Chapter Thirteen

Buffy walked the rest of the way to her building with her head down and her eyes unfocused. Had she not been on her way to a complex full of girls born to slay vampires, demons and other evil, she might have been easy prey. As it was, the immediate vicinity of Council Headquarters and the Slayer School was probably one of the least likely places to find anything more dangerous than a stray cat. She was through the entrance and in her room before anyone even noticed her.

She dropped the suitcase, locked her door and walked towards the bathroom, shedding clothes as she went. After twenty minutes standing in the hot water and letting it wash away her tears, she felt enough like herself to get into some comfortable sweats and curl up on her bed.

I’ll get some sleep tonight and catch Dawn and Giles in the morning. When I explain what’s going on, they’ll understand why I have to leave.

She was so emotionally worn out that she once again went immediately to sleep, and therefore didn’t hear Dawn’s surprised yelp or the whispered conversation that followed it.

“Ow! What the—Spike? Is that you?”

“Sorry, pet,” he apologized, his image emerging slowly while Dawn rubbed her shin and glared down at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like I’m doin’?”

“It looks like you’re trying to break into Buffy’s room.”

“There, see? You didn’t need an answer from me.”

“Spike! What the hell are you doing? Buffy isn’t even here.”

“Yes, she is. I walked her from the train.”

“Then why don’t you just knock?”

“Not sure she’d let me in,” he mumbled as he worked at the door lock. “Need to talk to her.”

“Whatever you think you need to talk to her about, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the best way to do it.”

“Damn! Almost had it. I thought I knew how to do this,” he growled.

“You do,” she said shortly. “Here.” She handed him a bobby pin and when he didn’t take it, huffed and shoved him away. “This is totally on you if she catches us,” she muttered. While the amazed ghost looked on, she quickly found the catch on the old-fashioned door lock and pressed on it. She straightened up and caught the look on Spike’s face.

“What? You told me it was an important skill to have.”

“I taught you that?”

“Among other things.”

“Huh.”

As she watched, he began to fade away. “Wish me luck,” his voice said as the door silently opened and closed.

Inside the room, Buffy slept, oblivious to both the breaking and entering and the invisible man watching her sleep. When she began to toss and turn with what seemed to be a bad dream, an invisible hand stroked her head and a familiar voice murmured soothing words until she was once again quiet.

So peaceful and beautiful did she appear to Spike that he toyed with just watching over her all night, rather than disturbing her sleep. However, he hadn’t counted on her slayer senses, which were tickling her with the knowledge that something supernatural was too close for safety. Suddenly her eyes flew open and she sat up, barely missing Spike’s face as he hastily jerked his head away from where he’d been leaning over her, debating whether or not to kiss her as she slept.

She closed her eyes, extended her senses, and then sighed with resignation.

“Spike? How did you get in here?”

Wearing an abashed smile, he began to appear in front of her.

“Turns out I taught your sister a few things you probably didn’t know about, back when you thought I’d be a bad influence on her.”

“Clearly I was wrong.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “What are you doing here?”

“Ruining your grand gesture, I’ll wager.”

“My what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Planning to leave, aren’t you? Going to take your dangerous self right away from here so you can’t be responsible for sending me to my reward.”

“Is that so wrong?” she asked in a bewildered whisper. “You can leave the house now. You could go on and have a real life. Nobody would even have to know you’re a ghost if you didn’t tell them--”

“An’ you’ll be doing what? Hiding out on some Hellmouth in the States and missing what you could have had? All brave and martyr-like.”

“Why are you mad at me? You don’t remember me; you don’t love me. I’m giving you a chance to have whatever you want. You should be thanking me!”

“For not even consulting me about my future? Some things just don’t change, do they, Slayer? I don’t get a vote if you decide to take away something that makes me happy. I may not remember you, but something in me knows that I’m happier when you’re around than when you aren’t.”

“You asshole! The minute you figure out why I make you happy, you’ll be gone. Poof! Moved on to the next plane. Wherever that is. You’ll be GONE. Again,” she finished in a whisper.

“So who is this about, exactly? Making me stay where I’m not meant to be so that you – what? Don’t have to feel guilty that you were responsible for killing me? Maybe moving on is the best thing for me. Did you ever think about that? That I might be on my way to Heaven?”

“You want to leave again?” Her eyes were wide and her mouth trembled; then anger took over. “You want me to mourn for you again?”

“Bloody hell, Buffy. No!” He crossed the room and fell to his knees beside the bed. “I don’t want to hurt you. Know I probably have one way or another, but I never want to do it again.” He looked up at her with eyes that begged for understanding. “But this decision that you made -- to take yourself off where you can’t hurt me. It’s not just yours to make, luv. It’s my life we’re playing with here.”

He paused and stroked her face, pushing her hair off it in a gesture so familiar that her breath caught in her throat. “Trust me when I tell you that I’m no more interested in not being here anymore than you are. I’m just getting to know you, just beginning to realize why I fell in love with you the first time. If you think I want to leave now, you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”

“But…”

“No buts about it, Buffy. You should have asked me what I wanted to do, not made the decision for me. You know how you feel when someone does that to you.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I get really pissed when people do things ‘for my own good’.” She froze, staring at him. “But you wouldn’t know that! We haven’t talked about me enough to--” Panic was plain on her face.

“Relax, luv,” he said, standing up and moving to a straight-back chair. “I’ve got to know you well enough to know that about you. It was just an educated guess.”

Relief flooded her body. “Then you’re not…you didn’t…”

“Nope. Just as mind-wiped as I was when you met me.”

She shut her eyes in relief and dropped back onto the bed. “Oh, god. You scared me.”

“I thought you wanted the real me? You were plenty happy earlier tonight when you thought I was back.”

“That was because I thought you weren’t a ghost anymore! Not because I wanted you to get your memories back. I…I don’t think I want you to now. It’s too dangerous.”

“Only if I know what it is needs fixin’ between us. Seems like with our history it could be a pretty long list.”

“You have no idea,” she agreed, opening her eyes to find him taking off his coat and draping it on the chair. “What are you doing?” Her voice was a startled squeak.

“Jus’ getting comfortable,” he answered, unlacing his boots and pulling them off.

“In my bedroom?”

“Seems only fair.” He stood up and stretched. “We’re not through here, and I don’t want you havin’ to get all dressed again to come out with me.” Still not looking at her, he eased down onto the bed, smiling to himself when she automatically moved over to make room for him.

“You can’t talk standing up?”

Spike rested on his side, supporting his head with one hand. “I can, but I figure if we’re both lying down, we’re less likely to express ourselves with our fists.”

She snorted indelicately. “You really don’t know much about us, do you?”

“Know we’ve got something pretty special – no matter how unconventional it may seem to some – and I’m not giving up the chance to explore this relationship just because I might go poof.”

“That’s not a relationship you’re exploring – it’s my face.” Buffy’s words were testy, but she leaned into his stroking hand. As soon as she realized what she was doing, she jerked back and turned her face away. “We can’t do this.”

“We can. We should,” he said, touching her chin and turning her face towards his. “I want you, Buffy. Won’t say those words you think I can’t mean yet, but my body believes them. It’s telling me to make love to you.”

“It seems to me, you might have learned not to listen to that part of your body by now. It always gets you into trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said, trailing his hand over her shoulder and down her arm, smiling when he felt her shiver.

“What if…not that I’m saying it would…but suppose it jiggles your memory? I could have you and lose you all at the same time.”

“Not going to happen, love. Not unless my unfinished business with you is to give you the shaggin’ of your life. Jus’ because I get my memories back won’t mean I’ve fixed whatever I think needs fixing.” He looked at her in sudden panic. “It isn’t, is it? Did I leave you wanting?”

Buffy smiled and touched his face with a gentle hand. “I can safely say that you never left me anything but exhausted and completely satisfied. That is NOT your unfinished business, trust me.”

“Then what’s wrong with letting me love you?” When she appeared to be wavering, he added with a twinkle in his eye, “You wouldn’t let me go poof while I was still a virgin, would you?”

“A what? You’re…that’s…” Buffy’s mouth kept opening and closing but she couldn’t make coherent words come out of it.

‘Hey! I don’t remember any shagging. As far as I know, this is all new to me.” He moved closer to her and brushed his lips across hers. “Think about it, Buffy. You could be the one to teach me…”

“I wouldn’t want you to go poof without knowing…” Her words were lost as their lips fastened themselves together and she discovered that Spike hadn’t forgotten how to kiss. Her muffled whimper was all the permission he needed to begin running his hands over her torso. He threw one leg over hers and groaned as her hands came around his back and pulled him closer.

The years seemed to melt away as they fell easily into the familiar rhythms and caresses of their brief time as lovers. Their hands remembered just where to touch, their lips knew just the right pressure to apply, their bodies responded as if it had been only a few weeks since they were last together. When Spike heard the soft cries that meant Buffy was on the verge of orgasm, he put his lips next to her ear and whispered, “Come for me, sweetheart.”

As she shuddered beneath him, he lost control of his ability to remain visible. While he surrendered to the moment and pumped to his own release, she opened her eyes to see nothing but the ceiling of the room. Her gasp of surprise matched his groan as he emptied himself, collapsing upon her. Buffy quickly shut her eyes again, willing herself to relax when she realized that she could still feel him.

After a few minutes of basking in the intimate connection, Spike raised himself on his elbows and tried to move to the side. Buffy clutched him tightly, her eyes still squeezed shut, saying, “Don’t go.”

“Not going anywhere, love. I’m just taking my weight off you.” He gazed at her face with its tightly closed eyelids and murmured, “Buffy? Are you alright? Open your eyes. Let me see you.”

She shook her head vigorously. “You aren’t here if I open my eyes.”

“I’m here, Buffy. I’m right here. You can feel me.”

“I can feel you, but I can’t see you.”

“Wha-? Oh, bugger. I’m sorry, pet. It was concentrate on you or on being visible – I picked the important one.”

“Okay, so there are some drawbacks to this ghost thing.”

He ran his lips across her closed eyelids.

“I can work on it,” he assured her. “Had to learn to control the solid - not solid part; I can work on stayin’ visible, too.”

“Tell me I’m not going to regret this,” she whispered, turning her head into his shoulder and kissing the smooth skin that she could feel, if not see. “Tell me it’s going to be all right.”

“Not goin’ to leave you, Buffy. I promise. Whatever it is I think I owe you – you’re just going to have to take my marker for it; ‘cause you’re not getting it. Not from me.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it. There’s nothing you can possibly need to ‘fix’ with me that is worth losing you again. Nothing.”

He rolled to the side, pulling her with him and enjoying the way she nestled into his body with such familiarity. With her leg resting on his thigh, and her arm possessively across his chest, Buffy let out a happy sigh and wriggled against him.

“I’ve missed this,” she whispered. “Not just the sex, but having you right here, with me.”

“Feels good, pet. Having you in my arms like this. Feels right. Did we used to do this a lot?”

“Not as much as we should have,” she said, a trace of regret softening her voice. “But right before you saved the world, we did. We slept just like this for a couple of nights; except we had our clothes on.” She raised her head to look into his now-visible eyes. “You said the first time was the best night of your life -- and that you were terrified.”

“Afraid of how much I loved you, was I?”

She twitched with surprise. “I guess you were. I know I was scared. We had a world to save and there just wasn’t time to work on us stuff, you know?”

“Got time now, don’t we?”

“Do we? I hope so. I want there to be an us. But only if you want it,” she added hastily. “I’m not trying to make decisions for you again; I’m just saying that--”

“I understood you, love. If what I’m feeling now is even half what you say I used to feel for you, it is a pretty frightening thought.”

When he felt her begin to pull away, he tightened his arms quickly.

“Not saying I don’t want it, Buffy. I don’t need my memories to know that I never wanted anything like I want this. You and me -- don’t need to remember it to know it’s right. That it’s what I want.”

“Maybe when you get your memories back, it won’t be what you want. There has to be some reason why you didn’t call me as soon as you were solid enough to hold a telephone. When you were at Angel’s, I mean. I know you were helping him, but--”

“There probably was a reason. But I don’t have a soddin’ clue what it may have been.” He tipped her chin up and glared at her. “Know bloody well that it wasn’t because of something you did,” he growled. “Not because I didn’t believe you when you said you loved me.”

“You’ve been talking to Dawn,” Buffy responded with a rueful smile. “And you don’t know whether that’s the reason or not; so don’t pretend you do. I never gave you any reason to think I loved you…well, okay, maybe I did…a little.”

Memories of the events that followed their break-up flowed freely, and she unconsciously clutched him tightly.

“Buffy?

“Sorry,” she said, forcing herself to relax. “I just had a flashback to some of the less pleasant things we’ve said and done to each other.”

She bit her lip, wondering how much of what he thought he needed to ‘fix’ revolved around the events in her bathroom.

“Something you need to tell me?”

She shook her head vigorously, then buried it in his neck. Her voice was muffled.

“No. This is not something you need to know. All you need to know about it is that I forgave you. I never got a chance to tell you that I forgave you, because you left to get your soul. But I did.”

“What was it? What did I do?” When there was no response, he pushed her back from his chest and waited until she had reluctantly met his eyes. “Why don’t you want to tell me? What could be worse than trying to kill you so many times? You’ve been bloody cheerful about sharing that with me.”

“Well, that’s cause you could never -- you know – actually manage it.” She gave him a half-hearted grin, hoping to change the subject.

“I can’t think of anything worse than trying to kill you…unless I killed somebody you cared about? I didn’t do that, did I? Did I hurt somebody you loved?”

“No! Spike…just stop, okay? You don’t want to know. I don’t wantyou to know. The less you know about stuff like that, the less likely you are to try to make it better.”

In an effort to distract him, she began to nuzzle her way across his collarbone until she could run her lips down to plant light kisses on his chest. She licked his nipple, smiling when she saw it stand up. She took the little peak in her teeth and bit down gently, his lustful growl bringing back memories of the time she’d handcuffed him to the bed and spent an afternoon exploring his body.

When he tried to reach for her, she stopped him. “Ah, ah. You just keep those hands out of my way,” she said sternly. “I’ve been missing this body for years and now that it’s here, I’m going to play.”

She pushed his hands up over his head, waited until he had obediently curled his fingers around the bars on the headboard, before returning her attention to the smooth skin in front of her. As she nibbled her way around his torso, pausing now and then to run her tongue over spots that she remembered as being particularly sensitive, she asked, “You know what I miss?”

“What?” His voice was a gasp as she began to nibble her way down his flat stomach.

“Your smell. I noticed it when I slept in your bed. You don’t smell like Spike anymore.”

“You’re complainin’ because I don’t smell?”

“I liked the way you smelled,” she said with a pout. “It was…it was you. I liked it.” She couldn’t think of anything else to express what it had meant to be able to smell his scent on her even after she’d gone home.

“I’m sorry, love,” he said gently. “You know there’s nothing I can do about that, right?”

“Oh! Ohmygod. I didn’t mean…” She stared at him with frightened eyes. “I wasn’t complaining, I swear. I’m…this is making me very happy. Having you here, with me, feeling you, knowing you want me. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I--”

“’s alright, pet. You need to stop apologizing to me so much. If what you’ve told me about us is right, getting’ my memories back is likely to make me think you’re some sort of robot or something, not the real-- What? What’s so funny?”

Buffy’s convulsive laughter brought a reluctant grin to his face, even as he became impatient for her to stop long enough to explain it to him. Instead of doing so, she sat up, cocked her head and put a completely fake and inane smile on her face.

“You should see him naked!” she sputtered, through laughter that had tapered off to giggles. She ran her eyes over his body and licked her lips. “Buffybot really knew what she was talking about; I’ve got to give her that.”

“Buffybot?”

“Another one of your not-so-great ideas,” she said, still shaking with occasional laughter.

“Please tell me I didn’t shag a robot,” he groaned. “That I couldn’t tell the difference between you and a fake girl.”

“Oh, you knew the difference,” she said, mastering her giggles. “Xander and Willow didn’t, though. And when they saw you and the bot…” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t been so horrified, and so worried about Glory, I might have been flattered – just a little.” She glared at him when he seemed to be taking too much interest in what she’d said. “Very little! It was gross and disgusting and I…”

He titled his head and gazed at her conflicted face. “You what?”

“I might have been…just the teeniest…littlest bit…curious. But not jealous! I wasn’t jealous.”

He smiled and stretched, deliberately flexing his biceps and sucking in his stomach.

“Didn’t say you were, love,” he purred. “Wasn’t even thinking it. But, now that you’ve brought it up…”

“I was NOT jealous. I mean, even if I was going to be jealous, she was me! How could I be jealous of myself? Which I wasn’t. Completely not.”

She glared at him, daring him to contradict her.

“Think we’ve settled that, Slayer. I was a robot-shagging pig and you were disgusted…mostly.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“Perfectly.” He brought one hand down and stroked her head, letting the strands of hair slide through his fingers. “Can’t believe I was willing to settle for a substitute. Not for you.”

Buffy blushed and warmed to his praise.

“Well, in all fairness, you had no reason to think I was ever going to give you anything but my fist in your face, I guess. And I think…I think you were pretty lonely. I mean, I didn’t think that at the time, because I really wasn’t thinking about you much at all…” She shrugged apologetically. “But my mom said something about it one time, before she…before she died. And later, when I thought about it, I realized that we were pretty much all you had back then and when I shut you out…”

“Buffy,” he stopped her with a finger to her lips. “You were fighting a Hellgod, your mum was dying – or dead? You’ll have to clear up some of these timelines for me – I get the feeling there are big gaps in between one story and the next.”

He dropped his hand and shook his head ruefully. “Anyway, knowing a monster thought he was in love with you and was carryin’ on with plastic made to look like you…Can see why you weren’t real interested in why I did it.”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah, in the overall scheme of things, I guess the Buffybot was more of an ‘ewww’ moment than an evil one.”

Spike put his hands back on the bars and wriggled his hips, drawing her attention to his semi-hard cock.

“Not to change the subject, but don’t you have some playing to do, Slayer?”

“About six years worth of it,” she agreed. “This could take a while.”

“Have at it, love. I’ve got forever.”

With a silent prayer that he was right, Buffy turned her attention to the body part now waving for her attention. She lowered her head and blew on the tip, earning a growl from the hopeful vampire. She gave him a teasing grin, and concentrated on nibbling her way around his stomach and upper thighs, relenting when his hisses and growls turned to unmanly whimpers.

She ran her tongue up the side of his cock, earning herself a contented sigh, followed by an exhaled “yes!” when she took it in her mouth and began to demonstrate some of the things he’d taught her to do so long ago.