Chapter Ten

 

When the Slayer and her vampire walked into Giles’ apartment, they braced themselves for the condemnation they knew was coming.  Buffy had wrapped her cut wrist and was wearing long sleeves, but she knew that was not fooling Giles or Willow.  The very fact that Spike was up and bouncing on his toes ready to fight again was a dead giveaway as to how he got better.   To the vampire’s great surprise, she took his hand in hers and walked in to face her surrogate father and her friends.

 

There was silence for several long seconds as the Scoobies read the silent message in front of them.  Buffy kept Spike by her side, making no attempt to hide their linked hands, long enough to be sure everyone got the picture.  When the expressions of surprise and/or horror had faded to resignation, Spike gave her hand a little squeeze and moved away from her to sprawl in a chair.

 

“Well then, Rupert.  What’s the plan?”  He forced the watcher to meet his eyes and read the truth of his feelings there.  After several tense seconds, Giles nodded slowly and everyone relaxed.

 

“We’re just waiting for Riley and his men –“ Everyone flinched as the vampire snarled and went into game face.  At a look from Buffy, he forced his demon back and slumped back in the chair.  When he was sure that was the end of Spike’s comments, Giles continued, “ When they get here, we’ll decide where and how we want them to start the distraction so that Buffy,” he paused and looked back and forth between his Slayer and her vampire, “and you can get into the lair.”

 

He leaned back and added, “Although I’m still not sure how you two will be able to kill something that powerful.”

 

“Think Red can give us a bit of mojo?”  Spike cocked his eyebrow in Willow’s direction.  “Just enough to get us close to him.  I think we can do it from there.”

 

“I can hide you for a while.  Maybe work a cloaking spell like the one Tara did on the demons last month...but sooner or later he’s going to know you’re there.”

 

“He’ll know the Slayer’s there – I’m not so sure he’s wired to pick up on a demon’s scent.  He’s all about the mechanics and technology.  Don’t think he’s ever been up against a master vampire before.”

 

Buffy was looking at him suspiciously.  “What makes you think he won’t see you?”

 

He grinned at her and shot a look around the room at the other Scoobies.  “Jus’ because I don’t use all those gypsy tricks like Drac does, doesn’t mean I can’t, pet.  I can be pretty invisible and stealthy if I want to be.”

 

She looked at him dubiously.  “Then why am I still alive?  How come I wasn’t Spike-lunch the first time we met?”

 

He looked at her and ignored the other people in the room.  “Because it was all about the fightin’ with you.  Not so much the killin’.  Wouldn’t have been any fun if I’d snuck up on you, now, would it? Where’s the sport in that?” 

 

He grinned as she turned crimson, remembering their first time together and the fight that preceded it.

 

Giles cleared his throat, interrupting them.  “Yes, well, if we can get past this little trip down memory lane...”

 

The knock on the door was a welcome interruption and Anya hastened over to open it.  Outside stood Riley Finn and several of his commando buddies. The atmosphere in the room became thick with tension as the soldiers looked at the vampire that had killed two of them, and the vampire glared back at the men who had almost neutered him.  Buffy stepped as casually as she could between her lover and her ex-boyfriend, poised to jump if she needed to separate them.

 

To Spike’s surprise, Willow slipped over to his chair and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.  When he blinked up at her, she gave him a small smile and said, “Let’s go talk about that mojo, okay?”

 

When he saw the pleading look in Buffy’s eyes, he lowered his own gaze and swaggered into the kitchen in the witch’s wake.  His vampire hearing allowed him to follow the conversation in the living room while still talking to Willow about how long they would need the spell to last and what it needed to conceal.

 

Riley gave up any last hope of salvaging his relationship with Buffy when she launched into a discussion of the plan for killing Adam.  She was all business and treated him no differently than she did Forrest or Graham.   One soldier to another, she laid out their plan and told them what she needed them to do.

 

If they could launch a serious enough looking decoy attack from the Initiative itself, she and Spike would slip in through the cave entrance and hopefully catch Adam when he had few or no minions around to help him.

 

“You’re sure the power pack is in the front?” she asked.  “I won’t get more than one shot at it, I’m pretty sure.”

 

“Yes, but I still don’t see.... how are you planning to remove it?” Forrest asked in genuine confusion.

 

“Spike will hold him while I rip it out of his chest,” the Slayer said calmly as though she pulled internal organs out of things on a regular basis.

 

A chill went through Riley as he realized that she very likely did exactly that from time to time.  For the first time, he really understood the deadly power contained in that small body and got a sense of the darkness behind it.  Suddenly it didn’t seem so strange that her slaying partner of choice might be a vampire, or that she might have feelings for what was to him a completely unnatural and evil being.

 

With a sense of relief, he let go of the last vestiges of his emotional attachment to the small blonde and mentally stepped back to observe and admire her. 

 

When Spike and Willow returned to the living room, there had been a noticeable change in the room’s dynamics and they stopped to study it for a minute.  The witch quickly picked up on the different vibes coming from Riley and Buffy and Tara nodded at her to indicate that she read the auras that way too.  Much of the tension in the room had dissipated and everyone appeared much more relaxed.

 

Spike studied the big soldier for a minute and noted that his demon wasn’t picking up any trace of threat to his claim.  When Riley met his eyes and nodded slightly, the vampire resisted the urge to smirk at him and simple nodded back before crossing the room to stand beside the Slayer.

 

Chapter Eleven

 

The commandos left to begin their assault on Adam’s lair from within the Initiative complex, and the Scoobies left to assemble near the cave entrance that Spike and Buffy were planning to use.  All had agreed that Buffy and Spike would wait until the battle was well underway before approaching the inner caves.  The hope was that all or most of the minions would have been drawn off to the fight, leaving Adam alone in front of his computer monitors.

 

At a signal from Xander, who was holding the walkie-talkie and thoroughly enjoying playing soldier, Willow, Giles, Spike and Buffy entered the caves.  As they had hoped, the caves were very lightly guarded.  In spite of Adams’ disdain of any human emotions, he was not immune to arrogance himself and clearly felt invulnerable in his lair.

 

Buffy easily dispensed with the few vampire and demon guards they met on their way in.  When they knew they were just outside the control room, Buffy nodded to Willow and she began the cloaking spell.  As soon as Buffy and Spike became invisible, Willow nodded to Giles and they retreated to the outer cave area.

 

With a quick squeeze to Buffy’s hand, Spike pushed open the door and slid into the lair.  He immediately moved up the wall, using small hand holds in the rock to climb up to the ceiling.  Buffy made a mental note to remember that some vampires can climb like spiders before she eased into the room after him and hugged the wall.

 

Adam raised his head suspiciously, and sent his infrared eyes roaming the room.  When he got to Buffy, the heat of her body triggered an image on his brain and he smiled to himself.  Without letting her know he had seen her, he allowed his gaze to continue to track around the room and up to the ceiling.  However, Spike’s lack of body temperature meant that there was no image to pick up and the cyborg’s eyes went right past him.

 

Adam walked in the general direction of the Slayer, then suddenly reached out and grabbed her by the throat.  Lifting her up off the ground, he tilted his head as though he could see what he was holding and asked her, “Did you really think you could beat me, little girl?”

 

 Buffy brought her feet up and kicked out into the monster’s chest, freeing her throat and allowing her to croak out, “Thought crossed my mind, yeah.” She flipped backwards and went into a fighting stance.

 

Adam shrugged and said, “I don’t have time for this human posturing.”  He raised his right arm and prepared to blow her to pieces with his energy cannon.  Just as she rolled toward him on the ground to avoid the blast, Spike dropped from the ceiling and pinned Adam’s arms behind him.

 

“Now, Buffy!” he shouted, knowing that his hold was very tenuous and not likely to last long.  Adam registered some surprise at finding another opponent in the room, but quickly recovered and pulled his arms loose, reaching around to grab the vampire.  As he prepared to throw Spike across the cave and into the wall, Buffy finished her forward roll and popped up in front of him.  His arms were in the air over his head, ready to release the vampire’s body, and he could only watch as the Slayer plunged her hand into his chest and pulled out a glowing orb.

 

 Momentum allowed him to complete his toss, but before his dismay and astonishment could fully register on his face, he was falling toward the Slayer, crashing to the floor with her under him.

 

For long seconds it was very quiet in the room, then Spike lifted his head and crawled toward the collapsed cyborg.  He could see Buffy’s hair behind her on the rocky floor, but her body was completely hidden by the much larger monster’s inert frame.

 

“Buffy?  Slayer?  Talk to me, love.  Are you alright?”

 

Muffled curses from underneath the heavy, partially metal body indicated that she was at least alive.  With Spike’s help, she was able to lift the body enough to worm her way out from under it.  She lay beside him on the dirt, panting and gingerly touching her ribs where the mechanical monster had fallen on her.

 

She rolled her head over to look at the equally battered vampire. Blood was seeping from the lump on his head where he’d met the rocky wall of the cave.

 

“I think we won,” she said with a small smile.

 

“Yeah, pet.  I think we did.” He smiled back at her tenderly.

 

“Yea us.”

 

They rested for another few minutes, then Buffy sat up groaning and pulled on his arm.

 

“Come on.  Let’s get out of here and see how everyone else is.”

 

Spike staggered to his feet and swayed briefly before straightening and offering her his arm.

 

“At your service, milady.” He smirked at her and tucked her hand in his before leading her out of the now-abandoned room.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 When everyone had checked in and casualties had been taken care of, the Scoobies  headed back to Giles’ apartment to relax and lick their wounds.

 

The commandos had done a good job of destroying most of Adam’s minions and those that escaped had appeared to be leaving Sunnydale as rapidly as they could.  When Riley saw the bleeding, battered Slayer and her vampire, he had to smother the urge to take Buffy to the nearest hospital, instead watching as they laughed and joked about their injuries. 

 

Spike made gentle fun of the Slayer’s language when she’d been pinned under Adam, and she mocked him for his flight across the lair and into the wall.  Neither one seemed overly worried about the injuries they clearly had sustained in the short fight and that, as much as anything else that he’d seen, gave Riley some insight into exactly how different Buffy’s life was from other girls’. 

 

He glared at the compact demon at her side, but when Spike sent him what was clearly the British version of a “fuck off” gesture and Buffy did nothing but shake her head and smile, he turned and marched off after his men.  If he hadn’t been sure before, their behavior now made it very clear that not only could he not compete with the vampire; he wasn’t even in the running any more.

 

Buffy was sitting in Spike’s lap in the crowded car, her head resting on his chest.  As they passed the cemetery, Spike spoke suddenly.

 

“Oi, watcher.  Let us off here, mate.”

 

Buffy raised her head sleepily, saw where they were and dropped it again after agreeing, “Yeah, Giles.  We can get off here.”

 

There was a tense silence in the car as her Watcher met the eyes of the vampire.  He looked at Spike steadily and asked, “So, Spike. Now that you’ve given Buffy the help she requested with Adam, I guess you’ll be anxious to get back to...wherever you were before?”

 

He held the vampire’s eyes and hoped the message he was sending was coming in loud and clear.

 

Spike looked back at him steadily and answered with no trace of his usual cockiness, “I guess that’d be up to the Slayer.  Don’t think I want to be that far away from her anymore.  Just in case she needs me again,” he added for the benefit of the other Scoobies.

 

“We all want what’s in her best interest, don’t we?”  Giles refused to give up the subject.

 

“Hey! Right here in the car!” Buffy sat up to complain.  ”Giles, just drop it.  Please.”

 

Her Watcher sighed and remained silent as his surrogate daughter and the vampire who loved her got out of the car.  He drove off and left them standing at the gate to the cemetery, holding hands as if they had just left a movie and were walking home together.

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Several hours of healing sleep later, Buffy stirred and turned to face the man spooning her body.  When he didn’t respond except to shift his legs to allow her to press up against him, she reached up and began pressing kisses along his jaw line and down his throat.   She bit gently into his throat with her blunt little teeth and he growled softly, opening heavy-lidded blue eyes that darkened with passion as he looked at her.

 

“Do you want somethin’, Slayer?” he rumbled as he pulled her closer to his chest.  “Somethin’ I can do for you?”

 

Buffy felt the usual thrill run through her body when his growl vibrated against her, and her breathing got faster as his body responded to her. Although both Slayer and Vampire were still sore and tired, Spike pulled her leg up over his hip and slid gently into her. 

 

As she lay on her side facing the vampire, feeling him filling her as only he could, Buffy could almost believe that they were just an ordinary couple. The touch of his cool fingers on her ass as he pulled her hips toward him reminded her very quickly that this was not an ordinary man and that life with him could be very complicated.

 

They sighed together, content for the moment to remain connected without feeling any urgency to proceed. 

 

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” she whispered into his chest.

 

“Nothin’ lasts forever, love.  You know that,” he replied, kissing her forehead.

 

She stuck her lower lip out in a small pout and grumbled, “Well, I want it to.  I don’t see why not.”

 

The vampire smiled and gently pulled on her lower lip with his teeth.  “Well, because then we couldn’t....” He rotated his hips carefully, rubbing her clit just enough to make her gasp.

 

“Oh!  Well, that would be not good.  Because this is...” She used her internal muscles to squeeze his cock rhythmically making him groan in pleasure.

“...good,” she finished breathlessly.

 

They were soon moving easily against each other, each trying to provide maximum pleasure with minimal pain and damage to already battered bodies.  Bruises and cuts were soon forgotten as their desire built and they fell against each other shuddering with the force of their release.

 

They stayed intimately connected as Buffy’s breathing and heart rate returned to normal and the vampire gently stroked the silky skin on her back. Suddenly he took an unnecessary breath and looked down into her questioning eyes.

 

“Sla- Buffy, you know how much I love you, don’t you?”  He willed her to see the truth of it in his eyes.  “I would die for you.  And I don’t ever want to do anything to hurt you...”

 

Buffy looked up at him with the first glimmer of fear in her eyes.  “Why does it sound like there’s a really painful ‘but’ lurking in there somewhere?” she asked calmly.

 

He sighed again and pulled her tightly against him. 

 

I’m not a strong enough man for this.  Know it’s the right thing to do, but…)

 

“Buffy,” he finally said, “Your watcher is right.  If I was lookin’ out for your best interests, I’d leave here immediately.  Before the Council of Wankers finds out, before your friends figure it out... “

 

She felt a ball of ice in her chest as she realized what he was saying. “You’re going to leave me?” she asked in a very small voice.  “You don’t want to stay with me?”

 

“More than anything in the world,” he breathed into her ear as he clutched her harder.  “You’ve got no bleedin’ idea how much.  But the Council of Wankers will never let you... and you’ll never be able to have a normal life if I’m in it.”

 

“Hello!  Vampire Slayer here!  Not expected to live past twenty!  Fights vampires and demons every night.  Lost her virginity to a 126-year-old master vampire.  Fell in love with said vampire.  Saves the world every spring...stop me when I get to something that sounds remotely normal to you.”

 

Her voice had risen as indignation replaced her fear of rejection.

 

Who does he think he is, making decisions about my life for me?  Him and Giles  - talking about my future like I have nothing to say about it!

 

            As she ranted, she had pushed herself up away from him and was now sitting on him, still impaled on his rapidly hardening cock and glaring down at his smiling face.

 

            “I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” she growled at him.  “I’m mad at you!  How could you even think about making that kind of decision without talking to me about it?  What about the claim?”

 

He continued to gaze up at her, admiring the way her breasts moved with her indignant huffing and the animation on her face.  He could almost feel his demon and William wrestling with each other for dominance.  William, of course, wanted to do the noble thing and leave Buffy to go back to her life.  The demon was raging against any suggestion that he leave this woman to whom he was almost mated.

 

Buffy’s voice and expression softened as she watched the war of emotions going on behind those intense eyes.

 

“What about the claim?” she repeated softly.  “Doesn’t that make me yours?  Don’t you want me?” She unconsciously squeezed him with her internal muscles as though her body was trying to cling to whatever part of him it could.

 

With a groan, he lost himself for seconds in the sensation of being sheathed in her wet heat, surrounded by everything Buffy.  He fought his way back from the urge to surrender to his demon’s demands and said hoarsely, “We never really completed a claim, love.  It will fade over time and ...and...we could move on to other.....”

 

            Suddenly the worried girl was gone and the Slayer was staring down at him.  “You try moving on, vampire, and I’ll ....”  Too quick for him to realize what she was planning, Buffy dove toward his neck and bit down as hard as she could with her blunt human teeth.  She didn’t stop, in spite of his bucking beneath her, until she had drawn blood.  Then she kissed the wound and said softly, “Mine. You’re mine, Spike.”

 

            At the first pinch of her teeth on his neck, Spike’s demon threw William completely out of the contest. When he felt her break the skin, the demon emerged in all its primal glory.  With a roar, he fastened his fangs onto her throat and answered her claim with his own.  He slipped his sharper teeth easily into her soft skin and pulling fiercely he growled, “Mine.”

 

            Visions of William, his mother, Cecily’s cruel comments, Drusilla, pain, darkness, clawing desperately out of a grave, Angelus, Darla, bloodshed, other Slayers, running over the Sunnydale sign, watching Buffy, fighting with Buffy, making love to Buffy on the damp grass of the graveyard – all those scenes flashed through the Slayer’s mind as she swallowed the blood on her tongue and felt the vampire’s pull on hers.

 

As they shared the blood from their wounds, the intimacy between them increased exponentially.  Neither one could say where he/she left off and the other began.  The swirl of emotions and memories made them both dizzy.

 

 Without actually moving, the still-connected couple were suddenly shaken by orgasms so powerful that they both lost consciousness.  They fed on each other’s ecstasy in a continuous loop that only ended when their overloaded brains were no longer able to experience it.

 

When Buffy came to her senses, she found that she was still sucking gently on Spike’s neck as he licked her softly and purred into her throat.

 

“Whoa,” she gasped.   “That was....was....Help me out here, poet.” She laughed as Spike winced at her newfound knowledge about William’s life before he was turned.  He smiled ruefully with her, then his expression turned serious.

 

“It was forever, love.  I hope you’re ready for that.” He stroked her face, letting her see how shaken he was by the experience and how much it meant to him.

 

She gazed back at him and answered with complete honesty, “As long as you’re with me, I think I can be ready for anything.  I love you, William.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Well, Spike, we’ve faced Giles and the Scoobies, we’ve faced down the Council and got them to agree to leave us alone as long as you aren’t killing; this is all that’s left.  Are you up for it?”

 

The well over a hundred-year-old master vampire looked around nervously and slowed down his usual ground-covering strides.

 

“I dunno, pet.  You mother doesn’t keep any axes around the house, does she?”

 

She smiled at the reminder of how her mother had interrupted his quest to kill his third Slayer at Back to School Night.  It seemed like much more than two and half years ago that Spike had first come into their lives.

 

“Trust me, if my mother wants to make someone uncomfortable, she doesn’t need any weapons,” Buffy said wryly.

 

“Well that’s bloody encouraging, love.  Why don’t I just wait out here while you explain things to her....” He paused on the sidewalk and looked at the front door of the neat bungalow on Revello Drive.

 

She turned to face him and reached up to touch her lips to his softly.

 

  “Don’t be such a coward.  You know my mother likes you.  And she’s grateful to you for coming back to help her daughter. It’ll be fine.”

 

“Helpin’ her daughter fight baddies is a long way from claiming her forever,” he grumbled as he followed her up the steps and opened the door for her.

 

Buffy tossed her hair at him and walked into the house without looking back to see if he was following.  She actually wasn’t as confident as she pretending to be.  She was well aware that her mother still struggled with the idea that her daughter was the Slayer and that the normal, happy life she wanted for her was not likely to happen. 

 

And, while her mother did genuinely like Spike, and seemed totally unfazed by the fact that he was a vampire, Buffy really wasn’t sure how she was going to take the news that he was now a member of their small family.  They’d not really made any attempt to hide their feelings for each other, but Buffy had never told her mother about the mutual claim or what it meant in terms of her future and she wasn’t really sure how the older woman was going to take the idea that her only daughter was essentially married to a much older, much less alive man...forever.

 

Spike stood behind her, shuffling his feet nervously and studying the rug on the floor as Buffy called out, “Mom, we’re here.”

 

When Joyce came out of the kitchen carrying a tray on which she had put mugs of hot chocolate with small marshmallows floating in one of them, the Slayer relaxed and gave Spike a brilliant smile.

 

The smile Joyce gave Buffy and Spike was warm and welcoming, but there was a trace of sadness visible around her eyes.  She could feel the connection between them without even seeing the looks they were giving each other, and she regretfully let go of any last dreams of grandchildren she had been clinging to as she said, “ So, I understand you two have something to tell me?  Why don’t we all have some hot chocolate while we talk about it?”

 

The End