- 6 -


Giles had been angry for so long. Realization was a slap in the face, waking him up from months of sleepwalking through life with his anger wrapped around him like a shroud. The guilt was oppressive, damn near suffocating him with its completeness.

Joyce Summers was on his doorstep in tears. Buffy was missing—she’d been missing for months.

Dread prickled over him uncomfortably. He suffered the feeling.

How had he let it come to this? It had been months! Somehow the days had turned to weeks and weeks had slipped effortlessly into months before his very eyes and he’d done nothing. Had his judgment really been clouded so badly? He had privately carried around his anger at his Slayer for months over Angelus and Jenny’s subsequent death. He’d been angry over the fact she’d lowered herself to sleep with a demon, thereby endangering them all and costing Jenny her life. She’d been so reckless—so selfish!

So he’d turned around and left his Slayer to take on the threat of Acathla, Angelus, Drusilla, and possibly even Spike alone. Although he could admit to himself that he had some reservations about including the last in his Slayer’s list of opponents and not just because the blond was supposedly wheelchair bound. It had been Xander that had whisked him to safety, but the ropes that had once been tight enough to severely restrict blood flow to his hands and feet had been loosened to the point where a good tug was all that it had taken to free him. Giles suspected he had Spike to thank for that, whatever the vampire’s incentive had been.

How did a grown man act so childishly? He’d essentially played tit for tat with her life...maybe that was the real reason Slayers died so young.

But it was easy to look past your own mistakes and judge others, especially when that ‘other’ was the Slayer. She had done it. The world was here to see another day and the news had come like the first ray of sunshine after months of darkness even despite the fact Buffy had been yet to show. Could he blame her? Buffy had suffered judgment from all of them. They’d put on her on a pedestal twenty foot high and then glared at her if she even wobbled.

Shame burnt through Giles hotly.

Had he left her there to die?

No. Not dead. If she were dead he would have heard from the council like he had last time. That didn’t mean she was alright though. Giles had sent Xander back briefly the next morning to be sure things were over, the boy reporting that the mansion had been empty and aside from a few puddles of drying blood nothing had changed—Acathla had still been dormant. So where was his Slayer? When Buffy hadn’t shown up after the battle he had only assumed that her absence was due to fatigue and a need for some time alone to process everything. After that his anger had taken over once more.

“Mrs Summers,” Giles said as he reached out and grabbed her shoulders gently.
His Slayer’s mother was near hysterical. She had called Hank to no avail. She had sent out word to both the Sunnydale and Los Angeles Police that her daughter, Buffy Summers, was missing from home. Now she was here standing on his doorstep, because apparently Buffy was a Vampire Slayer and he was her Watcher.

“Joyce, calm down. Come inside and we’ll talk.”

Giles was shocked to notice his hands were shaking as he guided Joyce Summers into his home.

“Do you know where Buffy is? Have you heard from her?” Joyce asked frantically.

Giles shook his head and pushed her down gently to sit on his couch and went to pour them both a drink.

“This is all my fault,” she moaned pitifully. “I never should have spoken to her like that. I was just shocked—upset—I didn’t know how to react.”

Giles pressed a glass into her hands quietly. “Tell me what happened. When was the last time you saw her?”

“It was a couple of months ago,” Joyce began haltingly. “Is it true? Is Buffy really a...a Vampire Slayer?”

Joyce spoke like she didn’t believe what she was saying. Giles didn’t blame her. “She is. The best I’ve ever seen.”

Joyce nodded. “I didn’t believe her. It was the night the police accused her of killing that girl in the school library. I was out looking for her, I was so worried—worried that she was hurt or in trouble, worried that she’d fallen into a bad crowd again.”

Giles nodded for her to continue. “Go on.”

“When I got home she was just arriving, walking up the front path like nothing was wrong with this man I’d never seen. He was clearly older than her and all dressed in leather with bleached hair and black polish on his nails. Not the kind of man a mother wants to find her daughter with. My suspicion only grew when she tried to start lying to me—she said they were in a band together.” She laughed bitterly.

Giles tried to hide his shock. Was this woman describing Spike to him? Surely not, the vampire was supposedly cripple for one, and he didn’t believe for a second that his Slayer would align herself with another vampire after the mess of Angelus. Giles felt a familiar anger spark in his chest, but he pushed it down ruthlessly and tried to focus on what Joyce was saying.

“I was so angry with her,” Joyce continued. “I was about ready to give her a piece of my mind when this person jumped out at us from nowhere. His face...it was like those kids on Parent Teacher Night a few months ago, the ones on PCP? Buffy didn’t even flinch, she pushed him towards the man she’d arrive with who started beating him up while she calmly pulled out a wooden stake of all things and stabbed him in the chest with it. I barely had time to think before he just...exploded.”

Giles was silent as he let her collect herself and continue the story. She looked frazzled, and he realised suddenly that she must have been playing this moment over and over in her mind the last few months trying to rationalise what she’d seen. He’d seen it before. She was trying so desperately to hang onto her ignorance, to continue living in denial. Monsters didn’t make sense to everyday people.

“I was horrified,” she said quietly—tiredly. “In my mind everything the police had told me had just been confirmed. My daughter was a killer. After all, she’d just killed a man in front of my very own eyes! I thought she was lying to me again when she told me she was a Vampire Slayer and the man she’d just killed was a vampire. Truthfully, I don’t remember much else after that I was in a daze of disbelief. Although I do remember after the blond man left we fought. I told her I wanted to call the police, explain everything so that they’d believe it wasn’t her who’d killed that girl. She yelled something about having to save the world and I told her if she walked out the door not to even think about coming back. She left. I haven’t seen her since.”

“It’s not your fault, Joyce,” Giles said after a beat. If anyone is to blame, it’s me, he added silently.

Joyce looked at him with dead eyes. “Really?”


~::~


This was new—this contentment that was washing over Buffy. She sighed happily as she relaxed back further into Spike. His arms were around her, holding her loosely to his chest as his fingertips traced lazy patterns up and down her forearm absently. She couldn’t remember a time with Angel when they had just been content to sit with no need for words. Sure the television was on in the background, but Buffy knew neither she nor Spike had been focused on it for the last half an hour or more. Had she ever done that with Angel? Did it even matter if she had? She hated that she was constantly comparing the two of them—Angel and Spike. There were polar opposites in everything. Yet her relationship with Angel was the only thing she had to compare her relationship with Spike to, and even then her relationship with Spike was so different—so easy. Everything with Angel had been hard, dark and tragic. But Spike?

Buffy sighed.

Her relationship with Spike was what you didn’t know you dreamt of when you were a little girl. It wasn’t a fairytale—believing in those only brought more heartache and disappointment—but it was light, it was happy, it was easy. Loving Spike took no effort. Yes, he was a vampire, so what? They could work around it. They were willing to work around it. Yes, Spike had done horrible things in the past, but there was nothing she could do about it now. As long as he wasn’t killing in the present then it wasn’t an issue. Yes, Spike was way older than her, but it didn’t matter because he treated her like an equal, not a little girl.

Buffy wondered at her easy acceptance over everything that had happened. Was it odd that she was taking everything in her stride?

Buffy frowned. She didn’t feel any different, just happier—more carefree. Here she didn’t feel like it was her sacred duty to carry the whole world on her shoulders. She chose to patrol each night because she had the power to protect people who knew nothing about the nasties that walked the streets at night, not because she was bound by some sacred calling. Spike got that, and while he never patrolled with her, he never stopped her going or called her out when she left late or came home early. Truth was, as Master of Sunnydale Spike pretty much had the Hellmouth under control. Few demons had stepped out of line since Angelus’ reign had been over thrown.

Buffy smiled as the hand that had been tracing patterns across her arm trailed upwards to tilt her head back. She melted into the kiss, her train of thought instantly derailing to centre wholly on the lips that were attached to her own.

She loved Spike’s affectionate side. He was always touching her now that he knew he could. Whether it was just the gentle rest of a hand to the small of her back, or a quick stroke of her hair or a more obvious arm around her waist as he pulled her flush against him, she loved it. It was moments like these that she began to realise just how much they had been functioning more as a couple the past few months than as two friends living together. The thought made her smile.

Spike returned the smile as he shifted them on the couch, pulling her atop of him. Buffy moaned as she realised she could feel his hardness pressing into her abdomen, but didn’t move away from it despite the blush that stained her cheeks. Spike growled gently and she moved against him, pushing her little hips into his. His hands shot up to steady her hips, guiding the motion.

“Buffy.”

His lips trailed their way down her neck to suck gently at a small patch of skin on the side of her throat and Buffy tilted her head in invitation, wordlessly giving him permission. She shivered as she felt his tongue immediately trail a slow path up the column of her throat. Spike smiled against her skin, morphed and bit down.

The moment his teeth slid into her, Buffy felt a flood of wetness soak her underwear. Her hands clenched tightly in his hair as ecstasy washed over her. Buffy bit down on her bottom lip and this time she did nothing to hold back the moan that threatened to escape as she’d done in the past. It was a heady feeling, being bitten. The feel of cool teeth sliding effortlessly through her flesh, the slight burn as they broke her skin and then the light headedness that followed as Spike pulled mouthfuls of her blood into his mouth. He was always gentle, careful to make sure his bite brought only pleasure and not the pain she had experienced at the teeth of the Master, and as a result she always wished he would continue for longer than he ever did. She could see how some people could become addicted to being bitten, and how dangerous that addiction was. It would only be too easy to let the creature at their neck drain them. They wouldn’t feel a thing until it was too late.

Buffy groaned as Spike canted his hips upwards, and she instinctively ground down against him. Spike moaned around her neck as a bright spark of pleasure flashed through him. He pulled away and sealed the wounds at her throat with a practiced ease. Buffy whimpered at the loss, shocking herself with how needy she’d sounded.

“Kitten,” Spike breathed into her neck as he quickly flipped their positions, “My beautiful girl.”

“Spike...” she trailed off as he came to rest in the cradle of her hips gently, “please?”

The skirt she’d put on that morning was bunched around her waist, falling back to expose her legs to his view. Spike’s hands trailed over her skin in a rough caress, his fingertips sinking into the flesh of her thighs. It was a question, a request to go further and she answered him by tightening her legs around his waist, pulling him closer.

Her lips found his at the same time his fingers found the seam of her underpants. A jolt of nervous excitement raced through her as the flimsy material was pushed to one side and cool air hit her overheated flesh suddenly, causing goosebumps to break out across her skin. Why hadn’t she wanted to do this again?

She let out a guttural moan as his fingers traced the lips of her quim. “Spike.”

“I’ve got you, baby,” he breathed as blunt human teeth scraped across the mark he’d left on her neck.

Spike circled her opening slowly as she moaned and panted underneath his touch. Her hips were thrusting into his hand gently in an unconscious effort to increase contact. Finally he took pity on her, sinking one long finger into her depths and moaning as her heat surrounded him.

“So bloody warm,” Spike moaned as he quickly added a second finger and began pumping them in and out of her slowly. Her reply was an unintelligible moan which quickly turned into a shriek as he crooked his fingers and pressed against something inside her that nearly made her see stars.

“More,” she demanded when he seemed only content to tease her. Spike complied picking up the pace.

She could feel herself skating closer and closer to the edge. It was building within her slowly making her whimper and moan and press her hips up harder into Spike’s hand in a fashion that would probably embarrass her at any other time. She was so close, her muscles were fluttering wildly in a promise that when she went over the edge it would be like nothing she’d ever experienced.

“You’re almost there, Kitten,” Spike encourage heatedly as his thumb reached up rubbing back and forth across her clit rapidly. The effect was instantaneous, her legs which had fallen open snapped closed around his waist and her inner muscles clamped down around him.

Buffy’s grip on his hair was bordering on painful, but he didn’t call her on it. Instead the pain seemed to add to the moment, grounding him even as she fell apart beneath his touch. He watched as she slowly came back to herself, relaxing back into the couch and staring up at him with sated, sleepy looking eyes that were brimming with happiness.

Spike could feel his heart expanding rapidly to fill his chest.

“Wow,” Buffy giggled softly after a moment. Spike smiled down at her.

“Wow,” he agreed. In that moment the near painful hard-on straining against his pants didn’t even matter. His girl was amazing.


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AN: Thanks heaps to Slackerace for her work beta'ing this story. Hopefully this chapter has started to answer a few questions you’ve all had about the story so far :) I hope everyone enjoyed it…