Buffy returned to her house, relieved for the chance to get some much-needed rest after the past few very stressful days. Despite her excuse to her friends about being tired, she had actually slept very little the night before. She climbed slowly up the stairs to her room, trying to shut out the swirling thoughts that threatened to ruin even this rare chance at rest.

She opened the door to her room – and jumped in surprise and fear. The cause of her reaction, standing across the room by her window, also jumped, equally startled.

Anger quickly took the place of her surprise as she stalked across the room toward the nervous vampire, who instinctively backed up a step or two as she approached.

“Spike, what the hell do you think you’re doing in here?” she demanded, taking him by the arm and jerking him toward her.

“Now, Slayer,” he said, his voice a little shaky at the fury in her eyes. “Just calm down.”

“Don’t you tell *me* to calm down, Spike, you’re the one in my room when I’m not here!” She frowned, looking away as she considered her choice of words, before correcting herself. “When I *wasn’t* here. What are you doing here?” she demanded again, slowly and distinctly.

“I was just – waiting for you,” he said, his voice softening, gazing into her eyes with his own soft blue ones. The sorrow and vulnerability in those eyes nearly melted her anger away.

At the last second she remembered that she had a *right* to be angry, and focused on that. “Why would you be waiting for me? I wasn’t supposed to be back for hours yet!”

“I – I just…” Spike couldn’t think of an answer that would be acceptable to her. He had just wanted to feel close to her, and all she had done for the past couple of days was reject him. “I just want you to talk to me, Buffy,” he finally admitted, knowing it was not really an answer to her question, but it was all he knew to say.

The pain in his eyes was her undoing. Releasing his arm, abandoning her menacing posture for one that spoke of sadness and defeat, she turned away from him slightly. “Spike,” she said softly in a tired voice. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I said it all the other night. All I have to say. I’m tired. Can’t you please just leave?”

Spike stood there for a moment, his mouth working with repressed emotion, before he started slowly toward the door. Buffy breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on her bed.

Suddenly, near the door, he stopped. “No,” he said softly, his back still turned to her.

Not sure she had heard him correctly, Buffy said with her eyebrows raised, staring at his back, “Excuse me?”

As he turned slowly to face her, she felt her insides quaking in an odd way at the look on his face. That old patented Spike-smirk. “No,” he said more firmly. “Who says you get to have your say and I don’t, then, Slayer? Hmm?” he demanded, advancing on her quickly, determination in his voice and in his stride. “You’ve said an awful lot these past couple of days…but I don’t know if you’ve actually *listened* to a bloody word!” By this point he was standing right in front of her.

“You’re so bloody furious with me because Diana and I killed that wanker. Well what do you do every single soddin’ night of your life, love?” he demanded.

Buffy scoffed, relieved that he had given her something to work with. She had not seen this much fire in the vampire in a long time; she had a feeling this was one argument she was going to be hard-pressed to win. “That is *not* the same,” she declared, shaking her head as she rose to her feet. She felt at a disadvantage, sitting on the bed while he towered over her. “The vampires I slay are killers, Spike. It’s my duty, I’m the…”

“Bloody chosen one, only one to stand alone, and all that bloody nonsense, right?” he sneered. “Chosen to fight evil…right? To stand against the monsters and fight them back, to protect their helpless victims?”

She could tell where he was going with this, but he had picked up too much steam by now to allow himself to be interrupted. Leaning in closer to her, he said in a softer voice, his electric blue eyes arresting her and refusing to let go, “Finn was a monster, Buffy. A monster. You might not care one bloody bit what he did to Diana, because she’s a vampire and he’s human…”

Atop her sputtered protests and denials he continued, “But she wasn’t always. She was a human, Buffy. A normal girl with a normal life, and he took that all away from her and killed her, just to turn her into his bloody slave…because he couldn’t handle being rejected by a woman who knows what she wants…again…” He allowed himself a small smile of appreciation that the Slayer herself had been way too much for Riley Finn to handle.

“If she’s any less than human, it’s because he made her that way. She’s the victim in all this, love.” He drew closer to her suddenly, and she desperately wondered if he could hear her heartbeat quicken. “And you never answered my question before, Slayer,” he said coolly, his eyes narrowing as he faced her without any inclination to back down. “Just exactly what *would* you do if it was you or yours he’d done it to?” There was a challenge in the words, and she knew he was not going to let her get away without answering this time.

She could feel her anger and frustration building with her confusion and realization that some of his points were actually valid. Suddenly she was very annoyed that this chipped, helpless vampire who couldn’t lay a finger on her if he wanted to had *her* backed into a corner, literally *and* figuratively. Pulling herself up to her full, still-not-intimidating height, she took a step forward, forcing him to step back as the answer exploded from her with her anger.

“I’d kill him, Spike,” she admitted in a voice that trembled with cold rage. “I would take my sharpest, pointiest weapon and I would kill him if he ever touched one of my family. If he tried to hide, I’d find him. If he tried to run, I’d catch him. I would track him down to the ends of the earth and make the disgusting piece of garbage pay for what he did.”
Her own eyes widened with the realization of the primal, instinctive savagery of her tone.

When she looked back up into the fathomless blue depths of his eyes, he was smiling sadly. “You see, love?” he said softly. “You’re not so very different from her.”

She looked away, stunned by the truth in his words.

Then she was absolutely blown away by the depth of emotion, the simple sincerity, of his next words. “You’re not so very different from *me*.”

He paused, calmer now, as he could see that he was finally, finally getting through to her. “Love, I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, seen a bloody awful lot. Seems to me, it’s not about humans and vampires or souls or no souls, or any of that. Seems to me it’s about what you *do*.”

“A bloke like Finn, from a right comfortable family, raised up right, bloody soddin’ precious *soul* intact,” he couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his tone, but it was gone again in a moment. “Don’t much matter when he does the sort of things he did. Murder. Rape. Torture. I’d say the good lieutenant definitely qualified as evil. Then you take our little Diana,” he went on, a slight tremor in his voice. “People see her as evil. Soulless monster, they’d say. ‘Cept that til last night, she’d never hurt a living thing. And the only one she’s hurt now is the *evil monster* that kept her chained like an animal and beat and tortured and raped her for months! Now which of those two would you say is evil, love?”

His intense eyes demanded her answer, and it was clear to her, but she could not bring herself to say it. She looked away again.

Pressing his advantage, he stepped closer to her, once again putting his hands on her arms, seeking her eyes again. This time there were no threats; she allowed him to touch her without hesitation, looking back up into his eyes – and the warmth and devotion she saw there took her breath away.

“Now, me, love,” he went on, a sad, self-deprecating smile on his perfect lips. “I’ve done a lot worse than old Finn in my day. Not lately, mind you. But I’ve done some bloody awful things. I won’t lie; wouldn’t do me any good. You know all about me, love,” he admitted, his voice soft and careful. “And what Diana and I did to that monster…I can’t say I’d do it differently if I had it to do over. But then…neither could you,” he pointed out gently before she could become incensed by his statement.

Suddenly he looked away, almost shyly, for a moment before meeting her eyes again. And the longing, the desperation she saw there made her heart quicken again. God, she wanted him!

“Buffy – I can’t undo what’s done. Any of it. I’m not sure I would if I could. But like I said….good and evil…it’s all about your choices. And I choose you, Buffy, whatever else that might hold. If you’ll have me, love, I’ll do whatever it takes to be…to be deserving of you. It’s not like I have a bloody choice right now,” he admitted with a soft laugh. “But chip or no chip…you say the word and it’s done. I’ve been evil for a long time, Buffy. But I can be good. I can. If you want me to. If – if you’ll help me.”

The intensity of his devotion, the enormous weight of what he was telling her, was overwhelming to her. She was suddenly aware that he was placing her in the position of his conscience, out of his desire to be with her, and that responsibility was huge to her. But she wanted it! She wanted *him*!

She tried to tell him, but her words seemed to come out wrong, as she helplessly met his eyes, tears in her own, “Oh, Spike, I want you to…I want…I want you!” That was all she could say, and then she put her hand behind his head and drew him to her, kissing him with a tenderness that had not been in their last embraces. She slowly pulled away, gazing into his eyes, hoping he could see what she felt but could not put into words.

Judging by the way his eyes were shining, the elation in the cautious upturn of the beginnings of a smile, the way he suddenly pulled her to him and kissed her again with a fervent intensity…he saw.

She could feel her body responding even before his hands left her arms and began their slow wandering up and down her body. Suddenly she grabbed him and turned them around, pushing him down onto the bed, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt before they were even lying down.

“Oh Buffy,” he whispered, reaching to lift her shirt over her head. “Sweet, pretty Buffy!” he breathed, and the unabashed awe in his voice quickened her arousal.

As her hands reached downward, struggling blindly for a moment with his zipper as her lips and tongue continued their welcome assault of his mouth, she whispered, “Spike! Spike I want you!”

“I’m yours, pet,” he whispered, back, and then gasped, his hands clutching at the silky blonde strands of her hair as she freed him and took him in her hand.

“Mine,” she whispered, her soft hands gently owning what he had promised to be hers, as she kissed his throat. “All mine.”

“All yours,” he agreed in a hoarse whisper. “Yours, Buffy…only yours.”


Over an hour later, Buffy lay still trying to catch her breath, comfortably held in Spike’s strong, steady arms. “Well,” she whispered. “So much for getting rested up for tonight.”

“What’s tonight, love, and should I be rested up too?” he asked her with a suggestive wiggle of his hips under her.

She gasped, replying quickly, “Spike! Not again! I have to get some rest, really.”

“Why?” he asked her, his fingers gently running through her honey-blonde hair.

She turned to look at him with a teasing grin. “I’m supposed to be hunting you down.”

“Newsflash, pet. You caught me,” he smirked, and she couldn’t help but kiss him again.

When they broke apart, she said, “No, General Cordova’s arranging a search mission tonight. We’re supposed to be hunting down you and Diana. Don’t worry, I’m gonna do all I can to keep them away from here.”

Spike frowned. “Buffy, love…are you absolutely sure there’s no way that anything was picked up on those cameras?”

“Positive. I mean, Will was positive,” she amended. “And she acted totally normal with me today. You should have seen me. I deserve an Oscar,” she declared, smiling proudly up at him for a moment before kissing him again.

“It just makes me nervous, pet. If she were to be on to you…take it from someone who knows…it could be very *very* bad for you, pet. She doesn’t take kindly to being lied to. If she found out it was you somehow…”

“She doesn’t know it was me,” Buffy insisted. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” She rolled over on top of him again, holding his head in her hands as she kissed him again, slowly, thoroughly. “Don’t worry,” she whispered when they parted.

He smiled dazedly up at her and murmured, “’Bout what?”