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I Would Still Have Loved You by slaymesoftly
 
Chapter Fourteen
 
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
 
As they walked back to Restfield, carrying bags of “supplies” that Joyce had insisted they take, Spike ventured, “That didn’t go so badly, did it?  She didn’t try to brain me with anything and she gave you food… and toilet paper.”
 
Buffy snorted. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her crypts don’t come with bathrooms, but we can use it in the apartment I guess.”
 
“I can rig something up for you,” he said. “I’d started on it back in our time, but then you let the big lump blow up my bedroom, and…”
 
“You were making me a bathroom?”
 
“Well, already had the shower. And I was putting warm water in for that. Adding a toilet when your bedroom isn’t very far from a sewer isn’t really all that challenging. Just needed to make it safe and easy for you to get to it.  I’ll work on it again, but the shower’s going to take time….”
 
“You did a lot for me, didn’t you?  All those rugs, the bedroom furniture, the drinks in the fridge…. I never let myself see what you were doing to make me comfortable.”  She moved closer to him and leaned into him briefly. She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied.
 
“Well, you did tell the slayer wannbes that the old crypt was ‘comfy’, so you must have noticed some of it.”
 
She laughed. “I did say that, didn’t I? Poor girls. They thought I’d gone crazy.”
 
“It was a crazy time… some of us actually were crazy for a little while.” He nudged her arm. “Pretty sure you remember that.”
 
“You’re all right now, though. Aren’t you? Got used to having the soul and—”
 
“I made my peace with it,” he agreed. “First time I had to kill something, I began to realize that having the soul didn’t mean I needed to turn back into the useless git I was when I was human. I needed to be able to fight for you when you needed me to, and the best thing I could do for all those poor souls I’d killed was to make myself useful and help you save the world.”
 
“And you did,” she said softly. “Did I ever thank you for that?”
 
“Um no… because your wanker of an ex didn’t tell you I was all ghostly, and then we were… here.”
 
“True. I am, though, you know. Thankful. Even if I did think you’d killed yourself doing it.”
 
“I thought I had too, love. Nobody was more surprised than me when my incorporeal self popped out of that ugly jewelry. Ended up standing in the middle of the poof’s big fancy desk.” He put the arm not holding bags of groceries over her shoulders. “Feel free to show me how grateful you are once we get the food put away….”
 
“You’re incorrigible and insatiable…”
 
“Says the woman who left me wrung out and empty more than once.”
 
“Who was that? I’ll scratch her eyes out!”
 
His warm chuckle in her ear made her smile. “She was really something, but I don’t think she was very happy. Made her mean sometimes.”  He squeezed her shoulders and straightened up as they reached the crypt.  “Loved her anyway, but I think I like you better.”
 
“I think I like me better too,” she said softly. “Here, give me those.” She took all the bags, leaving him to wield the WD40 oilcan at all the hinges in the outer door. He did some experimental opening and shutting until he decided it was as good as it was going to get. “Might leave a bit of a squeak to it, just in case we get any surprise visitors. I’d like to hear them coming.”
 
“Good idea. I can’t believe how careless you were about that before.”
 
“Told you, love. It was more important to me that you — and the Bit when she came along — have access to it than it was to worry about some random vamp or demon that didn’t know about me stumbling in. By not too long from now in our time, I’d pretty well staked out my territory here in Restfield. May not have been the Master of Sunnydale anymore, but I was the closest thing to it. Between your reputation for dusting any vamps stupid enough to try to move here, and mine for making them earn the right to stay long enough to fight you, there wasn’t much to worry about until Adam started sending out his man/monsters. And they didn’t care about me.”
 
“Isn’t this where you were when Glory’s minions grabbed you?”
 
“Was. Don’t worry. This time we’re going to have heavy bars on the doors and windows, and a gate across the entrance to the sewer tunnels. I’ve got all year to work on making this a fortress.”
 
“Which I hope we won’t need.” Buffy shook herself and finished putting away the food and drink Joyce had sent with them.
 
“I hope not, too. But until we’ve figured out how to get rid of her blowsy self…”
 
“It’s nice to have a safe place to hide.”
 
“Exactly.” He pulled her into a loose embrace.  “So, what’s the plan? Believe the farm boy is going to leave us alone and patrol? Or just hide out here, where we’re safe and have food, water, and a bed?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her and she smiled as she shook her head.
 
“I don’t know. I think I should call Giles and bring him up to speed, and give him our phone numbers so he can get hold of one of us if he needs to.”
 
“Right. The phones. Here’s yours.” He pulled two flip phones from his pocket and handed one to her. “Already put my number in yours and your number in mine. What else do we need?”
 
“Well, I know mom’s number, and Giles’s and Willow’s and Xander’s, but you need to have those in your phone. And I guess that’s it. At least until we move to the apartment and get a phone there. Then we’ll have to give everybody that number.”
 
Spike shook his head and laughed quietly to himself.
 
“What?”
 
“Just… look at us. Phone numbers, including one that’s for both of us. First thing you know, we’ll be picking out curtains and hanging funny-looking plants at all the windows. Just like old married folks.”
 
“Something you didn’t want to be, if I remember it right,” she said, her expression becoming more somber. “ ‘Trust is for old marrieds’ isn’t that what you said? Like being married for a long time was a terrible thing.”
 
“Fuck.” He stared at her with eyes that held more pain than she’d seen since she’d found him in the school basement. “There’s a bloody good way to remind me I don’t deserve any of this.”
 
“I didn’t mean to…. I’m just asking… Were you saying we’re already getting boring?”
 
“Of course I wasn’t! Is that what you thought I was saying? That the idea of living with you, sleeping beside you every night, having you in my life every day…. that I don’t think I’ve died and gone to a Heaven I know I’ll never see?”
 
“Well, it just sounded kinda…. You know, the way you said it… boring.” She peered at him from under her eyelashes.  “And I did want to get some curtains for that one window…. and a plant to hang there…. and—mmmph!”  His lips cut off her exaggerated offended complaint. 
 
When he’d kissed her into silence, he rested his forehead against hers and said, “You couldn’t be boring it you tried, Buffy.  Our lives couldn’t be boring. Never have been, never will be. If we get some moments or days, or hell - even weeks, of down time to shop for curtains and grow ferns in the windows…. nobody would be happier about that than I would.”
 
“Oh. Okay, then.” 
 
XXXXX
 
When Buffy called Giles to give him their phone numbers, she was surprised to find he had already heard from the Council.
 
“It appears that there will be military personnel of one sort or another showing up no later than tomorrow… and they will be requesting your presence when they enter the facility.”
 
“Me? Why? I don’t, theoretically, know much about the place this time.”
 
“They didn’t share with me what they know, but it seems your 'theoretically' may be just that. There didn’t seem to be much doubt that you would know if they were being lied to about anything. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I’m pursuing it with friends in the Council. “
 
“Are you saying they know who I really am?”
 
“I’m saying that may be a possibility… at a minimum, they seem to know that you should know what’s going on in there.”  He paused. “They also mentioned Spike. Demanding an explanation for why he seems to suddenly be working with us rather than against us.”
 
“Did you tell them about the chip?”
 
“I did. But the chip only explains why he can’t kill anyone, not why he has been seen fighting at your side.”
 
“Are they spying on me?”  Buffy’s tone of voice didn’t bode well for her interest in following instructions from the Council.
 
Giles sighed heavily. “I’m quite certain they are. As I am no longer an official employee and they don’t trust me, I’ve no doubt that they have their own people in place in Sunnydale, reporting back to the Council on your activities.”
 
“The watchers are watching me? Us?  And they expect me to do what they tell me?”
 
“I’m quite certain they don’t ‘expect you’ to do as you’re told,” Giles said. Buffy had no trouble picturing the expression on his face, and she glared at the phone in her hand. “However, I believe, as we requested their assistance and information, it is only fair that we follow up with the necessary actions.”
 
“Fine.” She glared at the phone again.  “How will I know when it’s time to meet them?”
 
“I imagine they will contact me, or perhaps your mother. As long as we know how to reach you, we’ll be able to relay the message.”
 
“Okay. I’ll wait for it… for a little while.  Oh! I didn’t tell you yet, Riley came by Mom’s while we were there….”
 
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
 
Buffy huffed her disgust at the question. “Of course I didn’t!  But he knows there’s something going on.  I told him to go back and wait for whoever’s on the way to get there before he gets all paranoid about Spike and me being demons…”
 
“Technically, pet….”
 
“Is that Spike? Where are you?”
 
“We’re in Spike’s crypt in Restfield.  I’m not sure if there will be phone service downstairs, but I’ll keep checking.”
 
Downstairs?”
 
“Yeah, I told you, it’s not your average hole in the ground.  Anyway, we’re here and I guess we’ll stay in tonight just in case Riley has second thoughts about not trying to capture us. But I’m going out tomorrow, no matter what.”
 
“Well, check in with me before you do, in case I have information for you from the Council.”
 
“Okay.”
 
She flipped the phone shut and looked at Spike.  “I guess we’re stuck here again for the night.”
 
He glared at her. “It’s a good thing I know how much you like going out and killing things, Slayer.”
 
“Huh?”
 
“A less knowledgeable man might have had his feelings hurt at hearing you think spending the night with him is ‘being stuck’.”
 
She rolled her eyes at him. “You knew what I meant!”
 
“I’d like to think I do, but—”
 
“Please tell me I didn’t trade soothing Riley’s ego for the rest of the year with soothing yours.”
 
“Had to do that a lot, did you?” He grinned, good humor restored.
 
“Often enough,” she muttered as he put his arms around her.
 
She felt his chest shake with chuckles.  “I knew you weren’t getting off on shagging that big lump,” he crowed. “Could tell from the sounds you made.”
 
She stiffened. “And you knew that… how?”  Memories of finding cigarette butts in the yard had her narrowing her eyes.
 
His survival instincts kicking in, he said quickly, “Not important, love. I just thought there may have been trouble in paradise once or twice.  Vampire’s intuition and all that.”
 
“There’s no such thing as ‘vampire’s intuition’,” she growled. “Exactly when did you start stalking me and hanging out in my yard?”
 
“Sooner than you know about, but less often than you think,” he admitted with a sigh as he let his arms drop.  “I quit doing it once I started falling in love with you. Hurt too much. It was one thing to know what you were doing with him, another to have to listen to it.”
 
“That night you took me to the bite house….”
 
“Was really a few blocks away, I swear. But I saw the farmboy hustling toward demontown and followed him long enough to see where he was going. Came back to your house and could tell you were asleep, so I knew he’d snuck out on you.” He shrugged.  “Seemed only right to show you what a wanker he was.”
 
Buffy shook her head.  “You know you’re lucky I didn’t stake you on the spot, right?”
 
He nodded. “I know. And when I saw your face, how much it hurt you to see that, I was almost sorry I’d done it.”
 
“Almost?”
 
“You needed to know, love. You needed to know that your white knight was getting a little soiled, and you needed to know he was putting you and yours in danger. Stupid git might have got himself turned. Doesn’t happen often, but mistakes get made. You may not believe me, but I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I thought you’d just get brassed off at him and break up.”
 
“Which we did. For all the good that did you.”
 
He shrugged. “Gave me some time and space to work on charming you with my good looks and sexiness.” He batted his eyes at her.
 
Buffy shook her head at him, breaking off to yawn. “I’m too tired to point out all the stupid things you did that year. I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”
 
He nuzzled her neck, smiling when she yawned again.  “I’m guessing from the way your eyes keep drifting closed, I’m not. You go on down and go to sleep. I’ve got some more housekeeping stuff to do up here.  I’ll be there when you wake up.”
 
“You’d better be,” she muttered into his chest.
 
“I promise, love.” He kissed the top of her head and let go of her so he could pull back the plywood over the lower level.
 
XXXXX
 
When he slid into bed beside her much later, she just murmured his name and curled up closer to him. With a satisfied smile, he put his arms around and let his own eyes fall shut.
 
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