A/N: This is the last chapter! Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my little story and special thanks to those who reviewed! And thanks to Kristi for the awesome banner! This was my first story and even though it's taken awhile to actually finish it I'm so proud to have to have it posted here and that its been liked. :) Thanks again...so here it is enjoy!


Chapter 8



The setting was familiar to Buffy. The careful, calming blue of the ocean surrounding her, the complete confidence in being so isolated from civilization that she couldn’t help but feel untouchable, and the belief that she was home and safe and loved all encompassed this place. It was a place she only visited in her dreams, but only because a place like this couldn’t really exist. It was that perfect.

Of course, a place, such as this, was meant to be shared, so he was always with her. Sometimes Spike would be holding her; other times they’d be separated by a foot or two, fingers intertwined, but it wasn’t how he made his presence known. It was just his presence. He’d always worn his emotions on his sleeve, and here she was free to truly experience his love. There was no duty, no disapproving friends, and here he hadn’t been burnt to a crisp during the last apocalypse.

Lately, though, these three conditions had lost their weight. She wasn’t the only Slayer, so her duty reduced. Her friends were scattered about the globe and Spike was no longer adding to the dirt at the bottom of the Sunnydale crater. So was her little dream world worth the effort to dream up?

Definitely…hence the smile splashed across Buffy’s face as she clung tightly to Spike’s side drifting bit by bit out to sea. Even though this was the usual scenery for Buffy’s fantasies, this time was different…things more concrete, not that she was complaining.

“You with me ‘ere, love?” Spike’s hand gently caressed her cheek as he gazed expectantly down at her.

“Hmm…here. How could I be any where else?” She smiled lightly running her fingertips down his chest.

“I could think of a few places.” Buffy’s eyes widened as Spike’s hips thrust forward slightly. She glared wildly at him, but he just smirked back at her curling his tongue behind his teeth. Buffy rolled her eyes, a playful grin pulling at the edges of her mouth.

“You, mister, have one dirty mind.” She sat up slightly from the safety of the water to lean on top of his chest.

“Well, considering this is your dream, pet, I…” His words trailed off as her face bent into a confused expression. “What’s wrong?”

She pulled back a little studying the sky. “Don’t you hear that?”

“’Ere what?”

Buffy angled her head towards the sky. There was a low buzzing… or beeping. She couldn’t really decide what to call it, but it was there disturbing her happy place.

“What is it, love?” Spike pressed again reaching out to lay a comforting touch to Buffy’s shoulder.

A long, drawn out sigh passed through Buffy’s lips. “Nothing, just I knew it was coming.”

“And the “it” would be…” Spike questioned one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“The end…” His eyes grew wider at that as if expecting more of an explanation. “Of my happy place I mean…this,” Buffy clarified. “I’m about to wake up.”

As soon as the words left her lips Buffy’s eyelids began to flutter open. That was when she noticed the insistent buzzing/beeping from her dream had yet to cease. Following the noise, she twisted her neck around, past a very naked and slumbering vampire, to the bedside table where her phone sat. It almost vibrated off the table before Buffy reached across Spike to grab it careful not to wake him.

“Hello?” Buffy whispered wrapping a sheet around herself as she sat up in the bed.

“Is he there? Did you find him? Is he coming back with you?” The questions came sputtering out of the receiver so fast Buffy barely had a chance to grasp their meaning.

“Dawn?”

“Yes! It’s me. Now tell me what the hell is going on over there?” A bright smiled coasted across Buffy’s face as the memories of the night before came back to her.

Throwing a glance back toward a sleeping Spike, she replied, “Yes, I’m here. Yes, I found him, and…”

Buffy was suddenly dumbfounded. She had come with a plan, and although she couldn’t remember most of it, she knew it included a talk; a long complicated and grueling talk about the future of Spike and Buffy: the serious relationship. But that specific talk was some how skipped, traded in for the much more fun and less grueling Buffy/Spike lovemaking. The level at which they had missed each other was too high. They were both needy and in love that they just couldn’t help it.

Now it was the morning after, and Dawn was presenting some very interesting questions. ‘Should have stuck with the plan,’ Buffy mused.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to come back with her, but could she really ask him to just pick up and leave?

A quick scan of his apartment told her he didn’t have much. A few shirts in his closet, his prized duster slung haphazardly over a coffee table, and two Xbox controls that looked like they’d been thrown against the wall one too many times were all she noticed. She was sure he probably had more hidden away somewhere, but then again she didn’t really know. As much as she loved him, he could’ve had millions and an island stashed away and she wouldn’t have had any idea. The thought saddened her. It was something she suddenly decided she needed to change.

“Buffy?”

“Huh?”

“What’s going on? Is he coming?”

“I…” Buffy was quickly pulled from her musings as she felt Spike’s legs shift toward her. “He’s waking up, Dawn. I have to go,” Buffy spat in a slightly panicked pitch.

“Waking up! You…you…” Dawn’s voice started to fade and slow as she put the pieces together. With a more calmed tone she began again, “Ok, have fun.” Dawn’s sing-song voice played in Buffy’s head as she rolled her eyes and hung up the cell.

“From the abundance of girlish screams, I’m guessing that was Dawn?” Spike said hazily running a hand through his ruffled hair.

“You heard that?”

“Vampire, love. Enhanced hearing does come with the package.” He sat up slowly with the small of his back lightly pressed against the headboard that had taken a beating throughout last night. He leered at her suggestively as it creaked beneath his weight.

She answered with the same seductive smile. “Right, how could I forget?” Then Buffy reached a hand to the bite marks he’d left on her neck, caressing them lightly. The gesture sent shivers down her spine. Her skin was suddenly too tight as she struggled to stay perched up on her knees facing him.

Spike’s mouth formed into a slow grin, but his eyes told a different story.

“What is it?” She questioned hesitantly situating herself into his side. He quickly wrapped his arm around her grasping her tight.

“Its nothing.” The sharp angle of his cheekbones cast a slight shadow across his face as he turned away from her. He clearly did not want to meet her eyes.

“Spike, come on. I don’t regret this,” she stated sweetly gesturing towards the two small punctures on her neck. “I love you, and I asked you to do it, god, practically begged you to; not to mention the mind-numbing pleasure it caused…” Buffy’s words faded off as a deep blush crept up her skin settling on her now rose-colored cheeks.

“That right?” He was smirking again. ‘Must have said something right…’ Buffy mused. She just nodded her head shyly and curled back into his side. “Well, in that case…” Before Buffy knew exactly what was happening, Spike had flipped them so that he was looming overtop of her raining soft kisses down her neck and collarbone.

Her hands quickly found their way to his head. Her fingers itching at his scalp and twisting in between his bleached curls. It amazed Buffy how quickly she could reach such a state. Wave after wave of euphoria washed over her and she was completely helpless to it, to him.

She had had a plan…of course she had said that last night too, but especially this morning after talking to Dawn. They had to talk about what they were going to do, where they were going to go. She had had a plan, and then he had to go and get all sensitive with his blue eyes and uncertainty. She couldn’t not comfort him, reassure him, so now they were here, wrapped in each others embrace, skin against skin. They were just kissing; holding on to each other because when they were together there was nothing else. It sounded cheesy, cliché even, but everything faded away and all she could feel was his touch and his lips.

But there was time for unimaginable levels of passion later, if all went as planned, and she did have a plan. They needed to talk.

“Spike?” Her eyelids managed to pry themselves apart long enough for her to glance down at him. He seemed deeply concentrated on following a path from the spot just behind her ear all the way down to the space between her breasts.

“Spike!” It was supposed to sound irritated, but came out a little less angry and a little more breathless. Buffy clutched desperately to his form as he bit down with blunt teeth on her bite marks. “…Spike…we need to talk…” The words barely escaped being jumbled by her lust-addled brain.

“Hmm?” His head peeked up from its perch at her chest to stare questioningly at her.

“We need to talk,” she said with a little more conviction this time.

He pulled himself from her arms and settled down next to her situating the sheets so they were firmly tugged around him and a pout set on his face.

“Spike-,” she began, only to be suddenly interrupted.

“Buffy, I don’t have anything here except for what you see in this room, and as much as I enjoy being second in command to jolly ‘ol Angel and his band of merry followers, I’d rather be with you. I was never meant to be here. Whatever happened to me with that damned bloody amulet was my end.” She winced at his words, but stayed silent allowing him to continue. “Before that I was with you, every thought I had was about you, even after I was back I barely thought of anything else. I’ll follow you wherever you want to go, even if it’s not back to Rome just yet. We can do whatever you want, Buffy, ‘cause I’m yours. I always have been.”

He looked straight ahead the whole time he spoke. He couldn’t bear to look anywhere else especially not at her. Even after everything they’d been through in the last day and half, part of him would always been a hopelessly shy romantic. It must have been his inner William, he supposed.

“Spike?” Buffy waited for him to look at her before she spoke. “I know our past and I know that you love me, and you’d do whatever…but I want to do what you want. Because I’m yours Spike. I love you, and I’ll go wherever you want. I don’t want to take anything away from you or push you into anything. Let me follow you for a change.”

He looked so surprised that it scared her. Buffy knew this was uncharted territory for them, but his face was so shocked. “Wow. Color me surprised, I never thought I’d see the day William the Bloody was speechless.” He grinned at that making Buffy’s heart soar.

“We can stay here if you want; if you feel like you’re needed…” He grunted humorously at that.

“No, definitely not. If things get bad here I’d like to come and help though because besides Captain Forehead, the others are a bit of all right. Believe it or not, I’ve made some friends here, so if it gets apocalyptic…”

“…You wanna’ help,” she finished for him. “I get that.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “But if we’re not staying here, where exactly do you suppose we go?” As she spoke she crawled closer towards him weaving her way back into his embrace.

He gave her a devilish smile and spoke. “Well, I guess first stop will be in Rome. You are gonna’ need clothes and stuff.” They way the word ‘stuff’ rolled off his tongue made her shiver, and she was about to ask exactly what he meant, but he had already continued on. “Plus by the sounds of that conversation you had with Dawn, I’m guessing the Bit would kill us both if she didn’t get to see me before we left.”

She smiled at that. “You got that right. And by the way where is this mystery destination?”

“Let me take care of that, pet. Since you’re all enthusiastic about letting me have my bloody way, let me surprise you. Yeah?” He pulled her body closer to his side as he spoke and finished with a chaste kiss to her forehead.

She took a second to think about the irony of letting a vampire surprise a slayer, but only for a second because before she knew it she was kissing him feverishly and whispering into his ear, “Of course, William.”

That apparently was exactly what he wanted to hear because he began returning her kisses with double the fervor.

“When exactly will we be taking off?” Buffy said in between passionate kisses and breathy pants. “Tomorrow?” she tried again.

“Of course not! That’s way too soon. End of the week, love; I’ve barely had time to ravish you properly.” With that he threw her underneath his body holding her desperately close and murmured, “Now, since we’re done with all this talking…where were we?” He gaze was completely focused on her chest.

Lifting a fingertip to the top of her neck, Buffy drew a twisting path down to her breasts. “Right about here…” she spoke softly as his lips followed the trail she’d made.

“I love you, Buffy.”

“I love you, Spike”

And just like that they both slipped back into bliss. Their future was still a mystery because truthfully Spike had no idea exactly where he was going to take her, but now that wasn’t important. They had each other. They had their second chance.