~*~

A week had passed since the Great Vamp Rescue Operation was successful in returning Spike to the fold. He was still drifting in and out of consciousness, but was on the mend, at least according to Angel. Getting blood into the nearly exsanguinated vamp had not been the easiest task, but Buffy and Angel devoted hours to the effort.

Still Spike did not seem to realize where he was or that his ordeal was finally at an end.

Looking at Spike, Buffy was reminded of how close she had come to losing her chance to start over in this relationship that had taken so many twists and bends in the years since Spike had first careened into Sunnydale. She was growing impatient to have him back to normal so she could begin the task of fence mending. Seemed there were acres of fences she alone had personally torn and damaged.

Adding to her distress was the fragile détente that existed between herself and Giles. It seemed so odd being silent around her Watcher. Buffy was reminded of the time when Giles had determined the only safe course of action to stop a hellgod was to kill her little sister. It was unspoken, but Giles knew that her reaction to the idea of staking Spike was the same as it had been about Dawn. Anyone going after
Spike would have to go through, and then answer to, her. Tension was palpable.

There had been discussions, of course. Low voices, hot with emotion and straining with the desire to shout at times. Buffy had been adamant, however, that Spike’s recovery was not to be disturbed with talks about a staking that was not going to happen.

The Scoobies were walking on egg shells around the Slayer and her Watcher. None had dared express an opinion on the subject, even though they had all been doing some deep thinking on the idea of a chipless Spike in their midst.

Angel had taken to calling home when Buffy and Giles went at it. He had some very strong opinions, especially being a vampire, but decided to wait until Spike was at least coherent before expressing them.

Angel had started to build a real relationship with Connor. They had talked more since Angel was in Sunnydale than in all the time they were physically together. Some personal good was happening during this time at least. This last call had even ended with Connor telling him he was looking forward to Angel returning to LA soon!

Angel had to bite his tongue often when Giles insisted that Spike was a danger. Granted, Spike had been a formidable vampire in his day, a real Master of the Aurelian line. But even Angel had to admit that the Spike Buffy described had traveled far distant from that demonic path.

Angel knew that Spike had always given his all when in love. If he didlove Buffy, there was nothing Spike would not do to keep her regard.

That trait of Spike’s, his ability to love, had once driven Angelus to the depths of depravity in his rage. He had spent years trying to beat the humanity out of his demonic offspring. Even when control had been returned to Angelus, the humanity and ability to love in the younger vampire had been strong enough to appall the Judge. Dru had been as bad, but at least she had the excuse of insanity.

William/Spike was a creature of passions, the dominant one being love. Other things might have changed with Spike, but not that. Giles came from the "old school" Council training that said demons had no real emotions. There were no gray areas, merely black and white. Angel had lived long enough to see that very little in the world was that clear-cut.

"Yo, man, think I’m gonna see about another blood run for Dead Boy, Junior", said Xander. "I’m really not in the mood to listen to the never-ending rerun of ‘The Buffy and Giles Show’. I’m starting to get jealous of Spike sleeping through it."

Angel nodded in understanding. As Xander headed out of the house into the peaceful night, Angel decided it was time to finally lay the whole topic to rest. It was clear that much as it confused him, Buffy really had fallen in love with Spike. Angel felt he owed it to her to help--hell, he probably owed it to Spike as well. Spike wasn’t exactly what he had in mind for Buffy when he left her years ago, but she could do much worse, if what counted was being loved and treasured. Besides, Buffy was the Slayer and hardly "normal" herself. Maybe bonding with Spike could lengthen Buffy’s life, too. Spike was a fearless fighter and would die rather than
let someone he loved be killed.

"What’s that old saying about going where angels fear to tread?", he mumbled to himself.

"We are NOT having this discussion again, Giles. There will be no staking of Spike. I don’t care if the chip IS out, he hasn’t done anything to deserve a staking and if he ever does, I’ll be the one to do it. I sent Angel to hell when I had to and I know my duty. You don’t have to keep reminding me. I was finished with my duty and got brought back to continue it. Believe me, I know what I am chosen for. I also know it’s not as simple as ‘vampire bad, human good’", Buffy was saying.

"But, my dear girl, Spike is not like Angel. He has no soul. He is a demon with a man’s memories and intellect. He was restrained, but now he is not. You cannot allow a killer, especially one with his … skills … to be set loose on society. Buffy, you are honor bound to execute justice in matters that human methods are not prepared to. I don’t want to see you have to do this. I can see that you have come to care for Spike. I am willing to take this task away from you and not think ill of you for not doing your duty here. Now is the best, most humane time to do it. He’s not aware of anything and won’t feel a thing", Giles was saying for the millionth time.

Their voices continued to be low, but the intensity made it feel like shouts.

"Soul, schmoul, Giles! I’ve been around long enough to see that souls mean nothing! Hitler had a soul. Jeffry Dahmer had a soul. Faith has a soul. Even your buddy Ethan Rayne has a soul. Murderers and rapists are all over the place soulfully killing and raping. I may have dropped out of college, but I was awake enough in school to know that history is full of soulful murderers. Vampires aren’t the only baby killers out there and you know it. Spike can’t do anything about his past, but he’s changed. Unless he goes back to killing there is NO reason to take away his chance", Buffy said.

"Um, I haven’t said much but I think I should", interrupted Angel. "God, I hate to admit it, but Spike was always different, even before the chip. Yeah, he was a killer. I should know, since I taught him how. But there was one thing I didn’t teach him, and unfortunately he didn’t teach Angelus either, and that’s how to love.

He was always able to keep that part of his humanity alive, even when I tried to torture it out of him. If he loves someone, he does whatever they need him to do. He loves Buffy and she needs him to play for the good guys. He’ll play, I know him. He won’t do anything to lose her."

"Look, William and Angelus are as different as two creatures can be. If someone had put a chip in me when Angelus was in charge, I know what I would have done. Other vamps were chipped and didn’t change sides."

"Buffy says that the chip didn’t work on her after Will brought her back", Angel added. "If it had been Angelus, not Spike, I would have drained and turned Buffy as soon as I knew I could. Just think how powerful a team a turned slayer and a master vampire would be! Spike wouldn’t need to do the kills, Buffy could do it for the both of them. If it was just the chip, Spike should have been no different towards Buffy than he was when he showed up here years ago with Dru. The fact that he didn’t revert to the Slayer of Slayers or turn Buffy and bond her to him forever shows the changes are real. If the changes are real, there’s no reason to expect Spike to go back to killing again".

Giles sighed deeply in frustration. "It is no secret that I find Spike incredibly annoying, I won’t lie. But if there were any other option, that alone would not cause me to want him removed. This is nothing personal, Buffy. The fact remains that Spike has nothing to give him a moral guide, a conscience. Even if he was able to restrain himself, what if you two broke up? What if something happened to you? No, it is far too dangerous having a powerful vampire such as Spike walking around without a chip or a soul", Giles said. He looked sad to have to continue the discussion at all.

"Hey, guys, did I miss another round?" asked Xander. "Got some nummy O-neg for our pale patient, fresh from the Red Cross outdated pile. Anybody want the pleasure of a forced feeding cause I’m thinking I’ve done my part already. Good thing it’s daylight cause the volunteer might not have believed me when I said I needed it for a school science project. She was lookin’ a little too closely at my teeth, if you get my meaning. I think the good citizens of Sunnydale are starting to catch on", Xander joked.

"I’ll take it up, Xan, thanks. Maybe I’ll get lucky and this will finally bring Spike back to himself, and to me", Buffy said. She took the bag with the blood and went to warm it before feeding Spike.

That was another bone of contention between Buffy and Giles. Buffy and Angel had insisted on finding human blood to give to Spike while he recovered. According to Angel, the pigs’ blood Spike had relied on for the last few years wasn’t sufficient to help him heal quickly. Giles insisted putting him back on a human blood diet was the same thing as inviting him to feast on it "straight from the tap" as soon as Spike rose from his sickbed. Angel insisted Spike could be weaned back to animal blood with no problem as soon as his broken body had started to mend sufficiently.

It had taken Buffy’s vow to use her own "super Slayer blood" if Giles didn’t back down to end that particular argument.

Nobody seemed likely to budge and Xander would rather face the hellmouth opening than a permanent breach in the relationship between Buffy and Giles. Xander looked from face to face and knew the time for talk had passed. It was time someone took the bull by the horns and he was just the cowboy to do it. "Yee haw, saddle up buckaroo", he said to himself.


~~~


"Hey, look who’s awake! Breakfast in bed for the English patient", Buffy said. She put on her cheeriest face as she entered the room with the warmed blood. "Sorry, no Weetabix for you just yet. Don’t want to chance you choking on dinner. Just straight-up Bloody Mary, or whatever the donor’s name was".

Spike was still not clear on all the changes around him. If this was real, many things had changed, most of all Buffy. The last time he had seen her she was walking away from him and the angst-ridden affair they had crashed into in that abandoned house.

In that one speech she had apologized to William and rejected Spike completely, leaving both man and demon to grieve what might have been if she had only allowed it.

Spike wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. It had seemed like he had been in the underground hell of human making forever. He remembered clearly the doctors and Finn. Those memories were seeped in pain and humiliation, but clear nonetheless. He knew that he had some sort of mental lapse of a poetic nature. "Had to be that ponce William’s fault", he said to himself. Still, it seemed too much to believe that this Buffy, smiling and caring, was real. ‘Don’t think there’s enough time in eternity to bring off that much change in the bint’, he thought.

Buffy realized that Spike was still not quite with the program yet. She knew that a good part of the problem was her complete turnaround in his absence. Spike hadn’t been told yet how his disappearance had finally gotten through to her just how much she had come to rely on him, care for him. The old saying of not knowing what you have until it is gone has much truth in it, she admitted.

"How you feeling? You look better, not so much with the black and blue and unconscious look. I like", she said. "I can even see your eyes again. You looked like an alien for a while with them all swollen and tilted funny. You didn’t bleed on the sheets again either and that’s a plus", she said.

"Sorry. Don’t mean to make a mess", he replied. "Be up and out of your hair soon as I can, pet. Appreciate the vamp hospital treatment. Not your fault Soldier Boy decided to get creative on me". Spike thought that if this was real, maybe Buffy was feeling guilty because it had been her ex-boyfriend who had done the damage to him. "You don’t owe me anything, Buffy. ‘Preciate the rescue and the concern, but you don’t need to do this", he continued.

"Yes, I do, Spike. I know I don’t OWE it to you, but I do need to do this. Look, I was going to wait until you were one hundred percent, but I think I’d better just jump in while I have the nerve", Buffy said.

"When you disappeared, I thought you’d left town", Buffy began. "It felt terrible. You were the only one in my life that never left me. You promised you wouldn’t. Then I thought you had. Figured, ’good job, Buffy, drove another one away’, you know. Then when I found out you didn’t just leave, I started to really worry. I actually started to think, and didn’t even burn out my brain", she said with a shy smile.

"When someone goes missing like that you start to see things--really see things--about them and yourself", Buffy explained. "Things are different now, Spike. It took you not being here for me to finally see you. Not the Spike I kept telling myself you were, not the things in your past … you. The guy that has been here for me for years now, put up with my shit and just kept coming back for more if that’s what I thought I needed. The guy who knows me, all of me, and loves me anyway. I only hope my good luck hasn’t run out, that you still care in spite of all my baggage".

"Never stop carin’, Buffy, love you till I’m dust. You’ve had some bad times, love, I get that. Don’t hold anything against you. You still don’t owe me anythin’ because of your comin’ back all mixed up. I’m no child, Buffy. I shoulda known you weren’t in a good place for a relationship, not that we had one. My fault, pet. Sorry", Spike whispered.

"Don’t! Please, don’t be sorry. That’s what I’m trying to say, Spike. I’m not in that place now. It’s mostly because of you that I’m not. I don’t have that death wish anymore. I feel. You did that, made me come alive again. You were right about life being about really living. I finally got that. I’m in a good place now, no more Bitca Buffy. No more coward either, running from what I feel, scared to want because I might lose it all. I came close to losing it all when they took you, but I didn’t. I got you back. I got another chance and this time I’m not gonna blow it. I guess I’ve grown up, huh?"

"Buffy, you need to know something. Dr. Mengele over there did something while doing the poke and prod. That chip I kept saying I couldn’t wait to get rid of? Well, it’s gone. Only fair tellin’ ya. Figure you need to know. Doesn’t make me feel any different. Not wantin’ to chase down coeds or anythin’. Course, not really up to a run yet either. Guess you’ll be wantin’ to put me down now. Hopin’ you’ll do it right quick-like, sorta for old times’ sake.

Don’t go blamin’ yourself for that either, Buffy. You said it yourself, you’re the Slayer and I’m a vamp. ‘Tis natural, that’s all. Guess you always knew it would come to this, huh? We are what we are. Makes sense you not wantin’ to feel anything real with me. Always knowin’ you’d have to dust me’d make it hard to commit. Kinda like me getting to care about people, makes it hard to look at them as lunch". He had a rather sad smirk on his face as he said the last part.

"Irony’s a bitch. Sometimes you get what you think you want at the worst possible time."

"I know about the chip, Spike. It was in the file they kept. We took it with us when we got you out. I know all that the doctors did to you", she said. She felt the tears pool in her eyes as she thought of the coldness of the human medical staff as they took the scalpel to Spike. It wasn’t hard to say who the monster was in that scene.

She reached out to touch him then, her hand gently cupping his face. "I called you evil and disgusting but you weren’t either of those things to me. The people that did this to you, that’s evil and disgusting", she said softly.

Spike had closed his eyes at her touch. If he WERE mad, he prayed never to regain his sanity. Not long ago, he would have given all he had to have Buffy touch him with the sweet gentleness that was her hand on him now. He wished he could freeze time and live this moment forever, or that the dusting would come now before he stopped feeling her soft touch. So lost in awe at the thought of Buffy touching him this way, Spike nearly missed what she was saying.

"I don’t care, Spike. About the chip. I don’t care. I mean I wouldn’t let you go off hunting again, but I don’t think you would if I asked you not to. I believe in you. I believe you do love me and wouldn’t hurt me, just like you said. You know it would hurt me to have you killing again and me having to stake you. So, you wouldn’t do it. Just tell me I’m right, Spike. I’ve watched you change, watched you fight your nature. Tell me it doesn’t matter that they took out the little pieces of plastic and wire, that you love me enough to be the Spike I really know now", she begged him.

"Buffy, I swear I will never do anything to hurt you. The rest of humanity is safe too since you’d take it personal if I changed diets again. I’d not want to live if I saw that old hate in your eyes again. Even if you’ll never love me, at least you haven’t hated me in a while. Couldn’t stand that happenin’ again, pet. You’ve only got my word, but it’s yours, like the rest of me. Not gonna switch off from the butchers’ blend. I love you enough to give you anything you ask for, the moon even. Not sure how I’d do it, but somehow I’d find a way to become the first vamp in space to do it", he said with a smile.

"Hey, all you’re askin’ is for me to keep to a certain diet.
I can still kill things, just not human things. They’re not much of a challenge anyway. If I’d known how much fun it is takin’ on a pack of demons, I’d have given up humans a long time ago. Little enough to ask from someone who loves you as much as I love you, pet."

Buffy smiled at him, her hazel eyes wide and glistening in a way that Spike had never seen. "So, who’s this Beatrice you were expecting when I got there to rescue you?", she asked playfully.

Spike gave a short laugh and shot her a slightly embarrassed look. "Ever read Dante, love? Brilliant stuff, ‘The Divine Comedy’, a classic. ‘Twas a vision done poetically. Pissed off lots of powerful people in its time too. Dante had balls!"

"Anyway", Spike went on, "in that poem the philosopher Virgil took Dante on a little tour of hell, all of it. Lots of levels and different punishments dependin’ on what the poor bugger’d done to get sent there. Named lots of important people along the way, popes, rulers. Real creative punishments, too—not just fire and ice, some real scary shit. Named just about every kind of sinnin’ a person could do, no escape from one circle or other. Anyway, Dante was kinda taken on a tour all the way to the frozen center with Lucifer’s three mouths.

Beatrice was the poet’s perfect woman…named a daughter for her in his real life. Most say she was modeled after the woman Dante loved most in life. She winds up takin’ over as tour guide from ol’ Virgil and leads Dante out of hell and takes the poor sod through nine heavens to the real paradise with God and everythin’. It all ends up with him meetin’ up with the Virgin and getting a taste of touchin ‘the Love that moves the sun and the other stars’. Right nice endin for the poor bugger, if you ask me.

Guess I was kinda out of it for a bit, pet. Bunch of old stuff runnin’ through my head. Musta been the whole hell thing, I guess", he explained. If Spike could have blushed, he would have been scarlet.

"I’m impressed!", Buffy declared. "I’m thinkin you can’t get out of research duty anymore since it looks like you’ve been holding back on us all this time. Closet scholar, bet you know a few languages we struggle over without Giles here, too", she chided. "Glad she’s Dante’s girlfriend, cause I was all ready for a smackdown otherwise. Not gonna share my boyfriend with some ‘ho with a stuffy name."

"Boyfriend?" he whispered so softly she nearly didn’t hear him. The look of wonder on his face made Buffy smile tenderly as she hastened to reassure him. "Yeah, like I said, I had time to realize a lot of things".

"Think you better pinch me, love, cause I’m pretty sure I’m dreamin’", he said.

"I’d rather do other things to you, if you’re up to it. I promise to be careful, but you aren’t bleeding now and I think I can make you feel a lot better without doing any damage", she promised with a chuckle.

"Blood can always be replaced, Buffy, do your worst", he dared.

"How about my best? You’ve never had that before", she said with a gentle kiss.

Buffy drew away and went to the bedroom door to lock it. She had no intention of allowing any interruptions at this point. She had something to prove to the insecure vampire she loved. She had made him that way and she was determined to take away every insecurity she had given him before the day was over.

Spike watched in awe as Buffy reached up and began to unbutton her shirt. Her eyes never left his as she started to undress. She let the blouse fall to the floor as she reached for the zipper on her denim skirt.

As she continued to walk back toward the bed, Buffy inched the skirt down her hips, allowing it to pool to the floor as well. She stepped out of the dropped clothes and came to a brief stop. She bent to remove her boots, tossing them into the open closet. Then she rose, clad only in matching bits of lacy underthings that showed more than they concealed.

"Buffy, are you sure? You’re not gonna start something and then change your mind are you? ‘Cause, love, I don’t think I’ll keep sane if you do that again".

"I’m more sure than I’ve ever been of anything", Buffy replied. Her eyes had not strayed from him except when she removed the boots. She unclasped the bra and dropped it to the floor as she began to approach the bed, and Spike, again. Finally, she was there next to the bed where he lay. She wore only a scrap of purple lace and a look of love. Spike was speechless at the sight and soon all she was wearing was the look.

Suddenly all the pains and hurts faded as Buffy in all her beautiful magnificence and beauty overwhelmed Spike’s senses. The most beautiful parts of her, though, were the shining, love-filled eyes that were clearly looking at him. She had never looked at him that way before, not even in his best dreams. She was all there and all his. In her gaze he felt the movement of the sun and the other stars and knew it was real.

She lay next to him, careful not to cause any pain to mar the moment. Her hands moved softly over his body, discovering all that had been hers for so long, yet still not fully explored.

Tongue and lips followed her hands on their journey. Spike tried to respond, to give to her as she was giving to him, but she halted him. This moment was all for him. Her pleasure was to come from giving to him, as he had so often done for her.

Her kisses found their way to his willing mouth. Tender it was, yet with a fire blazing at the core. Her lips moved gently while her tongue invaded with a passion that hinted of things to come. Tongues, so long separated, danced together in pleasure.

When they had begun their painful affair so many months before, the tenderness and kisses that had started it all had burned away, leaving just the fires of sexual heat devoid of the sweetness of love. This was different, this was the touching of souls, in spite of one of them being in a soulless state of existence.

Spike moaned in pleasure as Buffy caressed his body, taking care to avoid turning the sensations to pain or discomfort.

Finally, it wasn’t "all about Buffy" and yet it was more about her than it had ever been. It was about Buffy giving herself and holding nothing back. Real grown-up, no-holds-barred lovemaking. All walls were coming down this time, not the walls of the building sheltering the lovers, but the real walls around the Slayer’s heart.

Buffy withdrew from the kiss, causing Spike to sigh with the loss of her mouth and tongue. Soon the sigh changed to one of rapture as that same mouth moved delicately and deliberately over his skin. She made a path from his jawline, down his neck to the hallows of his collarbone and onto his chest. Each kiss burned, but in the very best of ways. This was torture that Spike wanted never to end.

Her teeth latched on to his right nipple with just enough force to cause him to gasp. She suckled there until she heard his unnecessary breathing become ragged and strained. Her hands had not been idle while her mouth worked its magic. She had been running skillful fingers over his exposed skin and massaging muscles with the pads of her palms.

Her kisses were languid, as if they had all the time in the world to make love to one another; as if nothing and no one were more important than the two of them. Her mouth slid down his abdomen, just as in his dream while captive. His stomach muscles tightened in anticipation of the next location to receive her lavish attentions.

She nipped lightly at his left hip bone before moving to the right and down his inner thigh. Her nose nudged his balls, causing them to tighten. She then ran her tongue slowly up the outer side of his rigid cock.

She had done this before during their months of sex and secrets, never taking her time. It was always done as quickly as possible to move on to pleasuring Buffy. This time was different. She was spending time using her tongue and mouth to taste and explore. She discovered the veining that she had not paid attention to before and laved her tongue along the line of it. She marveled at the texture she had ignored in the past, how the velvet of his head felt oddly right on the tip of her tongue. She ran that same tongue over the top and pushed it into the opening where precum glistened. Had he always tasted this good, she wondered? She must have been out of her mind all that time before.

When she finally closed over his cock and drew it in as far as possible down her throat, Spike feared he would lose control immediately. Buffy put just the right amount of pressure to make him have to close his eyes and try to think of anything else that might stop any premature ending of this unbelievable experience. She was using her mouth and tongue at the same time to bring maximum pleasure to Spike. When Buffy started using her right hand to massage his balls, he nearly exploded. He desperately pulled out of her sweet embrace, panting out a frantic plea for her to stop for a moment.

"God, I’m not hurting you am I?" she asked with a worried look.

"Oh, sweetheart, no, just the opposite. You are driving me so close to the edge that if you don’t stop now, I won’t be good for anything for a while. God, Buffy, I want to be inside you again, want to love you proper", he said.

"You’ve always loved me proper. I just didn’t see it when I should have. Now it’s my turn to love you proper. Not just with my body, but all the way. Spike, I do. I love you. I know you and I love you. I trust you and your love enough to take a chance and pull down the walls".

Spike was glad he couldn’t come just with words or he would have right then. He was pretty sure he had just heard Buffy say that she loved him. "Buffy, love, do you realize what you just said? I don’t want to spook you or anything but I thought I heard you say….".

"You heard right", Buffy interrupted his question. She put her hands on each side of Spike’s face and looked deeply into his cerulean eyes. She wanted him to know that she was fully aware that it was him she was finally saying the words to. "I love you, Spike… William…whatever you want to call yourself…all that you are, I love you."

As if to punctuate her words, Buffy lowered herself onto his still hard cock. She took him in slowly using her inner muscles to caress each inch as more and more of him became encased in her wet heat. When he was fully sheathed, she rolled her hips gracefully, leaning back slightly in pleasure.

Between the feeling of being inside her again and seeing her moving over him, her face lit from within in a way he had never EVER thought to see, Spike was certain he had dusted and somehow found himself in heaven by mistake.


Buffy began the dance, moving up and down with a rhythm as ancient as mankind. Her hands moved to his chest, kneading him and making lazy circles around his nipples, occasionally tweaking the hard nubs her movements had generated. She began to increase the speed of her movements until Spike thought he would lose it.

She stilled her motions as the beginning wave of the orgasm hit her. She rode it out, gasping Spike’s name, her vaginal walls spasming around his cock and drawing him ever closer to his own orgasm.

Spike moved quickly to change their position, taking over control of the speed and tempo of their lovemaking. He needed to find his sweet release soon, but wanted to take Buffy there with him. He moved so that her legs were draped over his shoulders and drove deeply into her still throbbing quim.

Spike forgot all his pain as he pulled his cock almost completely out before slamming back deeper than each previous thrust, over and over again. "Oh, God, Spike, I’m coming", Buffy nearly screamed. It no longer mattered who was still in the house to hear her, so lost in their lovemaking were they. They both reached the edge of oblivion at the same time and fell over into bliss, clinging to one another in the fall, safe in each other’s arms.

Buffy laughed lightly as she disentangled her limbs from her lover. "I never knew it could be that good. God, I didn’t break you, did I?", she asked in concern.

Spike was laughing too, his heart near to bursting with unexpected joy. "No, pet, I think you may have just fixed me. Will you say it again? ‘Tis better than all the blood in the world for healin’ this vamp".

"I’ll say it as often as you want, as I want, too. I love you, Spike. No secrets, no walls, no more. I’ve already told everyone. They knew before you did. I was kinda frantic while you were missing. I told you I figured a bunch of stuff out when you were taken. I’ve never been Verbal!Buffy, but I figure you’re a good teacher and I’ll learn. You taught me how to live again, not too surprising that you’ll teach me how to love you the way you should be loved."

"No one ever has before, Buffy. Not sure I can teach you how. Mum loved me, of course, in a mum-like way. Dru was too damaged to really love, and too tied to her daddy for me to ever come first for her. Harm was … well, you know Harm. I’ve never really been loved before, can hardly believe I am now. Gonna do everything I can to make sure you never stop, either. Fella could get used to it", he said with a smile.

"Well you’d better get used to it because I’m not too good at this emotional stuff and don’t want to have to go through it with someone else! Guess you’re stuck with me", she joked.

"I think I can live with that. Um…. I think that blood you’ve been feeding me has picked a place to concentrate. You too tired for another go, love?" Spike asked. Her hand had already found its way around his shaft before he finished the question.

The Scoobies, Angel and Giles had chosen to go out for pizza around the time they heard the first moans and bumps coming from Buffy’s room. Even those in favor of the match weren’t too keen on the mental images those noises were likely to conjure. It was their good fortune the pizza parlor was across town because the noises continued for several hours longer.


A well-sated Buffy curled her body around her lover and slept more restfully then she could remember doing in years. As for that lover, well, Spike was truly on the mend in mind, spirit and body. He was safe, warm, satisfied and, most unbelievably, loved by his Slayer, his girl.

~~~


Xander was glad that they had gone out in two cars. He volunteered to take Tara and Willow home. He had given his apartment key to Giles and offered room and board to both the Watcher and Angel. The Wiccans could at least do some sort of spell to get a little sleep if they needed to use magics for a good night’s rest.

None of the men had any desire to stay under Buffy’s roof while the "welcome home" sexathon was going on. Angel might have decided his offspring was an acceptable mate for Buffy, but that didn’t mean he wanted to have a front row seat. Staying with Giles might just keep the Watcher from acting on his instinct for staking his Slayer’s lover, too.


Xander used the drive back to Buffy’s to bring up the plan he had worked out earlier in the evening. It had become obvious to him that their situation would only get worse over time.

There would be no moving of Buffy from Spike now that she had finally made up her mind to follow her heart and it wasn’t in Giles’ nature to back down from his stand either. Stalemate was not a workable solution under the circumstances.

"Willow, I’ve been thinking. Giles is upset ‘cause Bleach Boy is soul free and off the leash. The first big magic you ever did put the soul back into Angelus. What if you tweaked that spell a bit and shoved Spike’s soul back in? Giles couldn’t complain too much if Spike were all souled up. You could make it permanent, too, not like Angel and the amazing detachable soul. I mean Spike would still be majorly annoying, but not lethal to any of the human persuasion. You could cook up the spell, Tara could soul Spikey up and bada bing, bada bum, everybody’s happy", he suggested.

"Spike being all soul-having would fix the problem with Giles, but I wouldn’t want to force a soul on him. He’d have to agree to it before I’d have Tara do the spell. I think I could work the words to make it stick. Wouldn’t want a "no happy" clause because we wouldn’t be trying to punish Spike or Buffy and I’m thinkin’ that’s what it would be for both of them. Yeah, I think we could do it if he was willing", Willow replied.

"Okay, you ladies start working on that spell and getting all the stuff you need and the Xan Man will tackle the vampire persuasion part of this plan", he offered. "We just have to be faster than Giles’ staking arm."