Disclaimer: Alas, Spike is not mine.

Author’s note: Thanks to all my reviewers! Short Chapter this time, the end is nearing folks! Quotes from the episode Go Fish.
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Buffy sat away from the beach party alone. She hadn’t seen Spike in a week. He hadn’t called. She had left message after message, but still he didn’t call her. She hadn’t felt this miserable since she thought Spike was dead.

“Beautiful. Isn't it?” came a voice from behind her.

Buffy didn’t even bother to look and see who was talking to her. “Yeah. It's just so...”

“Eternal. A true mother, giving birth to new life and devouring old.” He sat down behind her “Always adaptable and nurturing... yet... constant... and merciless.”

Buffy turned to look at him at last “Boy. I was just gonna go with big and wet.”

He laughed “Me and some of the other guys on the team, we come out here once a week to train in it. See, we swim against the current.”

“Funny. That's how I feel most of the time. So, Cameron Walker, you just won the state semifinals. What are you going to do next?”

“I'm going to hang out with Buffy Summers. Get to know her.”

“Hey, pause that tape for a second.”

“Hey. No pressure. I just like being around you. That's all.”

Buffy returns her attention to the ocean. Not the guy I want paying attention to me.
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It was funny how she ran into Cameron again. Stalking maybe? But he had a nice car. And he was on the swim team. Somehow, and she really didn’t understand how it happened, and then she was in his car with him, but oh how she regretted it now. God he was so boring!

“I don't know, a dolphin. A dolphin in the ocean. Because, you know, when I'm in the vastness of the ocean, it's... it's like I'm never alone.” he droned on and on. Cameron pulled the car to a stop and turned off the engine.

“You ever hear of a woman named Gertrude Ederle?” he asked.

“No. No, I can't say that I have, Cam.”

“First woman to swim the English Channel. Same thing. I mean, she would talk to it. I mean, she'd carry on entire conversations with it. Sometimes I do that. I mean, once I was out in...”

“You know what, Cam? Thanks. I'd forgotten how nice it is to just talk, or, in my case, listen, without any romantic pressure,” she said trying to get him to just shut up.

“Hey... I'm not about pressure. I just want you to be comfortable.”

“I'm comfy! I'm so comfy, I'm nodding off actually, which is why...”

“Are you wearing a bra?” he interrupted.

“What?”

“Come on. I mean, tell me you haven't been thinking about this ever since last night.” he leered.

“What I'm thinking about is that I should probably get out of this car...” Buffy reached for the door handle but Cameron hit the driver’s master lock, making it impossible for her to open the door.

“Relax. I'm not gonna hurt you.”

“Oh, it's not me I'm worried about.”

“You like it rough!” He reached over to put his arm around her.

Buffy grabbed the offending appendage and pulled.

“Ow!”

With her free hand Buffy grabbed the back of his neck and jerked him up.

“Oh!”

Buffy smashed his head into the steering wheel, making the horn honk.

“Oh! Ah!”

It was only at this point that Buffy noticed Principal Snyder lurking nearby.

“Oh, you broke my nose!” said the jock holding his hand over the injured body part. “Ah!”
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In the nurse’s office, Snyder set about the arduous task of proving that Buffy was at fault for beating up the swim team member and thereby ruining the schools chances.

“I wasn't the attacker, Principal Snyder. I was the attacked.”

“That's not how it looked from where I was standing.” patronized the Principal.

“I don't know what happened. I mean, first she leads me on, then she goes schizo on me.” said Cameron through this ice pack.

“Lead you on? When did I lead you on?” cried Buffy.

“Oh, come on. I mean, look at the way she dresses.”

Buffy looked down at what she was wearing. What exactly was wrong with this?
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Buffy stared out at the ocean. The sun had set already, and it probably wasn’t the best idea in the world to be sitting out here, alone, but on some level Cameron was sorta right, the ocean was peaceful. On a whole new level, Cameron was a fish thingy now, living in the ocean. He could be looking at me right now, eww.

Buffy heard a car door close and the felt the familiar tinglies of Spike creep across her neck. Buffy felt her stomach flip flop. She hadn’t talked to him since that night when she told him exactly how Angel was freed of that pesky soul. Was he gonna be mad? Still? Buffy kept her eyes to the ocean.

“Spike” she said as soon as she felt he was in hearing range.

“Goldilocks”

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself and faced into the awkward silence. After a few moments Buffy couldn’t take it anymore.

“Are we gonna sit and not talk here or did you follow me for a reason?” asked Buffy quietly.

“I thought you were different than her.”

Buffy looked back at him questioningly.

“Dru, she cheated, took up with demons and minions. She was supposed to be my dark princess. She was my Moon and stars for a century. Then one day she decides to throw it all away.”

“I’m not Dru.”

“No, you aren’t. There are some remarkable similarities.”

“Don’t follow. And I don’t think it’s fair to lump me together with her. I’m not Dru. At the time, I wasn’t cheating on you Spike. I know that’s how it feels, truthfully I thought you were dust. Even Angel couldn’t feel you. I love you Spike. I really don’t know how it all started, Angel said something about thrall, but I don’t care. You once told me that sex for vampires was different, and here you are all up in my face about sex, meaningless I might add, with someone who I used unfeelingly, because I was hurting. I am yours Spike.”

“You are right,” he said as he began to pace. “I told you all that crap about vampires and sex. And you did think I was dusty under that organ. Did you think to even check for my pile of dust?”

“The church is a burnt ruin Spike, there isn’t much to check for.”

“Right, silly me.”

Buffy took a clip out of her pocket and pinned up her hair away from her neck.

“Spike,” she whispered. When he didn’t look at her, she knelt before him. “Sire...”

Spike stopped pacing.

“Buffy?”

“Look, Spike, I don’t know a whole lot about the whole Sire/potential childe thing, but I do know that I’ve displeased you, majorly pissed you off in fact. I don’t know what exactly the vampire punishment is for sex with inappropriate other vampires is, but I have a feeling that it isn’t going to be a spanking.”

“Goldilocks, what are you doing?”

“Don’t you get it?” she cried “I’m sorry! I don’t want you to leave me! When I thought you were dead...Not happy time in the Buffy-verse. More of the hysterical crying time actually. I can’t do that again, Spike. So if you are gonna leave me, you might was well just snap my neck, drain me dry or whatever. I don’t want to live if I can’t be with you.”

The tears were streaming down Buffy’s face. Spike took one look at her wet face and crumbled. Her tears had a way of making him forget everything except her. Ordinarily he would have wanted to kill the thing that was making her cry, but this time it was him.

Spike knelt on the ground in front of her.

“Buffy, please don’t cry, love.” Spike took her hands in his own. “I can’t stand it when you cry.”

“Cause this conversation is so happy inducing” she wailed between sobs.

Spike wrapped his arms around her and held her close. After a time Buffy’s sobbing subsided and she titled her head, exposing her neck to Spike.

“Goldilocks?” he questioned.

“Do it, Spike,” she whispered.

Spike lowered his mouth to her neck and gave his marks a lingering kiss.

Buffy waited in anticipation for his fangs to pierce her skin. Suddenly Spike pushed her down and ripped her jacket off of her. Buffy closed her eyes, letting herself be caught up in the way Spike’s lips fluttered over her skin.

“Spike” she moaned as his hands delved further into the recesses of her clothes. Buffy felt her shirt being pulled off her torso, and the zipper of her pants pulled down.

Spike’s hands continued to remove her clothing, leaving her nude, lying on the pile of clothes. Spike’s mouth left her neck and travelled down the length of her body. Working his way down, he parted her legs gently and ran his tongue along the insides of her thigh. She moaned with anticipation as he teased her. Slowly he used his tongue to explore her flush pink insides, pleasuring her to her very toes. She moaned and writhed as he brought her to climax. He kissed her navel, moving up slowly to her breasts once more, letting his tongue caress them before moving on to her collar bone, neck and ears. They kissed long and passionately before he abruptly thrust inside her causing her to gasp with pleasure. Inside her he could feel her muscles still contracting from her previous orgasm. More abruptly he flipped over so that she lay on top of him. With effort she raised and lowered herself upon him letting him slide up and down inside her, over and over. As he got closer and closer she rode him harder and harder. They rolled again, this time with her nestled beneath him. He pulled out and let his fingers glide over her hot wet pussy, back and forth. His fingers moved brining her closer and closer. Pulling his hand away he slid into her once more, this time slowly, then thrusting hard and fast into her. Reaching the brink, Spike roared and finally slid his fangs into her neck.

“Mine,” Spike said “Forever.”

“Yes..” breathed Buffy, “Please Spike, make me yours.”

“Mine, only mine”

“Yours, forever.”

Buffy screamed as she reached her own climax. Spike rolled off of her and began to retrieve his clothes. Buffy whimpered from his loss, but gathered her clothes together as well.

Fully dressed, the two lovers entered yet another moment of awkward silence. Buffy desperately wanted to know what he was thinking.

“Please say something” she whispered.

Spike stared at her incredulously. She didn’t know what he had just done. He’d claimed her. Granted he didn’t know whether claiming a human would work the same way that did with vamps. Would she be angry? Would she even feel any different? Would it make any difference to her at all?

He really didn’t know what had come over him. He hadn’t intended to actually fuck her. They needed to talk. It still hadn’t happened yet as far as he was concerned.

“We need to talk”

“I thought we had”

“I need to talk...you need to listen”

Buffy nodded, fear present in her eyes.

“It’s about him. Angelus. If it hadn’t been him, if it had been with anyone else...You are mine, mine to fight, mine to kill, mine to fuck. Always been second best when he was in the picture. For a hundred years I’ve followed Dru around like a puppy, first, waiting for crumbs of her affection, cause Daddy was always there, then when the poofter was cursed with that soddin’ soul, picking up the pieces of the mess he left behind. Never been first with anyone before. Not until you. My beautiful goldilocks who turned out to be the slayer. It hurt, when you told me. Hurt that he’d taken what I thought was mine.”

Spike turned to look at Buffy again.

“I am yours, I’ve always been yours. Not his, never his. Yours. Belonging to Spike. Property of William the Bloody. Maybe I should get a tattoo.”

Spike smiled and shook his head at the idea, remembering a previous conversation.

“I thought you had all the marks you needed.”

“Apparently not so much.”

“Where would you get this tattoo, Goldilocks?”

“Somewhere private, where only you would see it?”

“Good answer”

“Are we good?”

“Ya, pet, we’re good.”

“So why aren’t we kissing?”
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tbc...