A/N: Thanks for all the really great support - it has meant a lot. you guys are great. Thanks again, to Cryssie for all her help, support and encouragement.
So let me know - What do you think of this final chapter ...

IT’S ALL A QUESTION OF TIMING …



CHAPTER 9

Buffy made her way slowly back to the lounge with her tray of drinks. She stopped just outside of the door to try to hear what Spike was muttering. But as he was also pacing it was hard to understand him. It didn’t help because all she could hear was her own mind shouting the words *He’s alive! He’s here*. While she had been settling *their* child and getting the drinks she kept that reminder going through her head, along with telling herself that she must get the courage to talk to him – and allow him to talk to her. She needed to tell him that …

*You are the one, Buffy*

… was really important – but more importantly that …

*He was the one*.

While Buffy had been out of the room, Spike had spent the time telling himself that it was just great to see her, and even if this was to be the last evening that they would spend together, it would be enough.

How far both of them would have gotten with their private monologues was hard to say, as just when Spike spotted the hovering girl, he was immediately there, and went to take the tray out of her hands - to prove that his Victorian manners were still as his mother had taught him. The tray was set down on the coffee table and both of them sat on either end of the large settee adjacent to it. Buffy slowly sipped her drink before turning to tuck her legs under her and to face the man she loved.

“Well,” she started, “what shall I ask first?”

“I know that I didn’t contact you, pet, but there were reasons, actually lots of them. And although I will give them to you, I know now that they won’t make sense.” At that Spike petered out, as he realised that whatever he said would hurt “his” girl. She seemed so calm, which must mean that she had moved on and her words of love were only that of giving a dying man his last wish.

“Spike, please try. I have missed you so much and to realise that you have been alive and avoiding me is very hard.”

“As ever I made the wrong call. To begin with I couldn’t get to you as I was a ghost and then tied to LA …”

“With Angel?”

“Yes, with the poof. Not that it made either of us happy, but over the last few weeks we have come to understand each other a little better. I died so that you could live, Buffy, and although it hurt more than you can imagine to realise that you had moved on to The Immortal of all people, I dealt with it in the hope that you were at long last truly happy.”

He looked at Buffy as he spoke in the hope that she would answer him and let him know that she was at peace, both with her own life and also with his explanation. She just sat there with her head tilted, looking at him, and waiting for him to continue.

“So, are you happy?” he persisted. It was the one thing he needed to know so that he could move on with the rest of his un-life.

“Very!”

“That’s great, so you see it was right for me to leave you to find your own path …”

“Don’t you dare say that” Buffy interrupted at long last. “Yes, at this present time I am happier than I ever dreamed possible, but a huge part of that is because I am looking at you! I just hope that you can say the same. Don’t you love me any more?”

“There will never be a minute in the rest of my existence when I won’t love you Buffy. You mean everything to me, how can you think that I have changed my mind. I didn’t stop loving you when you were dead, so why should I stop loving you even when you are with someone else?”

“But that is one of the main points, Spike. I am not seeing anyone”

“Well I can’t say I am sorry that you are no longer with The …”

“I was never with him. It was a plot so that Giles could do some research. I have lived in London ever since we left Sunnydale.”

“Oh”

At his lack of response she felt that she needed to ask the question that she had wanted to know all evening. “So, how about you, Spike, you hooked up with anyone?”

“Buffy, it will always be you. No one has, or could, take your place. The last person I was truly with was you, on that magical evening in your basement.” As he said this he slid slightly along the settee to interlink his fingers with hers, as they had done in their final few minutes together. At long last this jolted Buffy into her final confession –

“I meant it, Spike. I do love you.”

Before she could say anymore she found herself wrapped in his arms – just holding each other as the tears, at long last, began to fall. For both of them the time for passion would come, they needed this time to just hold and be held. Gradually the tears slowed and words of love were gently spoken. Who started to kiss whom would have been impossible to say, but both wanted to reassure the other of their love and thankfulness. Slowly but surely they settled down onto the settee, although in reality Buffy was now on Spikes lap as they just spent time “together”.

As Buffy sat in his arms she realised that she still had one major explanation to make. “Spike, I love you, and counted the days while you were gone. In fact, to begin with I counted the minutes, but after 108 days I found out something and since that time I have been keeping a diary each night. All the entries are addressed to you and to someone else as well. You see when I said I wasn’t seeing anyone it was true, but I am no longer alone”. She felt him stiffen up under her, so while stroking his arm she re-iterated “I love you, Spike”. At this she stood up and grabbing his hand pulled him to his feet.

Keeping his hand tightly clasped she took him upstairs towards her rooms. It was peaceful as they approached. There was a small nightlight on, so he wouldn’t need his enhanced vampire eyes to see the special person he had gone to meet. They stood in the doorway, with Spike even quieter than before.

“Spike, I would like you to meet William Drew Summers”. At the sound of her voice he turned to look towards his Mommy and so she left the shocked vampire in the doorway to go and pick up their child.

“William,” she said to him as they walked across the room. “I would like you to meet your Daddy, whom you have heard so much about.”

She stood a little distance from him and as Spike looked at the two sets of eyes trained on him, one green and one so blue and he started weeping again. Holding out a shaky hand he stroked his child’s cheek for the first time.

“How about we go down to the lounge again?” asked Buffy, as she walked in that direction followed by someone trying to get a grip on his emotions.

She settled back on her seat, but this time she was the one doing the cuddling. Spike sat at the far end again and for a moment neither spoke.

“Can I hold him?”

“Of course. He is your son, Spike.”

She put William in his Dad’s arms and sat silently crying as the two sat looking at each other. William then copied his Dad’s earlier action of touching his cheek.

“I love you Buffy. This is amazing. I’ve never thought I would ever hold a child, let alone father one.”

“I love you too, Spike. William certainly came as a shock, but Giles said that it was probably something to do with the amulet that was on the bed that night and that the timing was right for it to happen!” She was thrilled that he hadn’t questioned William’s paternity, so felt that she should offer the only explanation that they had come up with, despite all the research they had done.

“I know my timing is wrong pet, as in the era when I was alive you got married, then you had a baby, but we have never done anything properly, have we?” As he was speaking he was standing up carefully and moving to kneel in front of his love. “But will you marry me?”

“Yes” came the immediate answer. “However I want you to promise me something first.”

“I thought it was traditional for the women to obey, not the men,” quipped Spike as he avoided answering the question.

“Yes, I will marry you, I love you. But on our wedding night I want you to claim me as well; so that by the time William gets to know of his vampire heritage, then his parents will have been married by both human and vampire law.”

“Buffy, I love you and I promise that if after we have talked through the eternal implications, you still want to go ahead, we will do the claim on our wedding night”

Spike sat carefully back onto the settee and held out his spare arm so that Buffy could climb onto his lap and thus the new family was settled.

###

Maybe Spike’s opening line to Buffy all those years ago that he was going to kill her was not how most relationships would start; But there again who of us knows what is round that next corner –

*“It’s All A Question Of Timing”*