever as simple as a kidnapping anymore, and the appearance of a dragon hinted at another memory he had little want of revisiting.

"That would be a nice change of pace."