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I Would Still Have Loved You by slaymesoftly
 
Chapter Nine
 
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CHAPTER NINE
 
With a shrug, Spike followed Buffy into the apartment, shedding his coat and taking the swords to the weapon box. Before Giles could say anything, Spike had pulled out the cleaning materials and started wiping the weapons down.  Giles watched, frowning, as Spike completed the cleanup and put the swords and cleaning supplies back in the box. As he closed it, Spike noticed Giles staring at him.
 
“What? Wasn’t raised by wolves, you know. I know how to treat a weapon.”
 
Giles shook his head. “I was just watching you go right to the weapon chest and not only know where to put the swords, but what to do before you put them away and where those materials are kept. And, perhaps really for the first time, fully understanding that you are who and what you say you are.”
 
“You didn’t believe us?” Buffy expression went from shocked to dismayed. “All this time you thought we were lying?”
 
“No. No.” Giles shook his head again. “I have accepted your story at face value, but I believe I’ve been subconsciously believing… or hoping… there was some… some other explanation for how you could know what you know, and how you could trust a vicious demon the way you seem to. Some explanation that doesn’t involve your having come back from both the grave and the future, and with another souled vampire in your life. One that I only know as a vicious killer.”
 
“What you mean is, you were hopin’ the Slayer and me aren’t really together,” Spike said, walking over to Buffy.  “Trust me when I tell you your future self didn’t like seein’ that either. And he didn’t have to watch anything like what you just caught us doing. Just didn’t want me to be that important a part of Buffy’s life and plans.”
 
“And was he?” Giles turned his attention to Buffy. “Such an important part of your life that you wouldn’t heed my advice?”
 
“He was,” she said simply. “I think your actual words were ‘you depend upon each other too much’ or something like that. You thought that somehow having someone in my life that horrible year… someone who I could rely on to support me no matter what, was a bad thing.” She studied his puzzled face, debating whether or not she should tell him he’d tried to have Spike killed.
 
Beside her, Spike touched her arm and whispered, “Let it go, love. No sense giving him any ideas.” 
 
She nodded and added, “Turns out, you couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did he give me the courage to get the weapon I needed, he ended up finishing that battle by himself… and burning to a crisp in the process. So, yeah. He really was… and is… or will be, if and when we get some time to ourselves without having fires to put out.”  Spike walked away, shaking his head and laughing.  “What?”
 
“You’ll let me know when we get to a time like that, won’t you, pet?”
 
“It could happen. You don’t know…” Buffy pouted. “It could!”
 
“I s’pose it could, but I won’t be holdin’ my breath till then.”
 
“You don’t have any breath!”
 
“That’s the best you’ve got? I don’t have any breath?”
 
She glared at him, trying to keep her lips from twitching at the grin on his face, but ultimately failing and laughing with him. “It was the best I could do right now.”
 
“As amusing as this is,” Giles said with a sigh, “the point I was making is that what has been more convincing than your words when you first came to me with this incredible story are your obviously comfortable interactions with each other, as well as Spike’s obvious familiarity with my home and belongings and your more mature approach to problems. I am seeing that I must accept what is so obviously true. Not only are you from a time several unpleasant years from now, but you somehow have progressed from sworn enemies to… I’m not sure what. I’m not clear on exactly what your current status is. Comrades in the fight against evil? Partners? Lovers?”
 
“Yes.”  Spike’s answer was short and sure, although he sent Buffy a quick glance to make sure she agreed.
 
“What he said,” she replied. “In our time, he was around a lot this year, and we were becoming friends and slaying partners by next year. And… you don’t really need to know about the time I was dead – except to tell you that while I was… gone, Spike kept his promise to protect Dawn, and by extension my friends.  Including you for as long as you were around—”
 
“Don’t tell me I died too!”
 
“What? No, don’t be silly. You went back to England. No slayer meant no Watcher needed…. apparently.” She tried to keep the anger from her voice about the way he’d left her sister and friends to fend for themselves, but the way he flinched told her she hadn’t succeeded.
 
“And this is off the subject,” she said briskly. “I don’t want to have that conversation and neither do you. What you wanted to know is what Spike and I are now, and how we got there. Yes, we were lovers for a while after I came back. I was in a bad place mentally and it didn’t go well. But before that, and after that, he was my friend. Someone I could trust to take care of my family and to be there for me when I needed him. And by the time we were fighting the First, he was the one I trusted the most, the only one I knew was on my side no matter what.” She gave Spike a sad smile. “And then it was his turn to die to save the world, and I thought he was gone.”
 
“And then now it’s my turn to come back,” he said, putting an arm around her and squeezing her shoulder.
 
“Sometimes the Powers that Be get it right,” she said smiling up at him.
 
“Looks like.”
 
They smiled at each other for another few seconds, then broke apart.
 
“So, Giles, what is so important that you interrupted my goodnight kiss?”
 
“Ah yes. The actual reason for inviting you to come in… aside from not shocking the neighbors….  I’ve spoken to the Council and they were able to find information about a similar type of operation run by—”
 
“Run by the bloody Nazis!” Spike went into a full minute of swearing before stopping to explain.  “You can thank your ex for giving those records to the US government, Slayer.”
 
“When you are ready to explain how you know this, I’d love to hear it. In the meantime, it appears that it is a very secret organization, and not necessarily approved of by everyone. The fact that it has backfired to some extent, with the lab having blown up and many of their experimental subjects escaped, means that those who were opposed to it in the first place will be taking advantage of the situation to shut it down.”
 
“The Council told you all that?”
 
“Not in so many words, but there has apparently been a great deal of “chatter” as they call it on certain government sites. Sites to which the Council seems to have access for some reason.”
 
“Because they’re wankers and think they have to mind everybody’s business?” Spike offered.
 
“Perhaps.” Giles was unperturbed. “The point is, if you can maintain a low profile for another few days, the Initiative and its demon-hunting commandos should be a thing of the past.”
 
“Uh…” Buffy exchanged looks with Spike. “I guess ‘low profile’ means, don’t let them see us slaying their escaping science projects?”
 
Giles gave a low groan. “Does that mean it’s too late?”
 
“Oh yeah. Didn’t get a chance to share that yet. Riley saw us slaying the escaping demons and he tried to… I dunno… arrest us? Or capture us? Not sure what he was thinking, but he didn’t want to let us leave.”
 
“All the more reason to remain out of sight until we can determine that they have left Sunnydale… or at least have quit their efforts to capture you. It’s possible the Council can be of some assistance there….” He walked to his desk and scribbled a note to himself.
 
Buffy looked dubious. “We’ve got the Gentlemen coming up, and then those wanna-open-the-hellmouth guys. Are they gonna be gone before then?”
 
“It’s hard to say. But certainly for the next several days, you should remain difficult to find.  Since I have not yet met your former admirer, it should be safe for me to bring you food and whatnot wherever you decide to stay.  I cannot suggest, Buffy, that you go to your mother’s. I’m sure the Initiative has access to school records and could easily obtain that address. You’re welcome to remain here….” His voice trailed off as he watched them move closer together.  “Although, perhaps you would prefer someplace more private….” he sighed, closing his eyes briefly.
 
Buffy and Spike held a whispered conversation, then she nodded and looked at Giles.
 
“If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here tonight. Spike was going to work on the crypt—” At Giles’s raised eyebrows, she added, “Oh, I forgot. You’ve never seen it. In our time, he lived in a big two-story mausoleum in Restfield and he’d fixed it up pretty nice. Right now, it’s just a big, cold, stone building. But if he can get it cleaned up, and find some furniture tonight, we can probably hide out there for a couple of days.  As long as we have food and water.”
 
“You don’t mind that?” Giles stared at Buffy as if she’d lost her mind.
 
“Well, I… I’m kind of used to it.  I mean, that’s where he lived until he went to get his soul. And we… all of us… It was just his house. Where Spike lives…Nobody minded,” she muttered at seeing his still shocked face.
 
“You’ll be surprised, Watcher,” Spike said, laughing at his disgusted expression. “But we’ve got more Buffy-friendly accommodations too. Just won’t be able to put furniture in them for a bit if Buffy can’t be out and about tomorrow.”
 
“Perhaps I can help with that,” Giles said stiffly, obviously still disturbed that Buffy had no qualms about sleeping in a graveyard.  “You may use my credit card to order what you need.” He glared at Spike. “I don’t suppose you were provided with cash when you came back here?”
 
“Didn’t need to be,” Spike said without explanation. “Know where it is, and where to get more of it.” He took out his wallet and thumbed through the contents. “I’ll be needing some of this tonight, but I’ll get more and we can pay you back tomorrow for whatever Buffy orders.  She’ll give you the address and tell you what she needs right away. Anything else can wait until we know the soldier boys aren’t trying to capture her.”
 
“How are you going to do all this on a Saturday night? A getting-rather-close-to-Sunday morning, Saturday night?”
 
Spike cocked his head and stared at Giles, then he shook his head and snorted, saying, “You explain it to him after I leave, love. Can’t believe he doesn’t know any better than that, but….” He leaned down to give her a quick kiss. “G’night, Slayer. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” With a wave at Giles, he went out the door, saying, “Best lock this behind me.”
 
XXXXXX
 
“I’ve got it,” Buffy said as Giles moved in that direction.
 
“Fine. I’ll just be over here sitting on my own furniture unless you two have plans for that too.”
 
Buffy sighed as she locked the door, then joined Giles on the couch. “I’m sorry. It’s not that we’re trying to be bossy. Really, we aren’t… well, maybe Spike is, a little….  But we know so much that you don’t—and you will,” she hastened to add when his frown deepened. “But maybe you wouldn’t know it right now because it isn’t something we learned about until Spike had been around us more than he has so far. I mean, he was here, and then he was at Xander’s for a while – which isn’t going to happen this time – but except for grilling him about the soldiers and the labs, we weren’t really paying much attention to what he said. And he wasn’t very interested in helping us either. Not unless he thought it might help him get the chip out.”
 
“Fine,” Giles said again, with slightly less annoyance. “So, where is he off to tonight? And who does he expect to buy furniture from?”
 
“Well, here’s the thing. There’s a whole part to Sunnydale that we didn’t—don’t— know anything about. There are a lot more demons and vampires here than we knew. But most of them – the demons, anyway – are not interested in harming humans. They just want to make a living and raise their families just like everybody else. Chances are, the guys who deliver pizzas to us at night are half-demon. Or whole demons if they can look human. Think about it. How long would a human last in Sunnydale trying to hold down a night job? Or one that meant they had to work in the sewers? Even at the mall, a lot of the stores that stay open late are owned or staffed by demons or vamps.”
 
“Dear lord….”
 
“Yeah. So, anyway, Spike’s money guy is a demon and he’s available all night. His bank is in the demon part of town. And I guess there are places to buy furniture there too. It’s like this whole world of businesses that cater to vamps and demons that we never knew about.  There’s even a little teashop run by some English vamp that doesn’t eat people. Angie or Agnes or something. She’s afraid of me, but she always liked Spike. He made her leave town when things got really bad with the First.”
 
“Dear lord,” he repeated. He stood up and went to his desk. “I should be taking notes about all this,” he said. “Here it’s been, right under my nose, all this time…”
 
“Well, we found out some of it by the end of this year, and once Spike was helping me, I learned more. Of course, it turned out Riley knew about the bite houses before I did.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice and Giles frowned.
 
“There are bite houses in Sunnydale? I’d always suspected there might be, but—”
 
“So you know about them? Bite houses?  Didn’t this seem like something I should know?”
 
“You were quite young and innocent.  And I had no idea where or even if Sunnydale had one. It just didn’t seem to be important.”
 
“Yeah, well, when the man I was dating decided he needed something he couldn’t get from me…. Spike took it upon himself to show me where they were. I hated him for it at the time, but he was right. I needed to know. And I probably wouldn’t have believed him if he’d tried to tell me about it.”
 
“Dear lord….”
 
“You said that already.”
 
“And I will undoubtedly say it again. I can’t decide it I want to know everything about your future, or nothing about it because it all sound as if it gets steadily worse.”
 
“That’s not a bad description,” Buffy said with a wry twist to her mouth. “It definitely had its moments.”  She stood up. “And on that note, I think I’ll go to bed so I can do some online shopping tomorrow.  You can get online here, can’t you?”
 
“So Willow tells me,” he said. “I rarely have occasion to do so when she isn’t here.”
 
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Giles. And thanks….”
 
“Of course! My guest room is always available to you.”
 
“Goodnight.”
 
“Goodnight, Buffy.”
 
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