a/n: Thanks to all who have been reading. I have really enjoyed the reviews for this story. The last chapter will be posted later on tonght.



“Damn,” Dawn said, with a huge grin on her face. “I don’t know what he said to her, but that chick looks about ready to explode.”

Buffy glanced back again at Spike and Misty. Spike sauntered towards the bar as Misty glared at him, her chest and face turning a dark shade of red. The curse words she shouted at Spike’s retreating form were drowned out by the loud music. He took a seat, six stools down from them, and slapped a twenty on the glossy surface.

“I’ll be back in a little bit,” Dirk said. He paused and leaned over the bar to conspire with Buffy. “I still think you’d get faster results if you made him jealous.” Then he rushed over to get Spike his drink and find out just what had happened with Misty.

Not caring that Spike knew she was being nosy, she strained to hear what they were saying; but it was futile in the nightclub environment to attempt to hear other people’s conversations. Buffy turned back to face Dawn when the younger girl gripped her arm.

Two good-looking men in faded jeans and button down shirts that were unbuttoned down to their navels approached them. “Hi, ladies,” the one with the goatee said. “Would you like to dance?”

Before Buffy could turn them down gently, Dawn hopped off her bar stool and pulled Buffy with her. “We’d love to dance.”

Buffy allowed them to lead her to the glowing dance floor and did her best to be cheerful as she moved to the beat with one of the guys. She wanted to laugh as he jerked around rather more like a robot than a man, but he wasn’t laughing and seemed to think he was doing a good job. After a few minutes, she was ready to excuse herself and find a seat. She spotted Spike, leaning against a dark wall, just inside the dance room, his white hair standing out with a purple glow in the black lights.

Buffy maneuvered closer to Dawn and shouted in her ear, “I need to talk to Spike.”

Dawn nodded and grabbed both of the men by the arm and pulled them deeper into the crowd. Buffy’s heart pounded faster as she walked towards Spike, who visibly tensed but didn’t run away as she approached him.

“Not in the mood to dance?” she asked him.

“Never am. I’m terrible at it.” He downed the last of his drink and set the glass on a ledge.

“Did you get my note this morning?”

“Would have been hard to miss it.”

His cool tone did nothing to lift her spirits. She clenched her fists behind her back and tried to temper her frustration. Spike was unwilling to budge. At all. But, he’d followed her to the dance floor. That was something.

“I meant every—”

“I’ve got an early meeting with my agent in the morning and I’m knackered.”

Spike left her standing there with her mouth open. “Ugh!” Buffy stamped her foot, then turned to search for red in the sea of bodies on the dance floor. When she finally found her, she yelled over the music to Dawn’s two admirers, “She’ll be right back.”

Just off the dance floor, Dawn bit her lip, looking hopeful. “Did you get to talk to him?”

“Sort of. Listen, I’m going to walk back to my place.”

Dawn shook her head and searched her little purse for her car keys. “You don’t have to do that. We can go now and I’ll drive you home.”

“No. It looks like you’re having fun. Thank you for dropping everything to come with me tonight. You’re welcome to stay over at my place if you end up too tired to drive back to L.A.”

“I needed a night out.” Dawn glanced back at the guys, who were waving to her. “And, I’m having fun. If you really don’t mind me staying while you go home, I think I will hang out here. But, don’t worry about leaving your door unlocked. I’m not drinking, so I’ll be fine to drive home.”

They hugged and then Buffy smiled as she watched her sister head back to her newfound friends. On her way to the exit, she stopped at the bar and asked Dirk to watch out for her sister. She gave the same instructions to Chet who promised to walk Dawn to her car when she was ready to leave. Satisfied that she’d be safe and knowing that Dawn had a lot of training and could take care of herself, Buffy stepped out into the refreshing night air and headed across the street where she planned to walk the well-lit Strand back to her building.

At this time of night, it was almost empty. A couple of men on bikes passed her and up ahead she could make out a lone figure on foot. She narrowed her eyes to see better and then picked up her own pace when she was sure who it was. Buffy watched him take the steps up to the parking lot where the path to their apartments was. She took them two at a time, but was careful of her heels. She didn’t need a sprained ankle.

She went through the apartment entrance, ran down the hall and stepped into the elevator with him just before the doors closed on them.

“Going up?” she asked cheerfully and pushed the button for her tenth floor apartment.

He reached past her and pushed the number two. In seconds, the doors opened, but she blocked his way out and slapped the close door button.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He said it with an appropriate amount of indignation, but Buffy saw the flare of interest in his blue eyes. Just like old times, he got off on being pushed around by her. She wasn’t surprised.

“I want you to come up to my apartment so we can talk.” The elevator lurched up. “Without you running away from me.”

“Okay.”

They were both silent after that. Buffy insisted that he get off the elevator before she did, because she wasn’t sure he wouldn't close the door after she got off and leave her standing there again. He took out his own key to the apartment and let them in. She flipped the lights on and waited for him to say something.

“Well?” He crossed his arms over his chest and arched a brow at her. “Say what you have to say so I can get some sleep.”

“Sit down, at least.”

Spike took the easy chair, leaving Buffy to sit on the couch alone. She bent over to undo the straps for her shoes, knowing full well that she was giving him quite a view of her cleavage. She didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for using everything in her arsenal to keep him staring at her. They’d been inseparable for days before he found out about his past and she missed his touch, missed his arms around her when she slept at night.

She slowly sat up straight. “You need to forgive me.”

He looked down at his shoes. “Thing is, I don’t know how you could forgive me.”

Totally blindsided by his response, she said, “What?”

Spike looked at her then, searching her face, for what, she didn’t know.

“I did something bad, didn’t I? I mean, I can’t remember what exactly, but I’ve been having these flashbacks. Everyone glaring at me at different times. Your eyes, big, full of unshed tears and anguish when you looked at me.”

She closed her eyes, but she could see her bathroom in Sunnydale and she opened them quickly. “You were a soulless vampire for more than a century. You did a lot of bad things. A lot. When you first came to town, all you wanted to do was kill me. You tried, too, many times.”

“But when I changed, when I was obsessed with you, I didn’t hurt you?”

With a shaky breath, she paused and then said, “We hurt each other. But those last few months that we were together, it was…special. I’d never felt closer to anyone in my life--but we were in the middle of the biggest battle to save the world we’d ever been in. There was no time for relationships.” She choked up and with her voice breaking she struggled to keep talking. “We didn’t get a chance to say everything. I didn’t get a chance to say…to tell you how much your friendship, your loyalty—oh, God—and your love meant to me.”

His features were twisted in pain as he held his breath. “Why didn’t I come find you then when I came back as a ghost to Angel’s office?”

“I can’t believe he told you about that.” Buffy shook her head.

“At least he had the decency to tell me the truth.”

She ignored the hurt and accusation laced in his voice.

“Here’s what Angel told me about all that ghost stuff. The magic that brought you back from dust also bound you to the city of Los Angeles. You tried to leave, to come to me, but once you got to the outskirts of the city, you would pop back into the Wolfram and Hart building. And then when you were a solid vampire again, Angel needed your help and you stayed.”

“Why wouldn’t I call you?”

“I don’t know. I wish you would have. I would have been on a plane to L.A. so fast…”

Confused and uncertain, he asked, “Would you have?”

“That’s exactly what I did when I found out you were alive and here in Redondo Beach.”

“And yet, you didn’t introduce yourself. You didn’t think it was important to tell me who I was.”

“It wasn’t like that.” On a whim, she stood and went to him, sitting in his lap and putting her arms around his neck. She shivered with pleasure when his hands automatically found their way to her hips. “I was just so happy for you. That you were getting a second chance to have a life.” She buried her face in the crook of his neck and said, “But, I’ll admit, I was--am too selfish to let you go. I wanted you in my life, and I was trying my best to make that happen, but still keep you blissfully ignorant of your past. Our past. Everyone told me I should tell you, but I was stupid and thought I knew what was best for you.”

“Aren’t I different? Do you really like the human me or are you just blindly missing Spike, the vampire you were in love with?”

“You are a little different.” She smiled fondly and touched his face. “I miss your caustic tongue sometimes and all that witty snark—we used to go rounds, insulting each other.”

“And this was a good thing?”

“Oh, yeah. Even before you started crushing on me, the way you talked used to get me hot.”

Buffy moved over his lap, biting her lip when he looked down and she could feel him getting firm beneath her.

“What else is different?” Spike asked, doing his best to focus on her face instead.

“Not much. You’re still the sexy, energetic and headstrong guy you always were.” She grabbed one of his hands and entwined her fingers with his. “You have a great tan now, you're deliciously warm to cuddle with and,” she put their hands over his heart, “you have a heartbeat.”

He stood up suddenly and she found herself gently placed on her feet. He stepped away from her.

“I can’t think when you’re this close to me.”

“I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel. To act. I want you to forgive me, dammit!”

He shook his head. “You think you know me, but what if you don’t? What if two months from now, you decide that I’m a disappointment?”

“You don’t think I know you?” With a shuddering breath, she advanced on Spike, gently pushing him back until he was against the wall next to the television stand. “Right now, you’re freaking out because it turns you on when I get rough with you.” To prove her point Buffy shoved him again, smashing him against the wall. “I know that if I tore your shirt off right now, that fire in your eyes would get bigger.” He was turned on just by her suggestion, but she changed gears and poked his chest with her finger. “I know that you love me. And that right now, you want to pick me up and throw me on my bed.”

“Maybe you’re right. But I can’t fight with you, I can’t watch over your sister or be the extra muscle when the world needs saving. I’m just a man now.” He looked off to the side.

Buffy grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. “Just a man? You’re not just a man. You’re a force of nature, an incredible person who deserved the reward he got. There are hundreds of little hormonal warriors out there now. Hell, I’m practically obsolete myself.”

“But don’t you still work for the Council thing that Dawn was going on about?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’m ready to retire. I’ve worked hard. I’ve lived longer than most slayers ever do.” She pulled him with her to the couch.

“But you’re so young,” Spike said.

“Trust me. In my line of work, I’m over the hill. I’ve died twice and been revived or brought back.”

He gasped at the thought and squeezed her hand.

“Um,” she said, “I guess no one told you about all that.”

“No, Angel and Dawn conveniently left those details out.” Spike thought about it for a minute and then nodded, “I guess that’s what Dawn meant when she said that I had watched out for her one summer when you were gone.”

“You watched out for her, you kept her safe and you made her feel like she mattered.”

“She’s amazing, like you,” he said, reaching up and running his hand through her hair. “Where is your sister? You didn’t just leave her alone at Stranded, did you?”

Buffy watched his mouth move, wanting nothing more to kiss him. They were so close. If she leaned in…

Absently, she said, “She’s gone through slayer training. Self-defense and all that. I asked Dirk to look out for her.”

Spike leapt to his feet. “What time is it?”

Frowning, she glanced over at the clock on the VCR. “It’s almost 1:30. Why?”

“Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm and yanked her off the couch. “Dirk was off at one tonight.”

“So?”

“I know Dirk. He’s got her up in the apartment right now. That’s the way he operates.”

“Dawn wouldn’t go for him; and she’s a big girl, even if she would.”

“Do you want your sister dating shag-anything-that-moves Dirk?”

She sighed, wishing they could just stay and talk. There was so much more they needed to work out. He hadn’t said he'd forgiven her yet.

“No. I don’t want her to date someone like Dirk.”

“Let’s go then.”