SECTION 4 - YOU'RE THE ONE

When the cold wind blows
And the rain keeps tumbling down
And there's no one there
And the morning light shines on

You're the one to lend a hand
You're the one who understands
You're the one to comfort me
The keeper of my heart

(Clannad, Album - anam, Words and lyrics A. Brennan, Additional lyrics M. Brennan)



Chapter 4.02
Tuesday, May 14th, 2002

Spike's eyes were drawn to those of the sullen teenager in the back seat. Of course, since he was observing her in the rear view mirror, she had no way to be absolutely sure, but she played up to it anyway. She hunched up her whole body maximising her own discomfort as well as passing on her intended message.

"Okay, Bit. I'm sorry." The vampire didn't sound particularly remorseful, more a kind of low-grade pissed off and majorly tired. "The woman I loved for a hundred years is dead because I walked away and left her, and I had the unmitigated cheek to try to forget about it for a few minutes without getting your say so first. How terribly indelicate of me."

Put like that, Dawn's objections sounded rather petty, but this was a teenager. The one-time key grunted in response. "Sure. And every other time?"

"Every other time, it was because I happen to love your sister and find her damn near irresistible."

"So that's supposed to make it alright?"

"You'd rather I lied to you? You want me to start feeding you a heap of bullshit every time I open my gob, then just say so. I'm sure I can oblige.

You want me to tell you it'll never happen again, that we're going to never lay hand on each other except behind locked doors, then I can. It'll be a damn lie, but if you want the mushroom treatment, all you have to do is say so."

Buffy could see the flecks of gold that swam in his eyes like an early warning beacon, and she moved to intercede. Her hand dropped to rest on top of Spike's as he worked the gearshift, trying to radiate calm to soothe his warring emotions.

"Dawn, now is not a good time to be getting on Spike's case. If you want to discuss it, we can talk about it when you get back from school. For now, just drop the attitude and make your mind up whether you want a lift to school or not."

"I'm thinking not."

"You want to sulk like a little kid, that's fine," Buffy told her. "But don't start complaining because we don't treat you like an adult.

What time's Brandon coming over tonight?"

"I was thinking he could just bring me home after school and stick around till it was time to eat." Dawn knew better than to keep up the sulk fest when she wanted something.

"Not goin' to happen, princess, so forget it." The vampire's response brooked no argument.

"And when did you get a say in it? Buffy's the one that they made my guardian, not you."

"And at the minute that's something I'm eternally grateful for. D'you want your sister to run herself ragged tryin' to sort out some sort of fancy meal all on her own when she's been up all bloody night?"

"What's that got to do with anything? And Tara would help, anyway."

"It has everything to do with it. I can't help her out, if he's around when it's still daylight. Can I?"

"And I'm supposed to have no life because my sister's dating the undead?"

Buffy pulled a couple of notes from her purse. "Tell him we want some time to get everything ready. Go see a movie or hang out at the mall, but don't come back before eight."

"Seven," the vampire corrected. "On the front doorstep at seven, exactly."

Buffy gave the vampire a curious look. "I guess it's seven, then. Something I should know?"

"I told Clem I'd see him later, pet."

"Poker?"

"Something like that," was as much information as the vampire was prepared to disclose.

"Are you hiding something?" the slayer asked.

"Might be," he admitted, as the car pulled up into the driveway alongside the Summers house.

Buffy gave him an assessing glance, as Dawn got out slamming her door, and the vampire made preparations for the dash to the house. "I don't know what you're up to, but I guess I just have to trust you." She leant in to place a kiss as light as a breeze on his lips.

"Stay where you are. I'll open the back door. It's not so far, and it's more under cover and that way the neighbours don't start to wonder if my boyfriend's the next candidate for spontaneous, human combustion."

Spike smirked. "You get a lot of that round here, do you?"

"Not since Xander's demon guy left, but it is the Hellmouth, you know. And then who knows how many vampires have been written up like that? Having said that, our neighbours have gotten real good at ignoring just about anything, so we probably don't need to worry."

"If I still had the gem of Amara, I might be tempted to put that to the test." Spike's eyes darted briefly to the backyard lawn before travelling a leisurely path down Buffy's form and back up. By the time his gaze returned to Buffy's face, she was flushed, and her breath was slightly uneven, and the vampire's tone became even more sultry. "Of course we haven't actually checked what effects Xander's marbles might have on vampire sunburn. Maybe, we should conduct an experiment."

"Can't you even control that libido of yours for ten minutes till Dawn leaves? And I am not about to get down and dirty with you in the middle of the backyard in broad daylight." Buffy barely managed to stifle a yawn, and this seemed to galvanise Spike into action.

"Go on, pet. If you don't hurry up, sun'll be right up before we get tucked up in bed, an' right now I think you're more in need of sleep than anything else."

Buffy couldn't argue, but she still seemed reluctant to leave him even for the few minutes it would take to open the back door. "Promise you'll be here when I get back?"

"Do I look like a mirage or somethin'? You're stuck with me now, love. From now to kingdom come."

"Good." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before finally opening the car door and rushing for the front door as if she were the one who would catch fire in the first light of dawn.

Buffy ignored her sister as the teenager bitched on the phone to the new love of her life. She headed straight for the back door instead. Spike was waiting beneath the shade of the porch when she opened up, their luggage and shopping from the weekend all around his feet. With a tug on his lapels she pulled the unprotesting vamp into the shelter of the kitchen before grabbing and kicking their things until they all lay inside the house.

"Will you stop taking chances, you fool?" she asked him as she stepped into his arms, her arms wrapping around his neck.

"Probably not," Spike admitted as he scooped her up, carrying her past her outraged sister and up the stairs.

Buffy gave in. She was too tired to argue, with him or her sister. Instead she let her head drop onto his shoulder, allowing him take charge for a while. When they reached her room, the vampire laid her down on the bed, noting the blankets that still hung over the window openings. He pulled open the drawer where she kept her night things and tossed her one of the black satin pyjama tops he had given her and a pair of matching french knickers. For himself, he pulled a pair of pyjama bottoms from another drawer.

He quickly stripped off his clothes, deliberately staying on the far side of the room from Buffy until he was covered up again. More than they needed sex, they needed to sleep and to talk.

Buffy watched Spike as he undressed, his back turned toward her. She loved watching the muscles play across his back as he moved. She was so transfixed she didn't even notice the extent of the healing his body had undergone, even in a few hours. She knew he was keeping his distance and she knew why, and she smiled to herself, wondering how she could have ever not been able to see this man for what he was. She moved tired hands to strip off layers of smoke stained clothing, suddenly realising that they hadn't changed since they had been at the scene of the fire.

"We're all grubby. We should have a bath or something."

"Later, love. You need some sleep," Spike assured her.

"But the bedding-"

"Can go in the wash later. Okay?" He tilted his head forward so that he was looking at her through his lashes. "You need to just relax. Everything can wait for a few hours. Even me," he added with a smirk.

Buffy had only got as far as slipping off her coat, and Spike coaxed her out of her remaining layers of clothing, before he helped her into her night attire. When he was done he climbed into bed beside her and pulled her into his arms.

Buffy turned so that she lay with her back to him, and twined her fingers with his, where they rested against her stomach. His cheek rubbed against her hair, and she relaxed in his arms. Her body fitted so perfectly with his, that in minutes they were both fast asleep.

 

---

 

Spike walked the rain-soaked streets of New York. In his arms, Buffy smiled as he pointed out the landmarks, not those of the tourist's city, but those of someone who had spent long years there. The clubs and pubs he had frequented. Each one was accompanied by a list of bands he'd seen, anecdotes of a time before Buffy had even been born. And always, just a few yards behind them, Drusilla followed on, because they were her stories, too. Even if Spike never said her name, she was there with every 'we' that slipped from his lips. She followed the couple everywhere they went, yet the two seemed oblivious.

Their ignorance seemed to make the vampiress grow bolder, and she followed them closer and closer. In the midnight shadows of Central Park, they paused at the side of the lake to share a kiss, and the demoness seemed to finally snap. She grabbed at Spike's shoulder trying to pull him away from the slayer. In an instant Spike turned to face his attacker, a stake slipping easily from his sleeve into his hand even as he spun. Her heart was pierced before he even recognised her. Losing his grip on the stake, he tried to hold her, tried to grasp her elbows as she collapsed, but all he was left with was two handfuls of dust.

 

---

 

Buffy awoke with a start, her movements seeming to pull Spike from his sleep in the same instant. Their limbs were tangled together, and it was impossible for one to wake without the other. Buffy rolled over to watch her vampire as he came to. She eased back the covers, so she could have a better look at Spike's injuries to see if they had improved any since the previous evening. She was shocked to see that the wounds no longer looked fresh but were the bright pink of newly healed scar-tissue. They still stood out against his otherwise smooth, pale skin, but they no longer looked as if they would be painful.

Her fingers reached out to brush tentatively against them, her touch becoming firmer when Spike failed to show an adverse reaction.

"This isn't normal, is it?"

Spike looked down at where her hand rested against his chest. "Not hardly, but I think might be, for a slayer."

"Maybe." Buffy seemed uncertain. "Or maybe, it's a bit fast even for me. Let me see your back."

The vampire obligingly rolled over. This time Buffy ignored the burn scars, searching instead, for the other marks she knew should be there. The puncture wounds were visible only by their slightly shiny texture in comparison with the rest of Spike's skin. She ran her fingers over them. "What happened here?"

Spike shrugged. "Crossbows, I think. My attention was kind of focussed elsewhere at the time."

"And that was about half past ten on Saturday night, right?"

Spike rolled back over, searching her eyes. "Yeah. but I don't see how you could know that."

"That would be the bathtub incident." She looked him in the eyes. "I don't know whether it's automatic, or whether it was because I was trying to do something. You were gone. I didn't know whether there was any way to use the link to try to find you, so I was trying to use some of the meditation techniques Giles taught me, and I guess that's when it happened.

Dawn says I screamed or something, but I don't remember. All I know is by the time I came to, I was lying on the bathroom carpet, and the bath water had a load of blood in it. Dawn said she thought it was coming from me, but when she dried me off, she couldn't find any marks."

"Oh, love, I'm sorry. You weren't meant to suffer because of this." His fingers came to rest against her claim mark.

"I'm not. sorry, I mean. It kept me sane while you were missing. I got a bit of this." Her fingers brushed against his temple and his chest. "And I knew you were still around. Maybe, you were banged up or whatever, but you were still alive."

"And this." He drew her hand through his hair over the spot where the surgeons had gone in to remove the chip.

"Remember that chat we had in your bathroom on Friday. Under the circumstances, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth." She hated the thought that her ex might have bugged her room somehow, but she just couldn't take a chance. "Let's go, get washed up, and then maybe we can chat some more."

Only when the water was running full force, did she lean in to whisper in his ear. "No one knows except you, me and Angel. I haven't mentioned it to anyone, and I don't think we should. That's partly because I trust you enough that I don't think it's an issue, but part of it is because, if we're right about Riley, then once the gang know, sooner or later he and whoever he's working for will know, too. If they ever do come after Dawn, and they think you're not a threat. I guess they'll find out how wrong they are."

"You don't think it's an issue?" Spike whispered between nibbles on her earlobe.

"The way I see it, all it means is you can defend yourself. I believe in you. I think you made a choice to live this life. If you had really wanted to go back to how things were, you would have found a way. You're here now because it's what you want, and maybe without it, there'll be an added element of temptation, but I have faith in you. I have faith in us."

"You know, before I realised it was just you, I thought. I mean I tried."

Buffy placed a finger on his lips. "Are you happy?"

"I reckon I'm about as happy as I've been in the best part of century and a half."

"Then as long as we keep things that way, why would you want to go back to how things were?"

Spike looked at her with wonderment. "You really think it's that simple?"

"It's that simple if that's the way we make it," Buffy confirmed.

"And Bitlet? We don't even tell her ?"

"I don't think we can afford to. It's the old thing about if we trust Dawn, we're trusting everyone she trusts, and right now we don't know enough about the people that might fall into that category to take a chance." Buffy gave a shrug.

"So, that's it. No lectures, no warnings?"

"I think you know what I'll do if I have to. I also think you'd never make me have to do it. So what's the point?"

Spike almost couldn't believe the massive vote of confidence Buffy was giving him. If it was at all possible, he loved her more that minute than he had before, and pulling her close, he whispered in her ear, telling her exactly that.