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I Would Still Have Loved You by slaymesoftly
 
Chapter Eigh
 
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Chapter Eight
 
“Well, that went… about as bad as it could’ve.  He wasn’t all suspicious like that when he saw me fight in our time… he just didn’t know slayers were a thing.”
 
“In all fairness to the big lump, last time he hadn’t seen you with me yet, nor had his buddies insisted they’d been attacked by a girl in a cemetery. And you’d been dating him a bit longer, hadn’t you?”
 
“Not that much longer.”  Buffy refused to allow herself to admit Riley may have had reason to be suspicious of her.
 
“Long enough for him to give you the benefit of the doubt while he checks out what a slayer is.”
 
“Well I hope he still looks it up. I don’t want to spend the rest of this year having to dodge the Initiative. Or whatever’s going to be left of them after this.”
 
“So, Slayer, what do you want to do with the rest of the night…?” He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.  She gave him a small smile, but shook her head.
 
“I guess we need to find you a place to live if you don’t want to stay in your crypt. I don’t know how we’re going to do that at night, though.”
 
“I made some phone calls and did some looking around last night. Found a basement apartment that the building super was willing to show us this evening. Told him my ‘wife’ was at work and you couldn’t come to look at it until you got off.” He started walking, taking her hand until she was walking beside him. With an apologetic shrug, she squeezed his hand and then let go.
 
“Why do I have to go? I won’t be living there… not right away, anyhow.”
 
“You’ll be there often enough,” he growled. “If you don’t think you will be, I’ll just go ahead and fix up the crypt. But I wanted to get someplace that’s safe for you, and that means you have to sign the lease.“
 
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. You’ll be safer too if other vamps can’t come in.”
 
“Not me I’m worried about, but don’t need to be wonderin’ if we’re going to be interrupted in the middle of something important.”
 
Buffy slowed her steps and cocked her head. “How come you never worried about that back when I was at your crypt all the time.  Anybody could have come in…. Xander did catch us that one time, he just didn’t know it.”
 
“I dunno, love. I guess I’d been so used to livin’ there by that time that the idea of movin’ just didn’t occur to me. It’s not like you didn’t threaten to end it every bloody time you were there, is it?” He sighed and returned her apologetic squeeze when she linked her hand linked with his again. “Anyway, it wasn’t likely any vamps or demons were going to break into my home by then. I’d had a couple of years to make it very clear what would happen to anything that tried. I still had that much of a rep in the demon world.  And I did what I could – had the tunnels blocked with a locked gate and had a bar for the door. I just never used the bar because I didn’t want you to be locked out if you wanted to come see me. And didn’t have time to think about it when you were all invisible. What with you ripping my shirt off and all…”
 
“We really did treat you like you weren’t important enough to—”
 
“Sometimes you did, sometimes you didn’t… Not like I never just walked into your house… or your bedroom… without knockin’. It’s not who we were then.” He dropped her hand and brushed his shoulder against hers. “It’s right up there. The building with all the trees around it.”
 
“We probably ought to hide these swords in those bushes before we walk up to the office,” Buffy said. “We don’t want to scare the other tenants.”
 
Spike handed his sword to Buffy and kept watch as she hid them under some nearby shrubbery. “I hope nobody takes them,” she said. “Giles hates it when I lose weapons.”
 
“Did that a lot, did you?” he asked, leading her up the walk to a door marked “office”.  Buffy knocked on the office door, then tried the knob. A pleasant-looking man ran over and opened it for them. She nodded her understanding when Spike gestured for her to precede him into the office, silently pointing to the invisible barrier he’d almost bounced off.
 
“Mr. and Mrs. Pratt?” the man asked, smiling at them.  “Please come in while I get the keys. I’m Mr. Butterfield, but you can call me Max.”
 
“We appreciate you staying up to show us the apartment,” Spike said as he followed Buffy through the door. “I’m sure it’s an inconvenience.”
 
“No. It’s no problem. As I told you yesterday evening, I’m often here late at night finishing up paperwork of one sort or another.”
 
“It’s not always safe to be open late at night,” Buffy said with a slight frown. “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard…”
 
“I keep the door locked,” he said with a tight smile. “And I’ve taken other… precautions.”
 
“Good idea,” Spike said. “You just never know…”
 
“So true.” Max gave Spike a long stare before holding up the keys. “Here we are. If you’ll just follow me… we’ll have to go back outside to get into it. The apartment that’s vacant has its own outside entrance for some reason. All the others down there open into the basement hallway.”
 
They followed him outside, smiling when he locked the door behind him. He led them around the side of the building, down a few steps to a small paved patio in front of a sturdy-looking door.  Using one of the keys in his hand, he opened the door and stepped back to let them look inside. He hit a light switch and a small, but clean and pleasant-looking living room was in front of them.
 
Buffy went in, taking Spike’s hand and pulling him with her.  They looked around the living area, checked out the tiny kitchen corner, and then followed Max into a small bedroom with a newly remodeled bathroom off it. The apartment was sparsely furnished with just a chair in one corner of the bedroom and a saggy sofa in the living room.
 
“What do you think, love? Will this do us? It’s not like we’re going to be here all that much.”
 
“Oh really?” Max said. “Why is that?”
 
“Buffy is a college student during the day, and she works for a few hours most nights, so she’ll be in and out for a while. We haven’t been married very long and we’re still sorting things out. Her mum lives in town too, so between that and the other places she has to be, it’s gonna be mostly me sleeping here until we work out when she can move in permanently.”
 
“But I thought you wanted her to sign the lease?”
 
“I do. Want it to belong to both of us… just in case.  But I’ll be paying the rent and whatnot.”
 
Max narrowed his eyes at them, a small frown creasing his brow.  Buffy gave him her best grownup, I’m-a-competent-woman-who-just-happens-to-be-beautiful smile. “He’ll pay the rent, but I’m going to pick out the furniture and curtains,” she said. “I might be in and out during the day, too. When I don’t have classes.”
 
“We’re going to need to order some furniture tomorrow, pet. At least a bed…” He wiggled his eyebrows at her and she blushed, making Max chuckle.
 
“Ah, newlyweds. I remember those days.” He beamed at them. “So, if you like it, let’s go back upstairs and do the paperwork.” He led the way out of the apartment, locking the door behind him and handing Spike one of the keys.
 
Buffy gave him her home address and phone, as well as Giles’s phone number. “That’s… sort of my work number,” she said. “It’s my… boss’s…  phone and if I’m not at my mom’s, he can probably reach me.  And this number is my friend Willow’s at the dorm. Technically, I still live there. We have a lot of classes together, so she can find me around campus if I’m not hanging out in the dorm room.” 
 
“And you?” Max looked at Spike expectantly. “Do you have a work number?”
 
“Not as such, no. Thinking about getting one of those new portable phones, but for now, we’ll just have something in the apartment.” Spike took out a roll of bills and peeled off enough for the deposit and the first month’s rent. “Sorry about the cash. It’s how I do business. Can give you the name of the bank I use if you want to check it out, but it’s honest money. I gamble a bit, but I’m not a drug dealer or anything like that.”
 
“None of my business,” Max said firmly. “I wasn’t going to ask.”  He handed Buffy the other key. “You can take possession as soon as you want,” he said. “There’s always someone in the office in the daytime if you want to schedule furniture deliveries or anything like that. There will always be someone here to let them in.”
 
“Thank you.  I hope we can find at least a few things tomorrow and maybe move in by Monday or Tuesday. Depends on when things can be delivered I guess.”
 
“Thanks, mate. I promise we’ll be quiet neighbors.”
 
 
XXXXX
 
“So, where are you going to stay tonight?” Buffy asked as she retrieved their swords from the bushes and handed one to him.
 
He shrugged. “Was going to hang out with Rupert, but I think I’ll work on the crypt and just go to the watcher’s when it's almost daylight. I’m going to stake my claim in Restfield just like I did before. You never know when we might need a bolt hole come next year, or this year if your giant mistake for a boyfriend doesn’t come around.”
 
“So you’re going to live in the apartment AND in the crypt?”
 
He shrugged. “I’ll only need to be in the apartment if you’re going to be there. I checked it out last night before I set up the appointment, and I can use the tunnels and sewers to go from the crypt to the apartment. There’s a manhole opens in the alley behind the building. I can make it from there to the apartment with a little help from my coat or a blanket.”
 
“Smelling like a sewer…”
 
“You can just throw me in the shower and scrub me down if I smell,” he said with a leer.
 
“Speaking of showers… I have demon goo in my hair. I’m surprised Max didn’t notice and ask me what it was.”
 
“I think our new landlord knows more than he lets on. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew exactly who you are. And I’m not real sure he doesn’t have me sussed out too…”
 
“You don’t think he’s a demon, do you?”
 
“Didn’t smell like one. But he could be something else… human, but with magic skills. Anyway, seems he wouldn’t mind having the Slayer living in his building.”
 
“You know we can’t let Mom know, right? That’s one of the reasons I can’t just move in with you. To her, you’re just that vamp that shows up once in a while to cry on her shoulder. She doesn’t know where either one of us is from. I can’t imagine how much she’d wig if she thought I was living with you.”
 
“She’d probably take the axe to me again.” He laughed, then gave her a sideways glance and put his arm around her. “How’s that working out – seeing your mum again? Are you okay?”
 
Buffy sighed and leaned into him. “To be honest, I’ve tried to stay away as much as possible. I already freaked her out by hugging her too tight the first time I saw her. It’s just so hard not to cling, knowing she might be gone by the end of next year.”
 
“There’s got to be a way to fix that,” he growled. “We’ve got a whole year to figure it out.”
 
“Or it might be one of those things we can’t change… I have to be ready to live with that.”
 
He growled again and shook his head before changing the subject.
 
“Are you going back to the dorm? Could be we’ll need that bolt hole now if Captain America doesn’t do his due diligence and learn what a slayer is.”
 
“Oh. I didn’t think about that. Damn! I guess I should give him time to do that before I wander around on campus again.”  She sighed as she moved close to him again. “Now I wish the crypt was set up. We could just spend the night there.”
 
“Reckon it’s back to the Watcher’s for us then. Or for you, anyway. Since it’s not likely Rupert is going to let us sleep together, I may as well work on the crypt. At least get a bedroom set up downstairs. Can work on the rest of it later.”
 
“I can’t believe we’ve back together for the first time since I left you to burn up—”
 
“Don’t go there, Buffy. You did what I told you to do, and I did what needed to be done. I’m just grateful that amulet gave me another chance to be in your life. In a way, anyway. I might get a little cranky if I have to keep pretending….”
 
“I know. That’s what I was going to say. Here we are, in the same place at the same time, with no big apocalypse to worry about until next year, and we can’t even really be together because we’re supposed to be us from a time when we were still pretty much enemies.”
 
“We’re going to have to find a way, love. I’m not planning to be away from you for one bloody second more than I have to. And if some of that time isn’t just the two of us, alone, in a bed, naked….” He sighed and adjusted his pants.  “Giving myself a stiffy just talkin’ about it.”
 
Buffy giggled. “The soul might still be there, but sometimes you sound a lot like the you I first met.”
 
“Must be bein’ back here in this time,” he said. “Makes me want to be the Big Bad again.”
 
“Well, after you got that chip, you weren’t all that big and bad, you know….”
 
“Was till Red did that stupid spell – which she hasn’t given up on, I’d like to remind you – and I had a lap full of warm Buffy all night.  I think my days as the Big Bad started to fade right then and there.”
 
“You’re just saying that,” she said, nudging his shoulder. “You hated me again the minute that spell ended.”
 
“If you’ll think back to that exact minute, you were layin’ on top of me and kissing the livin’ daylights out me.  Trust me, love, the only thing I was hating then was that you weren’t there anymore.”
 
“Okay. So, first thing tomorrow you find a bed for the apartment and something for the crypt.  I’ll go to my mom’s and get the ring, and I’ll meet you one place or the other.”
 
“Tomorrow’s Sunday, love. I can probably order them, but I can’t go out in the daylight to pay for them, and nobody’s going to deliver on a Sunday.  I’ll have to give you the money, you can go pay for the one for the apartment and give them the address, and I’ll take care of getting the one delivered to the crypt.”
 
“Okay. I’ll meet you at the crypt tomorrow afternoon I guess.”
 
“I’ll be there. I’m just going to drop you off here and get back to Restfield before I stumble across any commandos searching for runaway demons.”
 
“’K. Be careful.” She went up on her toes for a goodnight kiss that quickly turned into something that threatened to provide entertainment for anyone walking by. The sound of Giles clearing his throat broke them apart, to the accompaniment of Spike’s best snarl.
 
“My apologies,” Giles said with little sincerity, “but I do not believe you should be outside just now. I have information from the Council.” He frowned at Spike. “Both of you should hear this.”
 
 
 
 
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