Spike suddenly found that he could not bring himself to meet the questioning gaze of those gathered in the Slayer’s living room – which suddenly seemed far too small for the large group.

Ordinarily, he would have had no difficulty in presenting most of the people assembled here with the most cocky, defiant attitude he could muster. The only ones he considered to be truly friends were Clem, and Dawn. A few of the others were not outright hostile to him, but did not seem to dare to actually extend the hand of friendship, for fear of the opinions of the others -- namely Xander, who was so openly vocal about his hatred for the blonde vampire.

And Buffy – the very core of their group.

They had taken it for granted that she merely tolerated him, despised him, but pitied him too much to actually take his life. Often he had noticed that Anya, who probably understood his situation better than the rest of the group, having lost her own powers – or Tara, who clearly knew what it was like to be an outcast – had felt a certain sympathy for him, which they had been afraid to express, for fear of what the Slayer might think about it.

And all the while, she had been seeking him out, making her way into his bed on a nightly basis – while sneering and deriding him in the light of day to her friends.

She had told them the truth, apparently, at least to a point – but still it did not seem real to him; he could hardly believe it, after so long.

Perhaps Buffy had sensed that.

Now, it seemed that she was going to set the record straight for everyone regarding the past few months, and the nature of their relationship – and openly, before them all, where he could see and hear it and know that she had. It was what he had longed for, dreamed of, but never expected to actually happen, ever since that first kiss she had granted him in the wake of the musical spell that had taken over the town a few months ago.

But somehow, in the meantime, he had become used to being her “dirty little secret”, something she hid away from the people who were *really* a part of her life, for fear of what they would think of her. He had hated it; it had made him feel ashamed and foolish and terribly hurt that she could treat him like that. He had wanted nothing more than for her to be able to look at her friends and *tell* them what he was to her.

Even if what he was to her was nothing more than a bit of cold comfort – just to be *acknowledged* by her.

He had imagined how it would go, the shock on the expressions of the Whelp, Red, the others – had imagined the sense of satisfaction he would feel at having them realize that he was not so far beneath them all as they had thought – that he had been chosen, for whatever reason, by the greatest one among them. He had imagined throwing it in their faces, boldly and defiantly, telling them just what he thought of them and their self-righteous, self-important attitudes.

He had never imagined the feeling of uncertainty and – and almost *shame* -- that came over him. He began to think that once she had said what she had to say, they would look at him not with the respect that he had hoped for, but with horror, disgust, disbelief, seeming him not as the man he had aspired to be – but as less than a monster.

Unworthy.

He realized with a sort of cool, clinical understanding that it was her treatment of him over the past few months that had done that to him – that had convinced him that he was less than her, unworthy of her affections, even after all *she* had done to devastate and destroy *him*.

*That’s why you can’t do this again, mate,* he warned himself. *In time she’ll only change her mind again – and destroy you again…maybe for good next time…*

Even as the warning voice echoed in his mind, he felt a stirring of hope in his heart as Buffy opened her mouth to speak.

“Hey, guys…um…I need your attention for a minute…please…” she began, much more hesitantly than she usually spoke. “Well,” she amended with an apologetic little half-shrug, “more than a minute – actually…”

She paused, suddenly feeling very much on the spot – though admittedly she had put *herself* there – as the eyes of everyone in the room turned to her expectantly. From the looks on their faces she knew that most of them had already figured out that there was something strange going on in this house.

Sophie and Xander’s friend – what was his name again? – both looked about ready to bolt any second, standing awkwardly near the door, talking quietly, though they had stopped when she had begun to speak. Tara and Willow were standing by the kitchen door, both looking at her with serious expressions. Dawn and Clem sat on the sofa – and Buffy realized suddenly by their manner with each other that tonight was not the first time they had met.

And why didn’t that thought bother her more than it did?

Just as she began to speak, Xander had rushed back into the house, and was now standing just inside the living room, catching his breath as he listened to what she had to say.

“I think you’ve all probably guessed that there’s something kinda weird going on in here tonight,” she began with a deep breath. She met each of their eyes briefly before explaining frankly, “Someone’s put a truth spell on us. No one in this house can tell a lie until – well, until we find a way to break it.”

“Someone’s put a what on us?” Xander’s friend echoed in a shaky, incredulous voice.

Amazingly, Sophie did not seem as shocked as him – only disappointed, as she looked at the boy standing beside her – whom she had been hitting it off with remarkably well -- and then back at Buffy. “Oh,” she said in a small, slightly sad voice, “I just thought he was remarkably open and genuine. Figures.”

Tara’s eyes were focused on her estranged lover’s face in a look of wounded betrayal.

Willow’s eyes widened as she realized what the blonde witch was thinking. “No! *No*!” she insisted, shaking her head emphatically as she looked between Tara and Buffy. “No, I didn’t do this! Buffy, I didn’t!” She looked back at Tara pleadingly. “Tara – Baby – I didn’t…”

“Will, come on,” Buffy interrupted in a weary voice that betrayed her impatience with her friend’s habit. “I know this is hard for you, but if you’ve done something you need to…”

“But she hasn’t!” Tara exclaimed, a brilliant smile of overjoyed excitement on her face as she looked at the Slayer, though tears of relief glistened in her eyes.

“What?” Buffy frowned, puzzled.

“Buffy, you just said it! No one in this house can lie! If she said she didn’t do it – then – she didn’t!” Tara explained.

The tremendous sense of relief that Buffy felt at finding out that this was *not* the work of her best friend was quickly overcome by her worry.

She frowned. “Then – what…?”

Dawn opened her mouth to speak, but Buffy missed it, shaking her head emphatically as she cut herself off, “It doesn’t matter. Well, it *does* matter – but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s some things I need to say – right now, while everyone can know that they’re completely true…and once I’ve said them, *then* we can worry about fixing this…”

She paused, glancing around the room, turning slightly so that she was facing everyone at once, her hand still clasping Spike’s in hers like a lifeline. He was standing beside her, his demeanor tense and careful, his eyes strangely downcast when he realized that she was about to say what she had come here to say.

Her gaze finally came to rest on him, as she addressed the others, a softness of sorrow and affection in her eyes and her voice.

“I love Spike,” she stated simply, quietly, but with a firmness of conviction that no one in the room could miss.

When only silence met her words, she turned her eyes to take in the varying expressions of her friends and family, ranging from sheer utter horror on Xander’s face, to near elation on Dawn’s.

“I – I told you guys that we’d been – seeing each other – for a few months now. And – and that he broke it off because – because I screwed up,” she said softly with a little grimace as she blinked back tears. “I was scared, and stupid, and didn’t want to admit what I was feeling – so I went out of my way to hurt someone who loved me with everything he had…and I drove him away.”

She looked down for a moment, swallowing back the sob that rose in her throat before continuing, “I’ve been so miserable…I had heaven…and…and it was stolen from me.”

The hardness in her voice made the redhead flinch, and Tara’s hand instinctively went to her arm in a steadying, comforting gesture. She did not support Willow’s addiction – but she could not help but support *Willow*.

“Part of the reason I turned to Spike in the first place was because – he was the only one who would just *listen* to me – without wanting to try to fix it, or wanting me to just ‘feel better, Buffy! Be happy!”

The mockery in her voice was without malice, simply full of a hurt that made Tara, Willow and Xander all flinch with the realization of what they had taken from her, albeit unintentionally.

“Everyone wanted something from me – wanted me to get over it, wanted me to be happy – Spike just wanted to be my friend,” Buffy went on, a tear slipping down her cheek as she remembered the early days of their friendship – before she had thrown it away. “I needed that – needed *him* -- so much…”

“And partly it was because – I wanted *not* to think about it. I wanted him to make me feel so much that for a few minutes, I wouldn’t have to think about the heaven I’d lost, or the sister who needed me to be a mom, or the friends who wanted me to deal with all their problems, or the – the *world* that needed saving!”

Buffy’s voice had risen with emotion as she went on, and suddenly she stopped, not wanting to lose control completely. She paused for a moment, reining in her emotions before she went on.

“Once I – did what I did – once I hurt Spike so bad that he broke up with me,” she continued in an aching, trembling whisper, “I didn’t have anything to distract me from – from all the things I’d been trying so hard not to think about.”

She was silent for a long moment, until when she finally spoke, her voice echoed softly into the stillness of the room.

“A few weeks before I died – I lost my mother. I didn’t even have time to grieve before Glory had taken Dawn – and I didn’t know she was safe until I gave my own life to be sure of it. Then, just when I thought it was over – and I was happy, and at peace -- *that* was ripped away, too.”

“I didn’t feel anything but pain and grief and sorrow once I came back – not until I started opening up to Spike – not until he – he gave me his friendship – his love – without asking for anything in return. But – I wasn’t happy with giving him nothing in return,” she shook her head with a bitter smile of self-disgust.

“No – I gave him something, all right – I gave him hurt and pain and abuse – made his life a living hell – when all he was trying to do was give a little bit of heaven back to me.”

“I don’t know if he can ever forgive me for that,” she went on, her voice soft and calm, as she looked slowly around the room at them all – but not at him.

Somehow, she couldn’t.

“I don’t know if I can ever have what he once offered me again. Don’t know if there’s still even a chance. But what I *do* know is that I will *not* stand for his being treated the way all of you – all of *us* -- have treated him these past few years. Not anymore. He has *earned* so much more from us.”

Her voice was slow, clear, and unmistakably emphatic as she stated firmly, “He protected Dawn the best he could – he was nearly killed trying to protect her on Glory’s tower – must have been pretty badly hurt, falling that far -- and I ask you – when it was all over and you were all crying over my body – did even *one* of you think to make sure that he got out of the sun before morning?”

Their guilty silence was all the answer she needed.

“It can’t be that way. Not anymore. Whether or not he wants to have anything to do with *me* anymore – as far as I’m concerned he’s one of us. No more putdowns – no more threats and insults…he would as soon hurt one of us as to stake himself. He’s fought with us, helped us – and it’s time we repaid him with more than hurt and mistreatment. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

A set of tentative nods and murmured assents met her question – from all but Xander, who stood silently by the door, not answering – but not arguing, either.

Which was at least something, coming from Xander.

“And – if he *does* at some point choose to take me back,” Buffy went on, her voice softer, more uncertain now, “that’s really nobody’s business in this room but mine and his. You’re all entitled to your opinions – but I’m through making my decisions based on what you all want me to do. I’m the Slayer – the weight of the world is on *my* shoulders. That’s an awesome responsibility – and I think that the right to make my own choices should come with it.”

No one could argue that for a moment, though they knew that they all had, at some point or another, in some way.

Buffy finally raised her open, terribly vulnerable gaze to Spike’s face – stunned and awed by the tears that streaked his face, the tender gratitude and love that shone in his crystal blue eyes as he stared at her in wonder.

“And for what it’s worth,” Buffy went on in a voice barely over a whisper, her eyes focused on Spike, barely aware that the others were even still in the room, “I choose Spike.”

No one said a word – not even Xander daring to intrude on this intensely personal moment between them.

Spike was too moved for speech, as he simply met her eyes, shaking his head slowly in disbelief at the words she had spoken, his fingers gently intertwining with hers, clasping her hand tighter, all the response he could manage at the moment.

“Um…excuse me?” Xander’s friend – who had no way of understanding half of what had just been said, let alone knowing the tremendous weight of this moment for the group assembled here – tentatively spoke up. “I – I realize this is – is kind of intense, but – what was this about a – truth spell?”

The spell of a different nature was momentarily broken, and Buffy sighed, looking away from Spike as she was reminded of their current predicament, forgotten in the midst of her emotional confession.

“Yeah,” Tara frowned thoughtfully, looking from Willow to Buffy and back again as she asked slowly, “If Willow didn’t do it…then who did?”

Dawn sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “I tried to tell you earlier, but you wouldn’t listen, Buffy! There was this weird lady at school today – she said she was the guidance counselor…I told her I – I wished there’d be no more secrets between us -- *any* of us.”

She glanced apologetically at the few innocent guests. “I guess you guys just got – um – caught in the crossfire.”

“I don’t mind,” Clem shrugged. “Kind of exciting, actually,” he admitted with a self-conscious sort of laugh.

“This lady – did she have a funny looking necklace with a big stone?” Xander asked.

“Yes,” Dawn answered with a curious frown. “Why?”

“Any has one just like it. She said she had it made to remind her of the one she wore in the ‘good old days’ – when she was a vengeance demon.”

Buffy sighed wearily, dropping her head into her free hand. “Okay, so – we’re dealing with a vengeance curse. Question is – how do we break it? We have no idea where this vengeance demon is now!”

“I don’t know,” Xander admitted quietly, pausing a moment before adding, “Anya would.”

“Where is she?” Buffy looked up at her friend suddenly, frowning, as it occurred to her that the ex-vengeance demon was not among them. “Xander?”

“I – I don’t know,” he confessed, his gaze lowered guiltily. “She – she took off.”

“And you didn’t go after her?” Spike asked in a tone of mild disbelief, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

Xander made no smart remark – no incensing comments or glares. He simply shook his head in dejection.

Buffy waited a moment, simply studying her old friend’s demeanor, thinking.

“Xander,” she said finally, waiting until he looked up to meet her eyes before speaking. “Don’t you think you’d better?”

Xander stared at her for a moment blankly, his eyes traveling downward to her hand linked tightly with Spike’s – and suddenly it all became real to him.

Like it or not – Buffy was in love with Spike.

Not him.

Never him.

And – it didn’t hurt as much as he would have thought.

Was it possible that all this time, the main obstacle standing between him and Anya and happiness had been nothing more than the dream of something that never had been and never could?

*Oh, God…*Anya*…*

His eyes widened, as suddenly all the pieces came together for him – and he became aware of what he was about to lose.

He nodded slowly, earnestly, as he met Buffy’s eyes again with near panic in his own. “Buffy,” he began, shaking his head. There was so much to say – so much to make right – but no time in which to do it

Buffy understood.

“Run,” she replied firmly, with a sympathetic, affectionate half-smile.

And Xander ran, like his life, his destiny, his every future happiness depended on it – because it *did*.