Given the vast increase in the slayer population in these last six years, Buffy was always obscurely shocked when some disturbance turned out to be vampires, just garden variety bloodsuckers. She always wanted to say, Don't you guys know you're supposed to be nearly extinct now?

Tonight in the shadow of the High Line, as the clubs were shutting down, there were a lot of them. They'd lured some very drunk people, mostly young women in shiny tops and tight jeans, into the darkness off the street, closing in from three sides. She could hear the music spilling from the open doors of the nearest bar even as she sailed in among them. The flowery aroma of the women's perfumes mixed with the tang of fear and the meaty stink wafting up from the cobblestones. It wasn't until she'd slain three affronted vamps, shouting at the panicky women to run, kick off those stupid shoes and just run! that she was aware she had help; someone she couldn't see laying about energetically with a stake, and from the sound of it, big boots besides.

She fought on amidst overlapping shadows, and then they were all gone, and she faced her fellow warrior. One block over, a siren dopplered, but where they were, it was quiet, a frozen moment.

He stood immobile, the weapon still poised in his hand, staring. Narrow distinct shafts of light, falling through the holes in the derelict High Line over their heads, dappled his face and body, but there was no mistaking those blue eyes, lit up in a diagonal stripe of yellow.

The stake slipped from her fingers, and she had to take a deep breath to stave off the dizziness descending on her like a hood over her head. "You—I thought you were dead."

"Was what I needed you to think."

His voice, so impossible and familiar, made her want to shriek and flail. Instead she stamped her foot. "Why? I told you—! I said how I feel!" Stepping closer, she reached for him, not knowing what she intended, just needing contact. She'd wished so often to see him again, she didn't quite trust herself that this was real.

But he was solid enough. At the last second, she was too uncertain to deliver a caress; her blow glanced off his shoulder. "Why have you been hiding from me? How could you do that?"

"Had my reasons. Good reasons."

She hit out at him again. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her left hand into a pool of light. They both stared at the diamond that glimmered on her third finger. For a moment she couldn't recall what it was doing there.

"See, there's one of my many reasons, right there. When's the happy day to be, Slayer?"

Her insides whirled. Time did some tricky things—the years since he'd last touched her collapsed into nothing, and at the same time, the events of this very day receded beyond recapturing. All at once, the commitment she'd been wearing far too lightly lifted off from her, peeling away too easily for how important it should have been, spiraling up into the holes of light, leaving her confused and guilty and free.

"This—" she gasped, "this was a mistake. I would never have said yes to this, if I knew you were still in the world."

"Don't talk nonsense."

She thrust her hand at him. "It's true! Go on—take it off."

"What?" He eyed her with that fierce piercing look she'd never been able to forget, the one that knew her more honestly than she'd ever dared know herself. He was still forcing her to know things she'd tried not to know.

"I won't wear it anymore—take it off! All right—I will!" Buffy yanked off the ring, resisted her urge to fling it away with great force, and shoved it into her pocket. "Of course I'll tell him it's over. It doesn't make any sense anymore, now .... " Holding up both hands, she turned them so he could see their nakedness, then reached for his. Would their grasp burst into flame like before?

"Fucking hell, Buffy." He pulled her to him hand over hand, by wrist, then elbow, then shoulder, in and against him, and she strained up towards his mouth, arms grappling his neck.

Her heartbeat made her whole body vibrate, so that at first she couldn't feel anything else, she couldn't feel him though his arms almost crushed her. "Is it you? Spike, is it really you, here?" She forced herself to slow down. Her feet found the hard ground again. She blinked her eyes clear, needing to see. He put her gently back against a metal pillar and sipped the tears from her cheeks, kissing her slowly, slow enough that she could be present. Knowing it now, she sighed into his mouth. His body was pressed against hers all the way down, encircling her, holding her up. She rested her forehead against his neck, rescued.

"Where have you been? Oh, Spike—" She wanted to laugh, because the way she said it sounded like she was asking him why he was a half hour late.

"Been everywhere. I'm here now."

"Here. Why are you? How? How did you know where to find me?"

Again that look, and then his sharp tense face split into a grin. "Didn't. Never thought I'd run into you like this."

"How could it be? How could it be—just a coincidence?"

"Dunno. Dunno anything about that. Christ, it's good to see you. You're pretty as ever. Can't talk here, though—c'mon with me now."

He tugged her towards the street, and it felt entirely natural to be led by him. When he stopped a cab, she climbed trustingly in. As they rode up Tenth Avenue, he chuckled.

"What?"

"Just took it right off, you did."

"Huh?" She'd already forgotten. "Oh. Well, yeah."

"Poor blighter."

That's what, in the last ten minutes, Derek had become. A poor blighter, the man she'd meant, in her innocent unknowingness, to give the rest of her life to, who would be stunned and disappointed and certainly very angry, but she couldn't help that. She couldn't be expected to help circumstances beyond her control. The return from the dead of the vampire she'd always really want more than any man she could actually have, that was beyond her control. She touched his face. Lights from the street streamed across it, staining him different colors. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you're here. I'm going to be furious at you for hiding from me." She couldn't find that ferocity now.

He smiled into her fingers, kissed them.

In the bright light of the Chelsea hotel lobby, she saw that he really was the same. Same hair, same clothes, same stance. The fact of him astonished her, filled her with gladness and something almost like hysteria. It seemed the height of idiocy to her now that she'd believed he really was gone. Spike, her Spike, couldn't be so easily done away with. He looked completely at ease here, striding across the marble floor, among the big weird paintings and sculptures, the potted palms.

The night clerk, who could see perfectly well that he had no reflection in the big mirror that faced the desk, called him Spike, said there were no messages, and tossed him his key with familiar nonchalance.

In the slow creaking elevator, he kissed her again, then held her away a little to look at her. She remembered how he had a way of taking her in, like the way he could fuck her—that made her feel thoroughly possessed. Spike touched her breasts through her shirt, pressed a hand to her belly and her biceps, stroked her hair. As he made this gentle wordless inspection, he nodded, soft encouraging nods full of feeling. She beamed into his face.

"You're no worse for this fiancé, whoever he is."

"Never mind him," she chided. "You. You. Where have you been?"

He smiled. "Plenty of stories, but later, yeah?"

The back of her neck prickled with slayer instinct as they ascended through the spooky old place, but she wouldn't focus on that now. Not here in a professional capacity, she thought. This is personal. Purely personal.

They got off on the top floor. The long dim corridor smelled musty. Spike led her to the last door.

The room looked lived-in. The furniture, which must've been new in the 1950s, and was now funkily retro, was dinged up. A large ugly lamp with a threadbare silk shade was lit, casting a soft golden light across the big rumpled bed. Black clothes were strewn around, draped over chairs. Beer and Jack Daniel's empties littered the table near the window, whose draperies were pulled close. Piles of books and comics teetered on one bedside table, the other was covered with squat candles showing various degrees of usage, an umbra of pale brown smoke stained the peeling paint on the wall behind them. The television was turned to face the bed. It made Buffy feel strange and sad, to think that perhaps for all the time she'd been in New York, working with Celia and Jen and the other slayers, apartment hunting with Derek, planning the wedding, he'd been here too, all by himself.

"You really didn't know I was—"

Spike shook his head, sharing her incredulity. Going to the table, he started pouring whiskey into a pair of tooth glasses. "Figured you were still in Rome. Couldn't picture you in Manhattan. Always thought, if I stayed in places where I couldn't imagine you, I'd never—"

"But why?" She rushed at him, thumped him.

He took the blow without flinching. "Was sure you wouldn't want me in your way, an' thought I loved you enough finally to steer clear. No place for me in your new life."

She whacked him again, an open-handed blow meant just to express frustration. The implications of all this—the randomness of their meeting tonight—was almost too much. "You can be so damn STUPID sometimes."

"I know it, Slayer. Guess I'll have to make it up to you." He offered her one glass, and held up his own. "Let's drink to persistent feelings."

She clicked hers against it. "To—yeah—to those."

The Jack Daniel's burned going down. She made a face. But he was already lifting the glass out of her hand, setting it aside, and then they were moving towards the bed in a way that was like a halting backward foxtrot—she'd been taking lessons with Derek so they could dance properly at the wedding. Spike backed her up in stages, as if he wasn't quite sure even now that he was going to get away with this. Couldn't he smell how aroused she was? Hell, she could smell it, the scent of her self wafting up from her cleavage. Already breathing in little gasps, halfway to tears again, Buffy grabbed his tee-shirt, yanked it up hard from his jeans, and tore it.

Spike made a sound halfway between a protest and a grunt of appreciation, and stood still as she pulled it away from his body, then nosed in to kiss his throat, the base of his neck, tugging at his nipples, pressing her mouth to them even as her hands slid down to his waistband. He groaned when she drew out his cock, already half hard and getting longer as she stroked it, both hands wrapped around its thickness. Resting her head against his chest, she stared at it, a liquid wave of nostalgia rushing through her.

"God," she whispered, "you ... you just ... I mean, look at that."

He chuckled. "That's yours, that is," he said, his hands on her shoulders now, in her hair. She felt that somehow he was comforting her in her excess of emotion. "It's all for you, if you like it."

"If!" Starting to pull at her own clothes, she stopped to kiss him, unable for a long minute to do anything else but kiss and kiss, getting lost in his firm yielding mouth. Spike backed her the last little way to the bed. They tumbled across it together, he pulled her panties away with a snap, and then it was happening. She was crying again, wrapping her legs around him high and tight, opening her mouth to gasp and take his searching, sucking kisses. He pinned her hands over her head, and she sobbed.

"Don't cry. Don't cry," Spike whispered, but she heard the tears in his voice too; they reassured her.

"I love you. I love this. Hold me like that. I never thought—God—you were dead! Fuck. Spike. Fuckfuckfuck."

She wished she could freeze-frame this, make each second distinct and lasting—but it wasn't like that, it happened all at once, sensation piling up higher and higher, a mish-mash of the wet suction of their frantic fuck, the strength of his body surrounding and filling her, the tension of her legs squeezing his flanks, her counter-thrusts stirring him, her breathing getting shorter and quicker as the urgency built up in her cunt, her hips snapping faster, and all the while their two voices, chanting in trancy counterpoint about her cunny and his prick and their love.

When his fingers found her nipple through dress and bra, pinching it as he mouthed her neck, she seized up, wailing, and the whole exquisite quivering balance of tension and upspiraling pleasure collapsed into shaking, sobbing chaos.

When she could see again, she sought his face, dragging his head up from the depths of her neck and shoulder, her hair clinging to his features as he blinked, his mouth working.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you might think this is all I came here for."

Their gazes caught, and for a moment all the bad stuff rushed in between them, all the old anger and misunderstanding and resentment. Then Spike dipped his head, placed a soft kiss on the point of her shoulder. "Might've once, but I know better than that now, sweet."

"Good. Good. Because ...."

"Still, that was a pretty damn fine tumble—even for us."

She smiled, relief suffusing her. "It's never like this with anybody else. Not even close. That ... that used to scare me."

"You're not the only one." He looked so solemn that she couldn't help laughing.

Suddenly they were both laughing, hugged together, rolling back and forth until they'd shaken it all out, and she was lying on top of him, her hair falling down into his open mouth.

His cock was hardening again against her thigh. Reaching between them, she put it back inside her.

"Let's see you," he said.

Buffy reared up, getting her knees under her, and began a slow glide up and down on him. They were both soaked and slippery.

"Let's see your pretty tits."

She was still wearing her dress, though it was mauled and twisted. She pulled it off, unhooked her bra, and reached for his hands. He cupped them, rubbing the springy nipples. "Lovely. Delicious Buffy tits."

She leaned into him, into his caressing hands. His cock made her feel full, pressing tight against her g-spot. "I could live like this. With you inside me. I could just ...."

He smiled. It was a kind of blissed-out smile she didn't associate with him—she'd seldom permitted him to be so relaxed as he was now. Feeling shy, she murmured, "Do I look different to you?"

"You do, my queen. You've never looked at me before like you are right now."

"Oh. Oh."

That indulgent tender smile bloomed again, and he abandoned her breasts to put her hair back from her face, caress her cheeks. "You mean do you look older. You're splendid. You're alive an' beautiful, aren't you? Six years on ... know you never thought ... an' I think you've been happy, yeah? You look like a happy woman."

She had been happy, working with the New York slayers, getting ready to marry Derek and make a home here, but all of that seemed flimsy and unreal in the face of this. It was a stage set of a life, one she'd now thoroughly struck. She was too breathless to explain all that to him, she would tell him later. Tell him all kinds of things later. "I'm happy this minute. With you." Reaching back, she pressed his balls gently in her hand so he gasped. "I want to make you happy too. I can't believe I'm here, with you ... that I get to fuck you again ... I love fucking you. I always thought about it, about you. You know I never stopped thinking of you, Spike."

"Is that so? Well, neither did I ever stop thinking of you, Slayer. Used to believe maybe I'd learn to think of you less, but it's never happened."

She concentrated then, with a little clearer head, on making him insane with pleasure. She'd never really done that yet, and it came as a surprise, how easy it was. Half the thing, she quickly understood, was just that it was her. He made her feel as powerful as when she was fighting the greatest monsters. But he also, by his groans and thrashings, by the way he looked at her and the praises that escaped him, brought her to a pinnacle of tenderness she'd never attained. It was almost pity, which was puzzling, until understanding unfurled in her mind, so bright and obvious it made her feel a little ashamed.

"Spike," she whispered, nuzzling closer, "no one's ever really loved you before, have they? Not like ... not like you've loved ... I'm glad it's me. I'm glad I get to be the one to show you what it's like."




When he awoke he was sure he'd had a dream, similar to so many previous dreams he'd had over the years, some of them so vivid that he'd awaken to real pain at finding himself alone. He lived now with Loneliness as with a persnickety woman, capricious and jealous. He'd missed Buffy, but that missing was so large it constituted an atmosphere, the place where he existed. Within that place, he mourned and railed at and regretted others, some of them surprising: Dru, whom, in the midst of his worse days after LA, he'd thought of seeking out; Angel, whose heroism filled Spike with hero worship and disdain in almost equal measure; Fred, and Gunn, who had never become friends, but who had accepted him as part of their team, while it lasted. The slayer girls he'd lived with those last months in Sunnydale—Vi in her funny hat, Kennedy. Faith. Could've looked at her, and more than looked, if things had been different. He thought wonderingly of the broken slayer who'd sawed his arms off—hoped she was being seen to properly, cared for.

Since LA he hadn't stayed anywhere long enough to turn acquaintances to associates. Hadn't slept with anyone more than once, and he could sum up those erotic encounters on his fingers. Day by day he postponed the big questions—like, where was this leading, what was it all for? And how long could he bear it, on his own?

But the pillow he lay on held Buffy's scent, and his hand was coated with the more intimate smell of her pussy juices. He brought it closer, breathed it in. That's when he heard her voice. She was on the phone in the bathroom; he could hear her through the not-quite-shut door.

"... sorry, Derek. I know this is a huge upheaval, it's ... it's horrible for you, I know. But you wouldn't really want me to go through with it when it couldn't mean anything anymore?" Then, "I was honest with you about him when we first met, that I loved him, that I'd always miss him. Now he's here, I have to be with him." Then, "I'll see that you get the ring back soon. No, of course I want you to have it back. I'm so sorry to cause you pain."

She turned the water on then, and he couldn't tell if she was still talking, or crying, or what. This turn of events was amazing, a bolt from the bloody blue. He rolled over, pressing his hand against his face to enjoy the pungence of her sex. The next thing he was aware of, rising out of a doze, the water noise was gone. Buffy was talking again, her tone no longer the clipped firm one she'd taken with the discarded fiancé, but softer, fond. "... can't really stay here anymore, and he'll want to see you, I'm sure he will, and I do too, so probably we'll come there by the end of the week ... I don't know, we haven't talked about it yet ... you're literally the second person I've called, Dawnie ... no, it's so not a secret. I want everyone to know .... Well, he's just the same. I mean ... I don't know ... we haven't really gone into anything yet ... oh Dawnie, I'm sure he doesn't hate you. I don't think he could."

The last time he'd felt anything like this happy ... the only pure happiness he could lay claim to ... was that night when she'd permitted him to hold her, in a stranger's house, a stranger's bed, on the lip of the biggest disaster of their two lives. How one-dimensional that seemed, compared to this. Sprawled bonelessly in the tangle of Buffy-scented sheets, the smell of her on his skin, the imprint of her grasping little hands on his flesh, her voice telling a story he'd never remotely imagined he'd hear ... now, he thought, now would be the time for the Wrath of God to come down and sear him into ash.

But it didn't. The minutes ticked by, Buffy chatted on. He gave his erect cock a lazy tug under the sheet, sliding his cunty fingers beneath his nose. The water came on again; he heard Buffy peeing over its inadequate masking, then splashing her face.

"Don't you wash," he called out. Busy as they'd been, he hadn't had a chance yet to bury his face in her cunny. That was always better after he'd fucked her a time or five. Soap would ruin it.

"Are you awake?" She peered out around the door, her face bright in a tangle of hair. "I'm just straightening up a little. From the neck up only, okay?"

"Good girl. Might be there's a fresh toothbrush if you look in the cabinet."



She stood at the foot of the bed, surveying him in the light of the one lamp. "Spike, where have you been?"

"Come here an' I'll tell you." He held up the sheet, showing himself off, one hand wrapped around his rampant cock. The sight of him laid out for her, hard for her, made her feel weak-kneed and silly, and at the same time, almost absurdly solemn. This was such a narrow save. All these years she hadn't known he was out there somewhere, and last night, if she hadn't been in just that place at just that time—!

She slipped in beside him, pressing herself close, prodding his hand away so hers could take its place. "Now you tell me," she said, stroking the moist slitted head with her thumb, "or else I'll let go."

"Was in LA for a year. That's where I came out of the amulet, when it got sent back to Wolfram & Hart. Joined in on the fight there with Angel an' his people. That didn't go too well, as it turned out."

"I know. Angel died, and so did Wesley. We heard about that. There was a lot of controversy in the Council about why we weren't there to help. Giles and I had words, and I wasn't the only one. There was almost an official schism. But I never heard that you were there."

"Little boy kept his promise, then."

At once she was roused. "What little boy?"

"Andrew. Saw him in LA when he collected crazy slayer girl, told him not to tattle to you. Didn't really expect he'd mind me."

"Andrew. That little twerp! I could wring his neck—! How could he keep that from me?"

But Spike's expression—so full of tenderness—eased her anger. "Would've been no good then, see? I wouldn't have been ... ready."

"So what did you do after LA?"

"Took me a while to cope with survivin' that Black Thorn debacle. Didn't feel worthy, with Angel goin' down, y'know? But there was another survivor, a funny sort of girl who was also a prickly God-Emperor from some lost world. She needed a deal of looking after, bein' a stranger to these parts, an' rather dangerous, so that got me through the first year."

"Was she ... did you ...."

"Slept with her, yeah, but it wasn't anything really but a good work-out. She wasn't the cuddlesome sort—an' I was too delicate for her, if you can believe that. Besides, if she cared for anyone, it was that Wesley who was dead. But she had a hard time takin' a real interest in anyone on this plane. After she decided to strike off to pastures new, I figured best thing I could do was what I do best. Fight vamps an' beasties where I find 'em. Keep movin'. Been doin' that, an' trying to keep my nose clean between times."

"Then why haven't any of the Slayers ever mentioned running into you?"

"Steer clear of 'em, don't I? Don't want to step on toes. An' really ... really didn't want to put you on the spot again, Slayer."

On the spot. "You thought I didn't mean it. Even after everything in those last days—you didn't believe me!" It made the flesh creep up the back of her head, to think how, after trying harder than she'd ever tried in her life, she'd still lost him because of her emotional incompetence. What was she, that she couldn't communicate with those she loved?

"I wasn't sure ... but I was sure, when it turned out I wasn't finished after all, that you'd have a better life without me in it."

"So ... this ... now ...." Fear prickled her skin into goose-flesh. Maybe, having tasted their passion one last time, he was going to send her away from here. A thin pencil of light outlined the place where the drapes just failed to meet. She could hear the traffic below on Twenty-third Street, the grinding of buses. The morning rush hour was starting. It was a hot summer morning on the other side of the glass, the other side of this amazing refuge. Her throat closed in a tight stabbing knot.

"Sssh, Buffy ... not makin' that mistake again. Know it was a mistake." He kissed the tears off her eyes. "Shouldn't do, but when you cry, gives me such a cockstand."

"You already have such a—" Pushing the sheet back, she crawled down to prod at it with her tongue, teasing the slit before enveloping the head in her mouth. Spike shuddered and groaned. His flesh, the skin soft as a peach over its hardness, was warmed from being under the covers; it plumped further as she worked the tip back and forth over her tongue, squeezing the shaft in her hand. With her other hand, she explored, weighing and caressing his ball sac, then prodding between his thighs to rub at the perineum and probe his ass. His groans were continuous now, he drew in great gusts of breath to fuel them, hips thrashing.

When she'd worked three fingers into his ass, he began to come, keening in long sobs, fucking himself on her as his prick jerked in her hand, her mouth. Buffy thought, I don't want this to ever end.

His cum tasted sour, like solitude.

"Was that all right?" she asked, when he'd gathered her into his arms.

"All right. Yeah, it was all right." He looked like he couldn't quite believe what was happening to him.

"I want to make you happy." She obscurely recalled saying this before, but it seemed worth repeating.

"Not sure I know what that feels like, but seem to be learnin'."

"Dawn wants to see you."

"Can tell her I don't hate her."

"You heard that?"

"Yeah." He smoothed her hair, his touch delicate, incredulous. "Buffy. Buffy. My pretty slayer. Pretty sweetheart. My fierce little darling." He smiled. "Do you still hate me calling you those things?"

"No." She blushed. "Oh Spike. You're my ... my ... I'm not good at the words, not like you!"

"They'll come to you."

"You." She nipped at his neck. "How did this happen?"

He shook his head. "Just knew there's usually some good hunting in those old meat streets at four in the morning, when bars're closing. That's all. Almost didn't join in when I saw there was a slayer on it, but then I smelled you, an' couldn't help myself."

"Oh Spike."

"Had to make sure you didn't get hurt."

"I was all right."

"I know. I know you were." He began dotting kisses all over her face and neck and shoulders, so that she felt the impossibility of him expressing all that he felt. When this spate of emotion passed, he was able to look at her again. "Now it's your turn. Tell me what you've been up to. Last news I had of you, you were running around Rome with The Immortal. Wanted to hunt him down an' give him a good bollocking."

"Oh God. That only lasted a couple of months." She waved The Immortal off with a flick of her fingers. "I did a lot of work with Giles and Willow, getting the Watchers' Council going again. There was so much to do, you can't imagine. It was in total disarray, so much was lost. And then we had to make it something good, instead of what it was before. I didn't date then, I was too busy. And I ... after the thing with Piero, it hit me, like a delayed reaction, that you were really gone. I wasn't ready for how much I had to mourn. How low I had to sink."

"Buffy. You grieved over me?"

"How can you doubt it, you stupid vampire?" She pinched him. "You were my best friend, you were my heart's ... you were ... you know. So I traveled for a couple of years, finding slayers, recruiting them. We opened a school for them in the English countryside, I worked there for a while. That's where I met Derek. He's a watcher. One of the few survivors of The First. He's actually a cousin of Wesley's. But he's nothing like him."

"Think you wouldn't have known Wesley, if you'd seen him the way I did, those last few months. Still ... you thought this Derek was the one?"

"I ... was ready to think he would be a good partner. I mean ... I loved him, of course I did, enough to say yes when he asked me ... but not like ... nothing else could be like this." She pressed herself against him, trying to communicate with her body what seemed inadequate to words, how much she felt herself to belong to him, now and always. "Spike, how could you have stayed away from me? How? Oh God, if we hadn't found each other tonight—what if I got married to Derek? What if I had a baby with him, and then—?" She was afraid she'd cry again, so instead she slapped him.

Spike caught her hand to restrain her, and began to laugh. "You'll punish me for my pigheadedness, my good girl, you will, but not like this."

"It's just that it's so random! A totally random occurrence! I mean—it is, isn't it?"

He had to admit it was so. The thing awed him. He had no real explanation for why he hadn't sought her out, except that, the more time that went by, the more sure he was that her life had no place for him, that he'd bollix it up for her, because she'd feel obligated to do something about him.

"I am not sucking your gorgeous prick out of obligation." Her frown was girlishly solemn.

"I know it. I know all about it, at long last. So, what're you doing in New York?"

"Derek and I were setting up the US branch of the Council. Recruiting new watchers, organizing the slayers. Still finding new ones."

"You've been enjoying all that. You like it."

"Yeah. It feels like the work I was meant to do. I'm good at it. Good at stuff, like dealing with people, that I never thought I would be. I ... learned a lot from Derek."

Spike opened his mouth, but she stopped his lips with her fingers. "But I'm not sorry I broke it off. I'm not. Now that you're here, it could never be right. Nothing can be right for me, except to be with you."



While she waited for the food he'd phoned out for, Buffy wandered around the room, looking at his things. There were some strange ceramic sculptures on the dresser, which Spike explained had come with the room— "This old place is chock-full of art. People make it here an' leave it, or die here an' leave it. Lots of people die here, makes it comfortable for us that're already dead." Among the books she found a lot of poetry, and ancient history, and some old threadbare volumes in Greek and Latin. There were piles of murder mysteries too, some of which might've been fished out of the garbage, so stained and dog-eared were they.

"Lots of time on my own," Spike said, coming up behind her. "Lots of time to read all sorts."

When the knock came on the door, Spike opened it. The Mexican delivery boy seemed to know him, and wasn't fazed by his nakedness. They exchanged a few words in Spanish, Spike said something that made the kid laugh, and then they were alone again.

"He's all right, that Eddie. My life-line, 'specially in these long summer days, when I'm shut up in here. You must be hungry, Slayer, can hear your stomach growl."

She was famished. She'd already slaked her considerable thirst from the bathroom sink, but now she couldn't wait to tear into the bacon and egg sandwiches. Spike had ordered three, two for her and one for him, but in the end he only watched her eat them all, his smile fond and admiring as they sat across from each other at the little table. "Like to see you nourish yourself. You're not so thin as when we parted. Makes me glad to see."

"That was such a bad time then. I could barely eat in those days." She stuffed the last bite into her mouth, licked crumbs from her fingers. "It was a long time ago."

"It was."

"What do you do for ... you know, blood?"

"This city's full of blood, slayer. I'm well fed enough."

Sipping her coffee, she looked him over, as if to corroborate this assertion. He looked, as she'd thought last night, the same. It defied belief, given all they'd gone through, all the time and the changes he'd made, that his face and body should be identical to those of the enemy she'd first faced in 1997. But she quickly decided that it was right, that part of Spike's constancy, which she'd relied on long before she could admit it even to herself, was his unvarying appearance. She was glad that he still matched her memories of him, the mental image she carried in her mind, the dream lover who visited her in sleep. If he were different, could they have slipped together again so easily as this?

"Is there anything keeping you in New York?"

"Never was anything keeping me anywhere, after LA."

"Then will you come to England with me? Do you think you could forgive Giles enough to work with us? I think the Council needs you almost as much as I do."

His face darkened. Fear licked at her—she was too impulsive, she was moving too fast. But what was fast, when all she was doing was making things right, putting them the way they should be?

Tension propelled her from her chair. "Spike—" She came around to sit on his knee. They were both naked, but otherwise this reminded her of that time, under Willow's spell, that she'd wanted to marry him. In all that had happened since, neither of them had ever referred back to that. She didn't think they would now either, but she was aware of a familiarity as she snuggled into his lap, slipping an arm around his shoulders. She'd been certain then, and absurdly happy, and she was certain here, and even happier. "—tell me. Is it Giles? Don't worry about Giles. He can't threaten you anymore, and he wouldn't if he could. Robin Wood is far away, you never have to see him again. Or is it Derek? He won't be in England, so we won't have to face him at all. It'll just be my old friends, and all the new girls. I know," she added, smiling and caressing him, "that you like girls."

"You're really gonna do it, then? Gonna bring me up in front of all of them, your friends, and say, 'Here I am, with Spike'?"

"It won't be news to them. After Sunnydale ... it was clear to everyone, how I took your death. How broken up I was over you. There was no question. And they ... well, you could say, too little, too late. But Spike, no one denied your bravery, your sacrifice. It's not going to be like before, when you see them again. I promise."



He'd never thought to hear her say anything remotely like this, and he'd have scoffed at the suggestion that he longed to. But now he had to restrain himself from an unmanly display of curiosity—he wanted to ask just what everyone had said about him, and where and how and when and what was the look on their faces?

As if she knew what he wasn't saying, Buffy's eyes shone with a gentle, almost un-Buffy-like understanding. "My sister was so upset because she thought you died believing she hated you. She grieved for you almost as much as I did."

These words were a caress, a gift. He shivered, turning his face away from hers.

"She can't wait to see you. She wants to show you her baby."

"Bit has a baby?"

Buffy nodded, her smile full of wistful sweetness. "Two months old. A boy. You'll never guess who the father is."

"Someone I know, I take it?"

She nodded. Spike was more interested in following the winsome play of her features as she waited for him to guess, than he was in the answer. "Andrew was fond of her, but we all know the fellow's a little pansy. An' Robin Wood's too bloody old for her, I should bloody hope, so I suppose it's the dreaded Harris."

"Got it in one."

"An' I expect he's eager as well, to show me his get."

"I think you might be surprised. Xander's changed. A lot."

Spike turned away again. He couldn't imagine it working, this new life she was laying out. Harris would be just one of a thousand scourges. "No one changes that much."

"But you did. More."

When he turned back to her, she was shining. "I don't think you should waste any energy worrying. I think you should just trust me."

"That's your advice, is it?"

"Yup."

"An' what else do you advise?"

"I advise you to get back into bed so I can love you up some more."




"Oh, yes. Oh, fuck, yes! Yes! There!"

Buffy ground herself against his mouth as he fucked her with his tongue. She'd already come twice, and was in a frenzy now, hands curled around the headboard, knees spread wide, heels dug in almost under her churning hips.

He didn't realize he'd changed until he tasted blood. Pulling back, he tried to shake off the bumps before she could notice, but she was already staring at him, eyes big as saucers, mouth open. Her body, abandoned abruptly on the peak of climax, shuddered and collapsed.

"Oh my God—what are you doing? Are you going to bite me?"

He couldn't tell if she was horrified or eager—and that alarmed him. He was sure he'd hurt her already—the sharp tang of her blood still flavored his mouth. When he was fanged out, his tongue was longer and stronger—he'd been far up inside her—he must have torn her with his teeth.

The idea made his gorge rise. Scrambling to his feet, he backed away from the bed. Buffy swarmed after, her expression still unreadable. "Spike! Where are you going? What's happening?"

"Didn't mean to— Wouldn't hurt you!"

"Spike, I'm not hurt! Where are you going?"

He was still trying to force the bumpies down, but they wouldn't go. He couldn't understand his loss of control, didn't want her to see this face. His hard-on wilted, and his knees were going as she reached him, her hand burning hot where it circled his arm.

"Spike! Please talk to me! What's the matter?"

"Your blood ... I shouldn't taste ... I didn't mean ...." Even as he tried to ward her off, his legs folded under him. He sank to the floor, wanting to sink through it. He hated himself when he couldn't control his demon responses. "I'm sorry—wasn't tryin' to hurt you—"

"Do you think you cut me? You didn't. Spike, it's okay." She was kneeling beside him, too close, too undefended. He shied away from her, from the tantalizing aroma emanating from her spread thighs. "You've never vamped out with me before. I guess that means ... does it mean you're really relaxed? Huh ... maybe not so much."

"I tasted you, your blood, an' now I can't—fucking hell!" With a great effort, he forced the demon down.

Buffy slipped a probing hand between her thighs. The fingers came away red. "I just started my period. I guess I was due. That's all it is."

The sight of it on her hand, the fresh hot smell, made him tremble all over. It terrified him, how much he wanted to snatch her fingers into his mouth.

She was watching him with an intensity he wasn't used to from her. It made him writhe inside, imagining what she must think, the disgust that she'd certainly express in a moment, when she really grasped the filthiness of this situation.

He started to rise, to escape this endless impossible moment, but suddenly her bloody fingers were on his lips, were pressing gently into his mouth. He couldn't help it, he licked at them desperately.

"Oh my," Buffy breathed. "Oh ... Spike."

He pushed her away. "Better get your kit back on. Better cut this short." Crossing the room, he grabbed up his jeans.

She followed more slowly. There was something shy in the way she touched his back. "But why? Spike, wouldn't you like ...?"

He could feel her pulse racing. Risking a glance at her, he saw that her eyes were glassy with intent. Yet she was holding herself calmly, to calm him.

"What if I can't—"

"What? Control yourself? I don't think for a second that you're going to hurt me."

He groaned. "Buffy! Vampire here!"

"Spike ... lover ... the time when you would've hurt me, that's long long ago. We both know it's never coming back."

Her imploring face was one she'd seldom treated him to. She was breathing fast, her nipples were hard. "Yes," she coaxed. "Yes. We're going to. We're going to do this incredibly hot thing together."

She spread herself out again on the bed, legs wide. He could see it, the blood seeping out, tingeing the lips of her cunt, gathering in the curls. He glanced from that to her face, growing anxious as he hesitated. She was wide open, afraid he'd reject her.

He approached her slowly, on his knees, his body awash with desire and fear. Couldn't turn this down, couldn't disappoint. She was so wet, so hot, starting to quiver just from his proximity. "Yes—Spike—please!"

He buried his tongue in her. She bucked to envelop him, her thighs closing around his head. The heat of her was intense, the blood richer than any he'd tasted since ... the Chinese slayer's. Her face looming into his mind was quelling. But Buffy ground herself against him, mewing, demanding, giving him the strength to drive that memory away. It was far off, like she'd said, whereas Buffy was right here, eager, open, wildly aroused. The demon emerged again; feeling the shape of his face morph against her folds, she yelped, as if she'd grabbed the brass ring.

Perhaps stimulated by his rippling flexing tongue, her flow increased. Peeling her legs away from his head, he held her down, freeing her for more frantic writhing, to pull at the bedding and babble his name as he plunged deeper. His cock was rock hard again, his whole body pulsing with a satisfaction he hadn't felt since his last live meal, so long ago.

"Oh fuck," Buffy gasped. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck! So good. So fucking good. Feed on me, Spike. Take me. Swallow me. Oh Love. Lovelovelove. Oh FUCK."



After the wild thrashing orgasms she couldn't count, came the languid lull. Spike was still attached to her as she dozed, dreaming and waking, holding her bladder so as not to end this too soon, the wonderful feeling as if she was a jungle pool with a fierce panther lapping at it in the midday heat. After she had no idea how long, he rose up, still fanged out and red-mouthed (like the Master, she thought, but the observation was only a curiosity, nothing more), and slipped his cock inside her. She was so wet, so spent, she almost couldn't feel it at first. He fucked her softly, still kneeling on the floor beside the low bed, holding her by the hips and swinging in and out with gentle undulations that made him close his eyes, throw back his head. He licked his lips clean, and after a while his face shifted back to the pretty one, prettier now in its expression of private pleasure. She wrapped her legs loosely around his waist—so numb she could barely feel them as she hooked her ankles together in the small of his back. She wasn't sure if she fell asleep; the next time she looked, her legs were stretched up to his shoulders, and he was pressing in on her closer, deeper, his thrusts tight and short; she was aware of her taut bladder, and a cottony congested pleasure building up in her whole pelvis. She was afraid she'd pee if he made her come. The base of Spike's cock, as it disappeared and reappeared, was smeared with blood. He breathed in harsh quick gasps as his pace increased.

She didn't want to disturb him, but after another minute, she said, "I need the bathroom."

He opened his eyes.

"Sorry. Maybe if you can finish really quick—"

He leaned in over her. She caught at his neck, and suddenly she was lifted, still impaled, his strong arms grappling her back. He carried her into the bathroom, but instead of setting her on the toilet, he knelt with her in the tub, and went on with his gentle insistent fucking. The new angle rubbed harder on her clit, made her urgency greater.

"Spike, really, I have to—"

"Doesn't matter. Just let go."

"No way."

"I've just licked out your womb blood, we're both covered in it, you think I care if you piss on me, Slayer? Go on. I'll make you." He added the prodding of a finger to his internal movements, and suddenly she had no control; her body seized up into an escalating series of flutters, and everything just gave way. The warm liquid poured out onto their thighs. Spike laughed. Embarrassed, Buffy struggled for purchase, wanting the episode to end there. But Spike reached past her head, and the shower came on—cold at first like a slap, then warmer, and he went on with his leisurely fucking in the spray, telling her she was a beautiful cunt, his piece of paradise, talking her into another shuddering fall, until he seized up in a series of hard jerks. They sprawled in the tub, neither one able for the moment to summon the strength to move.

"God. That was ... that was ... God I can't believe I peed on you."

"Everything comes out of you is golden, one way or the other," Spike said, chuckling at his own joke.

She gave him an off-kilter thwap. "I'll remind you of that next time I have to hurl."

"It's not the same."

She stared up at the ceiling, where the paint was peeling around the light fixture. The water hit her belly, and her bent cramped thighs. Her hair was swirling into the drain. Still, she didn't want to move.

"Fuck. This is the best sex of my life. The mind-bending fucking, the ... feelings. It's never come together for me like this before. For ... for us. This is how it should've been, when ... when ...."

"Slayer." He said it as if it was an endearment, leaning over her with a smile that made her heart swell up in her chest. "Listen to you, sayin' things a man likes to hear."

"Spike, what if we'd missed each other? Oh God, what if last night didn't happen? I can't stop thinking about how random this is. It's all just luck. It might never have happened."

Gathering her up, he rose unsteadily to his feet, setting her on hers. She clung to him in the shower spray, raising her face to the falling water to conceal the gust of tears she couldn't repress. Had it really only been a half a day they'd spent in this room together? She felt like years had passed since the day before, when she left Derek to go on patrol. She was a different woman now.

"What time do you think it is?"

"Gettin' on for early evening. Why? Do you have to go?"

"No! No, I'm never going to go. But ... I have no clothes, and I'm getting hungry again. And I'd like us to go out together. I want to walk with you, I want you to hold my hand. I want you to buy me something. Do you have any money?"

This made him guffaw. "Buy you something? What's brought this on, Slayer?"

"You know how nice is it, I know you do ... buying some little thing for your girl, giving it to her. It's a good feeling. I want that. To get something from you. Anything. A candy bar, or those cheap earrings they sell on the street. Just something you choose for me and put in my hand."

He shut off the water, and wrapped her in a towel. "I'll buy you all sorts, my greedy girl, but it's too early yet for me to go out. How will you get your things? Were you living with that fellow?"

"That fellow." She made a face. "Yes. But I can call him again, and ask him to leave the flat for an hour so I can pack some stuff."

"Maybe not such a good idea yet. He's sure to be in a state."

"He might not even be there. He might be out drowning his sorrow. God. I shouldn't talk about him this way! He's a friend. But ... I guess ... not anymore. Oh, I've done a rotten thing. I mean, I had to, but ... he's never going to forgive me for it."

"Could still go back to him," Spike said with a shrug. "Tell him you had an embolism, tell him you were out of your mind. He'll be happy to overlook it."

The sudden absence in his face spooked her. "Don't be stupid!"

He came back then, from wherever he'd gone. Their eyes met; he smiled a rather nasty little smile, which she answered with one of her own. It didn't exactly feel good, betraying her fiancé—she'd never never say that—but there was a definite, well, thrill to it. There was a thrill to putting Spike first.

They drifted out of the bathroom. Spike was still naked, dripping on the floor. He picked up her dress. "Can't you put this back on and go buy yourself something else?"

"It's kind of rumpled. And look—there's a tear in the hem, from your impatience to get your big prick inside me."

"No-one'll see that once you put it on," he said. "Not if you hold your head up like you think you're someone important. A slayer who's just been rogered to within an inch of her life by a powerful old vampire. Someone like that."

"But—" She felt herself pout, and started to laugh. This conversation was a particular unexpected pleasure between them; she liked the nothingness of it. When had she ever talked to him with so little at stake?

Her cell phone showed it was after five. "Well ... would you hate it if I went out for a little while? Just to a couple of stores. I'll only be, like, an hour. Or—two at the most! I could get you anything you need, too."

"Afraid I'll never see you again, once you get to shopping."

She pretended to be indignant. "Everything closes by nine!" But even as she was proposing to leave, she threw herself across the bed, dragged down by a wave of sleepy satiety. Why dress? Why go outside? All she wanted was right here.

Spike stretched out beside her, and she curled herself against him, hooking a leg over his, butting her head into a comfortable place on his shoulder.

"Thought you were hungry."

"I am." She let her eyes fall shut.

When she opened them, she was still lying on the damp towel. Spike was dressed, looking out at the dark blue sky, the drapes drawn all the way back.

"You missed a pretty sunset."

"Oh. I was supposed to—"

"Get your kit on. We'll put some sushi inside you, and then there'll still be a bit of time for me to buy you things before the shops shut."

"And after, can we—" She smiled up at him as she stepped into her panties. "Do you dance, Spike?"

"What?"

"Dance. I've never seen you. But you sure do fuck like a guy who can dance."

"Recall I asked you to dance once upon a time, an' you were havin' none of it." He came to her then, her dress spread open in his hands, and dropped it neatly over her head, settling it on her shoulders, pivoting her so he could kiss the nape of her neck through her moist hair.

Leaning back against his chest, she tipped her head up to smile at him. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so giddy and alive. "A girl gets to change her mind, Spike. You've changed for me ... and I've changed for you. Last stop. All change."

"You changed an awful lot in a hurry, Buffy. Your man, your city ... your future. I'll stick to you right enough, but I'm not ... never gonna be a husband to you, like he could be. Can't give you children. Can't even walk out with you in the day. Are you really sure—?"

"Sure I want to dance with only you? C'mon Spike. Don't you know by now? Because really, if I still haven't shown you—"

"You've shown me wonders. You've shown me—"

"Love. Just L. O. V. E. That's what I want to show you. Every day. Like you showed me. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, I just want it to be you. Of course, along with the love comes my bad moods and occasional bouts of unreasonableness."

The tension in his eyes gave way. The last bit of reserve he'd been holding onto through all their lovemaking and laughter and conversation, slipped away as she watched his face. Without it, she thought, he looked so young. Young and curious and proud.

On Twenty-third Street, they walked east, holding hands. At the corner bodega Spike bought a peony, fat and pink, its copious petals already dropping as he brought it out to her, waiting on the sidewalk. In the spill of light from the shop, he gave her a long searching look. Behind the blue of his eyes, she saw a flash of feral gold, a reminder of what they had in common, the mysterious power, the understanding of things regular people never knew about at all.

Pedestrians plodded and drifted past them, a few feet off the traffic surged on the avenue, taxis jerking and straining through the intersection. In their spot half under the bodega awning, by the pyramids of oranges and mangos, they were alone.

Laying the peony in her hands, he said, "That'll hold my place, yeah, for somethin' bit less random. Somethin' better."

"Hey, don't knock the random. All About The Random here. Big big fan. And as for what could be better," she said, touching the soft melting petals, curling her fingers around his, "I don't know. I don't know anything better than this."





~End~


Author's Afterword: Sometimes readers like to know something about the genesis of a story. Some readers may find Buffy's behavior in shucking her engagement ring and her fiancé odd and out of character. Hence, I'd like to share a little about the process that went into A Totally Random Occurrence.

At the time I began this, I hadn't written for a while, was feeling stuck and totally uninspired. I'd rashly signed up for a ficathon and regretted saddling myself with it. Someone left me a journal comment asking for a story in which Spike and Buffy are reunited and just fly into each other's arms without any argument or wankage. That idea stuck around festering in the back of my mind as I flailed, trying to think of something to write about. Finally I decided to try something like that ... and from there, my mind took me to a memorable movie scene, something I've watched over and over: how Janet Leigh, meeting Frank Sinatra on the train in The Manchurian Candidate, takes up with him for reasons that are kind of opaque to the viewer and yet absolutely convincing. He's visibly cracking up, and yet they have one of the strangest and most artful courting conversations I've ever seen in a film or book; that same night, in New York, she comes to bail him out of jail after he's been in a bar fight, and announces matter of factly that since she left him at the train station, she's broken off her engagement, and is now entirely at his disposal. Having met him, there's absolutely no question in her tidy mind of where she belongs. That's the inspiration for the opening of this story.

The setting of this story is New York City, a couple of years from now (summer '05), but I should probably admit that the Meatpacking District, where the opening is set, once a rough corner of the West Village where gay S&M clubs shared the cobbled streets with meat lockers, is now so gentrified that it's a bit difficult to imagine it as the scene of a vampire ambush, even at 4 in the morning. I took a little liberty there.

More on the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, with pictures, here, here, and here.