They separated when they reached the door so Buffy could fish out her keys. Apart, and with the first tendrils of dawn stretching into the sky, reality came rushing back.
 
The prospect of sleeping arrangements hummed under Spike’s skin like a swarm of ants. He knew absolutely that sex would be a mistake. But what if she asked? He didn’t know how to refuse her. She probably wouldn’t ask, though. More likely, she’d pretend sleeping was something that only happened to other people until they were both ratty and exhausted and then he’d say something stupid or crude or both that he didn’t mean and she’d take it all away again. His hope was waning, burnt away by daylight.
 
Once Buffy got the door open, she turned back to see Spike withdrawing into himself, shutting down. It felt like a slap in the face. Why was she even putting herself through this? He ‘didn’t know what he wanted’ – whatever that meant. She’d been naïve to think they could try again: he was so obviously gearing up to bolt. Anger started building up inside her, choking out the fear.
 
Their eyes met and they each saw only their worst selves – rage and doubt and pain and self-loathing and precious little else. For a long, frozen moment, they teetered on the edge. Then Spike snatched the questionnaire from her fingers.
 
“Question thirty-one,” he read, the barest hint of a quaver in his voice. “Tell your partner something that you like about them already.”
 
It wasn’t nearly enough. But it got them through the door, up the stairs, and into Buffy’s apartment in a thoughtful silence that wasn’t as uncomfortable as it might have been.
 
As soon as the door shut behind them, Spike started unlacing his boots.
 
She wanted to thank him – for giving her tangible proof that he was staying – but she couldn’t make the words come. Instead, she forced a jovial artlessness she didn’t feel: “Gets harder to think of stuff to say by the third time, huh?”
 
He immediately straightened. “Never been hard to think of reasons to like you.”
 
Buffy was busy fussing with her own boots now, but he wished she’d returned the sentiment. Her silence echoed.
 
Spike pursed his lips, eying the tiny patch of sunlight that always managed to sneak past her blackout curtains. “Always liked that you’re bitchier’n me in the mornin’.”
 
A nervous giggle escaped, and she snuck a look at him from behind the closet door. “At least coffee makes me pleasant again.”
 
He cocked his head to one side, examining her. “Pleasanter. Third cup. Maybe.”
 
“Tell me more?” Buffy said, shutting the closet and brushing past him to sit in her usual spot on the sofa.
 
He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Your turn.” Spike bent again to finish unlacing. By the time his boots were off she still hadn’t said anything, so instead of following after her and sitting down like a good boy, he leaned back against the archway separating her four-foot-square “hallway” from her living-diner and folded his arms across his chest.
 
Confused by the attitude, Buffy sat up as straight as she could on the sofa and said primly: “I like that you make sure I eat – the take-out and the cooking and the stocking my kitchen.” It came out so much colder and clinical than she’d meant it.
 
“Pure survival instinct,” Spike said lightly. “You get sadistic when you’re hungry.”
 
“And you don’t?”
 
“‘M always sadistic – vampire here.”
 
She searched his face for clues to the right words. “You take good care of me.”
 
His stance softened, but only slightly.
 
“What did I say?” she asked, wanting to sound small and uncertain but ending up somewhere just short of imperious and annoyed. “Please tell me,” she added.
 
“It really that hard to think of reasons to like me?”
 
A glib response leapt to her lips, but she stopped herself before it went any further. “Yes,” Buffy said, finally.
 
He stiffened.
 
“Not because of you! I just – I’m no good at this. I … it’s hard enough to know why in my head, let alone trying to work out how to say it right.” She licked suddenly dry lips. “And you have this really annoying tendency to leave when I get it wrong.”
 
Spike pushed himself off the wall and came towards sofa. “You need to talk to me this time around,” he said gently. “Use your words. Or it’s never gonna work.” He sat down, near enough that the cushions dipped her towards him, but just short of touching distance.
 
“So we have an ‘it’ that could work?”
 
“I’n’t that what we’ve been tryin’ to figure out all night?”
 
Buffy nodded briskly, but kept staring down at her hands as if expecting the answers to be there. Just as exploring the hangnail on her left-hand little finger was in danger of becoming all-absorbing, Spike’s shoulder brushed against hers, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
 
“Try,” he said softly. His whole body had gone calm and quiet and still.
 
“Okay,” Buffy sighed, trying to relax shoulders that seemed to desperately want to touch her ears. She could do this. Honest. “So. Willow’s my go-to girl for advice, but that’s her ‘thing’, you know? Like, name the after-school special, she’s probably burnt the t-shirt and written her own twelve step program with flowcharts and highlighted sections for the super busy angst-er.”
 
Spike laughed, short and sharp; Buffy’s shoulders came down a little.
 
“But you … you feeding me, it’s something you only do for me.”
 
He started fidgeting. “I cook for … other people.”
 
“Yeah, but Dawn wouldn’t live off dry cereal for days at a time if you didn’t stock her fridge.” Buffy ducked her head. “The point is, it’s not about you … you feed me because me feeding myself? Epic fail. Not because you’re, like, a god in the kitchen or something.”
 
“Malignin’ my cookin’ now?”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “You know I like your cooking.” She bumped his ribs with her elbow and he smiled – that naughty schoolboy smile that made his ancient eyes look young and carefree. “You see me,” she added slowly. “Notice everything I do – or don’t do – stuff even I don’t know.”
 
“You used to hate that.”
 
Once – a second ago, even – that would have been a challenge, maybe even a barb. But now it just felt like a question. “Well it is kinda stalker-y.” Buffy frowned. “Actually a lot stalker-y. You might wanna work on that, you know, long-term.”
 
“But you like it now?”
 
“It makes me feel … cared for.”
 
He shivered, and she immediately reached for the blanket lying folded across the back of the sofa. She told herself it was because the room was cold and he liked being warm – which was true – but there was also something to the theory that bootless, blanket-covered Spike was even less likely to get up and leave than merely-bootless Spike.
 
He grabbed the other end and helped her jerk the blanket out of its pinch between the sofa and the wall. When it was lying in a pile between them, he asked, “How come you never run out of burba weed?”
 
Buffy took in a deep breath. She should have told him this a long time ago. “I’ve never had to hide – or perform – around you. It’s … I wanted you to have that.” She darted a glance up at him. “With me.”
 
For once, he was speechless.
 
Buffy bit her lip, expression sheepish. “It took a really long time for the queasy to go away, though.”
 
He slumped back against the sofa, dazed. His gaze flitted around the room. There was a drawer with his clothes in, just there. A shelf in the bathroom. The blanket between them carried his scent as strongly as it did hers. It wasn’t much, but it was solid, somehow. Permanent. “You take good care of me, too.”
 
Buffy meant to shake the blanket out over him, but somehow she ended up tucked against his side with the blanket covering them both. They were both hyper-aware that they had never, ever, sat like this before. Together-but-apart had always been more their speed.
 
Spike dug out the questionnaire from beneath the blanket, and Buffy laid her head against his arm where it stretched across the back of the sofa. Her hair felt like silk against his skin.
 
“What,” he read,“if anything, is too serious to be joked about?”
 
She blurted “Love,” just as he said “Death.”.
 
“But I thought you’d—” Buffy started.
 
“You don’t—?”
 
They came to a stop. It was oddly jarring for both of them. Each had been certain they would agree on this.
 
She finally broke the silence: “But love’s the only thing you ever took seriously.”
 
“No,” Spike said shortly, shaking his head. “Not anymore.” It sounded almost like a promise. “Got so twisted ‘round toward the end – with you – didn’ know who I was anymore.” He stopped, lips twitching between smiling and frowning. “Soul helped some, but….” He waved the paper in his hand around helplessly. “Still sorta working on that.”
 
“I get it,” she murmured. “I needed to figure out who I was, too – the part that isn’t a magical vampire-killing machine, I mean.” Wistfully, she added, “I only wish I was half as good at loving as I am at slaying.”
 
His left hand slipped down from the back of the sofa to grip her shoulder – tight enough to hurt. “You love with everythin’ you are,” he said. “Nothin’ better’n that.” As his grip loosened, the weight of his arm settled down around her shoulders and his fingers started making small, gentle movements. He never had been any good at staying still.
 
She smiled ruefully. “I hold back too much.”
 
“Not tonight, luv.” He laughed outright. “Not hardly.”
 
“Yeah, well,” Buffy said, embarrassed, but maybe a little proud, too.
 
“Can’t think what you’d ever find funny ‘bout death, though,” he added meditatively.
 
“It’s not so much funny as just….” She frowned. “It can’t be the most important part of my life anymore. Before I died – the second time, I mean – I’d been losing pieces of myself to slaying for so long. And then when I came back, I … well, you know what I was like. I don’t want it to be a relief, next time. I need there to be ... more … to me than death.”
 
“Know that one like the back of my soddin’ balls.”
 
She laughed. Then she dislodged the questionnaire to capture his hand in both of hers, linking their fingers as she pulled it across his body and into her lap. It forced him to twist his torso towards her, bringing her deeper into the circle of his arm. “So why is death unfunny for you now? You used to be so blasé about it.”
 
“I survived….” He stared off into the middle distance.
 
From things he’d let drop over the years, Buffy knew he hadn’t much wanted to – not closing the Hellmouth, and not in LA. But she’d never understood why. Whenever she’d felt ambivalent about survival, it had been because she’d barely been coping. But with Spike, both times he’d just got to the stage where he was coping – right when he should have had everything to live for. “Why’d you pick something so tame for a job?” she asked, suddenly curious. “I mean, breaking into people’s whatevers to check their security isn’t exactly high-risk. Or, you know, meaningful at all.”
 
His hands stopped their caresses, dangling lifeless from his wrists. “Pay’s not bad,” he said after a few seconds, voice very carefully bland and gaze still fixed somewhere far away. “An’ some of the hex alarms can be right interestin’.”
 
“C’mon!” Buffy teased, completely oblivious to the tension thrumming through him. “You’ve fought off the hordes of hell to save the world. Multiple times. Why would you pick something so … so ordinary?”
 
“So what should I be doing else, in your opinion?” He shifted forwards to sit on the edge of the sofa – forcing Buffy to let go of his hand and duck out from under his arm – and hunched over his knees
 
She shrugged, staring at his back. “I don’t know. But something that actually helps.”
 
Spike stood up abruptly, thrusting the blanket away, and spinning around to face her again. For a split second, she thought he might hit her.
 
“Ordinary’s what makes the world worth savin’, you daft cow!” he shouted. “Christ!” He started pacing, making the room feel suddenly small and claustrophobic. “You an’ Angel, you’re like … fuckin’ junkies! Hooked on mythic destiny – jonesin’ for that One Last Battle that’s gonna end the war.” He stopped mid-pace to glare down at her with sneering pity. “Hate to break it to you, luv, but there’s always gonna be another one. Always.” He started moving again, keeping his back to her. “I help my clients protect whatever’s precious to ‘em. An’ when I’m done, we have a few pints and maybe watch the football.” He stopped again, scrubbing at his face with both hands before facing her again. “Savin’ the world’s your sodding albatross. I only ever wanted to live in it.”
 
Buffy felt a giggle explode out of her, surprising herself even more than him. She clamped her hands over her mouth, but once she’d started, she found she couldn’t stop. Spike just watched, his anger melting into bewilderment. When the too-brittle laughter threatened to shatter into sobs, he edged back towards the sofa, finally sitting down next to her and gingerly putting out a hand to her shoulder. Almost as soon as he touched her, Buffy flung herself against him, settling into something only marginally calmer that wasn’t quite laughter and wasn’t quite tears. Spike gave her back an awkward pat while his shameless left hand crept up to cradle her head against his chest, weaving his fingers into her hair.
 
“This,” she gasped out finally. “This is why I need you in my life.”
 
He froze.
 
“Saving the world is so easy,” Buffy whispered. “But I’ve never known how to live in it.”
 
Then Spike’s arms wrapped around her, so tightly she could barely draw breath. She held him back, just as tight. As the urgency passed, they slowly relaxed into positions that didn’t involve quite so much awkward bending and sharp edges digging into each other’s soft places. They built a comforting silence, the first they’d shared in years. It felt like coming home.
 
After what felt like an eternity, she said: “Next question?”
 
He reluctantly pulled away from her to hunt for the paper.
 
“If you were to die this evening,” he read, “with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?”
 
“You know I love you, right?” Buffy said quickly, reclaiming his hand.
 
“I do,” Spike answered.
 
She started to panic when he didn’t say anything else.
 
“Never stopped lovin’ you,” he said, almost huffily. His thumb resumed its slow strokes along the length of her nape.
 
“You’re just not sure what you want,” Buffy said sulkily.
 
He sighed. “You. Always want you.”
 
Her body relaxed against him again, but he could still hear her heart going far too fast.
 
“Not sure it’s enough, is all,” he added quietly. “Wasn’t before.”
 
“You got a soul for me,” Buffy said. “It was enough.”
 
He shifted uneasily. “Soul was for me as much as it was for you. More, maybe.” He paused, staring down at where his right hand lay in both of hers. “I hurt you,” he said, twitching as if to pull away.
 
“And I forgive you,” Buffy said, refusing to let go. She laughed. “That’s my real super-power, you know.”
 
He met her eyes. “‘S good, what we have now.” His gaze returned to their hands and he started thinking about how easy it would be to just pull her those last few inches into his lap and let her heat consume him – leave all the talking for another day. But they’d already been to perdition.
 
“Is what we have now enough?” she asked.
 
There was a long pause. Then: “No.” His voice sounded hoarse and foreign, like someone else was speaking through his mouth.
 
Buffy leant across him, her breasts glancing along his thighs. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself, but then … nothing. She had only been reaching for the arm of the sofa and the questionnaire. Once she had it, she went right back to where she’d been before, her head against his chest. Spike felt something deep inside him relax, something he’d never even realised was tense. He lifted their still-clasped hands and pressed his lips against each of her knuckles in turn.
 
“Your house,” Buffy read, “containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?”
 
Spike shrugged, disappointed by the question. “Dunno.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “You’d die without your iPod.”
 
“Have that on me anyway, don’t I?”
 
She waited, watching expectantly.
 
Spike frowned, wilting a little. “‘S not a hypothetical for me.” He twitched in memory. “‘Ve forgotten more escapes from burnin’ buildin’s than you’ve had hot dinners. Stopped carin’ ‘bout ‘items’ decades ago.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever, Grandma.”
 
He snorted. “You still got an emergency bag packed an’ ready to go?”
 
She smiled. “Yeah, I do.”
 
“Show me?”
 
Buffy slowly extricated herself and padded over to the closet. She pulled out a cracked and soft mustard-yellow leather purse that had once been Joyce’s. With a grin, she dumped its contents onto Spike’s lap and perched next to him on the arm of the sofa, burying her feet first under the bunched-up blanket and then under his thigh, far enough that her toes were skimming along the inside of his other leg.
 
She acted like it was nothing, so he did too. But it felt more intimate, somehow, than almost anything they’d done before.
 
Spike tore his eyes away from her legs and focussed on what she’d put in his lap. He recognised a lot of it from the first time she’d packed it: a cheap plastic wallet filled with photos; a zippered Hello Kitty bag that held Joyce’s jewellery; and a bundle of legal documents.
 
The photo and frame Dawn had given Buffy for her nineteenth birthday were, of course, in pride of place in her living room as they had been everywhere Buffy had lived since Sunnydale. But the plush pig and the signed photo of Brian Boitano were gone. As was Sonnets from the Portuguese. Of course, that might mean they were only to be packed in a real emergency – like Dawn’s photo – but Spike doubted that, somehow. It struck him suddenly that he’d never once given her things – no bauble or line of verse that she could keep. He wondered if he should have.
 
The bag’s newer acquisitions were purely prosaic: unopened three-packs of underwear and cami-vests; a folding toothbrush and mini-tube of toothpaste; and a container of floss. Plus a couple of Snickers bars.
 
At Spike’s raised eyebrow, Buffy simply said, “Being dirty and hungry gets old really fast.” She snatched up one of the Snickers and started unwrapping it. “These get rotated out every couple weeks.” Her face split into a wide, greedy smile and she inhaled the chocolate in two dainty bites. He decided then and there to start slipping more treats into her stash.
 
“But no new memories?” he asked, genuinely surprised.
 
Buffy shrugged, still chewing. “Mmph.” She swallowed. “I’ve doubled up a bunch of the photos, but … I was mostly living out of a suitcase for years. I didn’t pick up much extra stuff.”
 
“Your closets beg to differ.”
 
“Ah, but losing any of that just gives me an excuse to buy more,” Buffy said smugly.
 
Spike picked up the noticeably fatter photo wallet and started flipping through it. The childhood photos were largely unchanged – Buffy’s dad was a bit more thoroughly excised and there were a few formal school shots of Dawn he didn’t recognise – but the “various Scoobies” had received a proper facelift. Gone were the perm of doom and Willow looking twelve, replaced by one-eyed-Xander and a glut of teenage girls. Anya was missing entirely – Buffy must’ve given those away. And there was a new-old snap of Giles as an angry young man that reminded Spike eerily of himself.
 
To his great surprise, Faith appeared towards the end, looking unusually relaxed and happy. Spike wondered who could have taken it, since he was pretty sure Buffy hadn’t exchanged eye contact let alone actual words with Faith for a good few years now. There followed a ridiculous photo-booth set of Angel and Corrine from three or so years ago. He’d let himself be goofy with her, and then she’d died, poor bitch, and taken with her the last remnants of what had passed for the old sod’s sense of humour.
 
Then Spike found one of himself – the first in the entire set. It was too dark so his clothes glowed green and his eyes were red from the flash, but you could just about make out that he was smoking and staring off intently at something in the distance.
 
“Dawn took that,” Buffy said quietly. “At the Bronze.”
 
He knew the look, if not the picture. “Watchin’ you dance, was I?”
 
She shrugged. “You’d have to ask her.”
 
The last photo in the wallet was of him and Buffy together, leaning against each other and laughing helplessly. “Who took this?”
 
“Andrew,” Buffy said. “It was from—”
 
“Dawn’s housewarming,” Spike finished, remembering.
 
Buffy nodded.
 
They’d been spending some time together then – but only because Dawn refused to be forced to choose between them. That night, they’d … reconnected.
 
Spike closed the photo wallet and Buffy started packing up the purse. Her feet became increasingly distracting as she shifted positions.
 
“Thank you,” he said, catching her eye.
 
“You’re welcome.” Smiling again, she removed the purse and her distracting feet.
 
By the time Buffy came back to the sofa, he’d sorted out the blanket and was holding up one edge for her. She nestled against him, his elbow at her back so that his fingers could wind themselves into her hair. It was beginning to feel natural, sitting like this.
 
Spike folded down the next question. “Of all the people in your family,” he read, “whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?”
 
“Well it’s only Dad and Dawn left,” Buffy said, laying her head against his shoulder. “I think they’d be equally disturbing, but for completely different reasons.”
 
He could feel her breath at his throat, all hot and shivery.
 
“There’s my mom’s sisters and their kids, too, I guess, but … I haven’t seen any of them since the funeral. It’d be weird if they died – sad, but not disturbing.” She sighed. “I’ll probably go before any of them, though.” She stared down at her hands. “Although … Arlene’s getting kinda old now. Plus there’s always that aneurysm gene lottery. So maybe not.”
 
“Got a whole army these days,” he said quietly. “No need to be on the front lines anymore.”
 
Buffy laughed. “Doesn’t stop tomorrow from being something’s one good day.”
 
Spike’s expression turned troubled. “You’re not still—”
 
“World of no,” she cut him off, lifting her head to meet his eyes. “I am death-wish-free for … three years, two months and counting.”
 
He flinched.
 
“It’s okay. Seriously! I … I know to stay in those nights.” Buffy cleared her throat. “I guess we’re talking vamp family for you, huh? So … Drusilla?”
 
His restless fingers stopped moving. Spike stared down at his knees and found himself counting the stripes on the blanket.
 
Buffy stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “It was easier in a lot of ways, you know, when I thought you were dead.”
 
His head shot up.
 
“Not that it didn’t hurt that you were gone,” she rushed out, meeting his gaze again. “Because it did. A lot. But the way you went? I was … proud. And no one could claim you had ulterior motives.” She paused. “There were no more what-ifs about you, or about us. It was—” She stopped. “I could mourn. It was okay to love you in a way it never had been before. So I did.” She looked over at him, squinting slightly. It was his look, from years ago, when he was reading her heart. “There’s gotta be some part of you thinking it’ll be simpler when Dru’s dead.”
 
He goggled at her. “You a pod person?”
 
She laughed, taking the compliment for what it was. “I can be think-y. Sometimes.”
 
“Can always feel her, you know. A little tug, just on the edge,” Spike said, his voice soft with something Buffy couldn’t quite identify. “Be like losing a limb, not havin’ that anymore.”
 
“Do you have the same connection with Angel?” she asked, genuinely curious.
 
He shook his head. “Angelus taught me but Dru made me.” He chuckled. “Funny, innit? I know there are others in the line, but they’re like your aunts and cousins. Only two left, really. For both of us.”
 
“Long may they live,” Buffy said quietly.
 
He held her a bit tighter, and she settled the blanket around them a bit more snugly.
 
“So, um, are we really gonna do this?”
 
“This?”
 
“This-us.”
 
He sighed. “Still can’t say it, can you?”
 
 “Don’t play coy with me, bucko – you know damn’ well what I mean. Yes-or-no answer, please.”
 
“Haven’t asked the right question yet.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Are we going to be more than friends?”
 
“Never did work out how to say no to you.”
 
“And … still waiting.”
 
He laughed, giddy and bright. “Yes, Buffy. Yes, we really are doing this.”
 
They just stared into each other’s eyes and grinned while his left hand kept up its steady cadence of stroking along the back of her head and neck. Then Buffy twisted around under his arm so they were facing each other and reached up to cup his face with both hands. Her thumb gently stroked his bottom lip and her fingertips traced the shells of his ears so lightly he couldn’t be sure it was happening at all.
 
Spike moved in first, but Buffy definitely initiated the kiss. It was gentle but needy, sweet and biting, passion and comfort all rolled up into one. He’d never dreamed it could be like this: so quietly rapturous. Before, he’d always felt a desperate, driving need to go further, faster, deeper – like if he stopped for even a second he’d lose everything. But this, now – kissing her – it was an end in itself. It reminded him of those nights a lifetime ago when they’d just held each other. His eyes melted shut.
 
Buffy’d always avoided kissing him in the past. It had felt too intimate, too raw. Kissing, she’d told herself, was only for real relationships. But everything was different now – they were different. She could luxuriate in the messy, awkward realness of it all: how her fingers were gunky because she’d stupidly scrunched them into his hair; and how they were still sitting next to each other, twisted like pretzels to make all the right parts line up. But as the kiss gentled into nuzzling and soft touches, and they finally shoved the back cushions onto the floor so they could fit lengthways along the sofa in something vaguely resembling comfort, Buffy felt a satiation that transcended any of the more physically intimate acts they’d shared.
 
“Come to bed,” she said softly, staring down at his still-closed eyes.
 
They blinked languidly open: half-lidded and newly-anxious. “You sure?” he asked.
 
“Never been surer,” she said firmly.
 
Then she took his hand and somehow managed to get them both up and off the sofa. It struck her as she led him into her bedroom that this felt cosmically right, somehow. He’d bitched and moaned endlessly about being kept out of her life in Sunnydale, never mind the absolute embargo on her bed. So, yeah, there would’ve been a deep, meaningful … something … if they’d done all this before the crater had sucked both life and bed into oblivion. But here and now? She got to bring Spike to the bed he’d helped her carry up six flights of stairs and into an apartment that often felt like it was half-his anyway. There wasn’t any baggage in this room, and that made a new start feel more certain.
 
He watched her change into a tattered t-shirt and a faded pair of sleeping shorts and the raw intimacy of it made his chest ache: being let in like this was precious and powerful in a way even the most titillating frippery could never compete with. He took off his belt and shirt, then lost his balance removing his socks. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but the laughter overrode the awkwardness of getting into bed together.
 
Only a few minutes later, twined around Buffy and already more than half asleep, Spike mumbled, “Love you, too,” for the first time in over a hundred years.