Buffy found herself profoundly shaken by the soft certainty in Spike’s voice, even as it trembled and strained with the physical and emotional agony she had spent the evening inflicting upon him. After all that she had done to him, not only this night but many others, the idea that he could still love her so completely, still be so willing to give himself so fully to her, was utterly overwhelming.

His words echoed in her mind, reverberating with a powerful finality that struck a chord of guilt and regret deep within her.

*No matter what…I’ll always love you, Buffy…no matter what you do to me…*

“How?” she whispered, her voice hoarse with the tears that blurred her vision. “How can you still say that to me?”

Spike remained silent, his eyes closed and his head turned to the side. He swallowed reflexively, visibly struggling to rein in the emotions that were clearly visible in the moisture that flowed down his cheeks. He shook his head slightly, more an indication that he was either unwilling or unable to respond than a rejection of her or her question.

Buffy felt an irrational anger rise up within her at his stolid, unwavering determination to give her the love he had promised, regardless of whether or not she had done anything to merit such devotion. Her eyes narrowed, fresh tears flowing down her cheeks, though she made no effort to stop them or wipe them away. Her hands formed fists on either side of his head as she leaned over him, glaring down at him with anger and defiance.

“You’re so stupid,” she declared in a voice that trembled with rage. “So unbelievably stupid. Can’t you see I don’t want you? Couldn’t ever love you? And you still hold on…you still try to believe that one day…maybe…things will be different? Like one day we’re gonna have some perfect little house with a perfect little yard and a white picket fence? Do you have any idea how pathetic that is?” she snarled, bitter accusation flowing with her words. “How *sad*? Do you really think it’s ever going to change? That I’m ever gonna want you for more than just sex?”

Spike was quiet for a moment, still not looking at her, until finally he rasped out a brief, tearful response that was no less genuine and poignant for its simplicity.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Buffy’s eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed again in rage. “How can you say that?” she demanded, biting off the words in a dangerously trembling voice. “It *doesn’t matter*? Are you saying that you *know* I’ll never love you? You’ve accepted that? And it doesn’t make any difference to you?”

Spike was still and silent, visibly struggling to rein in his emotions. Finally he nodded, his answer coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Yeah. ‘S right.” He slowly turned his eyes back up to hers, tears streaming freely from them, and the anguish she saw in them hurt her own heart, made her want to turn away.

Almost defiantly, she forced herself to hold his gaze despite her own shame.

“I love you, Buffy,” Spike whispered, the whole of his aching, desperate vulnerability wide open and clearly visible in the faintly quivering lines of his face. “’S no difference whether you love me back or not. Yeah, bloody well wish you would, but…but doesn’t make any difference as to…as to whether or not I love *you*. If it did…” He turned his eyes away at last, much to her intense relief, struggling for words as he tried again, “If it did…”

“…it wouldn’t be love.”

Spike’s eyes went wide at her unexpected, whispered completion of the thought he had been trying to express. Buffy drew in a soft, sharp breath herself, stunned at the words that had issued from her own mouth, already shaking her head in denial of them.

“But…it’s not,” she stated in a low, bewildered voice that sounded more than a little lost. “It’s not love, Spike. You *can’t* love me…”

“I do…” he insisted softly, humbly.

“*No*!” Buffy snarled, slamming her fist down, hard but harmlessly into the pillow, a few inches to the right of Spike’s face. “No, you can’t! You’re an evil, soulless *thing*! You don’t know how to love…how to feel! Maybe you were human once…maybe you felt something a long time ago…but you’re not, and you don’t! Not anymore!”

Spike did not flinch from her violent actions or furious words, simply swallowed back his own tears and retorts and allowed her to go on, venting her rage and confusion on the bed around him, waiting with resignation for the blow that would inevitably strike his face with as much force as her words were inflicting upon his unbeating heart.

“You’re a filthy…disgusting…monster!” Buffy continued, slamming her fist down with each word for emphasis, though she had yet to touch him with a single blow. “And you don’t *deserve* to be loved! You weren’t supposed to be this way…weren’t supposed to turn out like this! You came back wrong, and you can *never* have that kind of love again! Do you understand me? *Never*! You don’t deserve it! You…you…you’re not worth it...not good enough…”

Her hoarse, anguished words rang with a depth of pain and self-disgust that tore at Spike’s heart, and his wrists flexed against the bonds that held them as he heard the underlying emotions beneath the surface of her verbal assault, and longed to take her in his arms, to comfort her and shield her from her own self-loathing. But…not unless she wanted him to…

“Buffy,” he whispered, straining against the bonds with a mere fraction of his full strength.

“Shut *up*!” the Slayer nearly screamed in her rage, drawing back her fist and slamming it down across his face with brutal force.

Only the soft mattress beneath him cushioned Spike from the blow that would have knocked him unconscious had the bed not absorbed a portion of its force. As it was, the blow split his lip and cracked one fine cheekbone, leaving him struggling against the blinding flashes of electric pain that shot through his face, struggling to remain conscious and aware…because Buffy was hiding, hiding behind her anger and the violence she had learned years earlier to use to hide her confusion and pain.

And whether she was ready to admit it or not…she needed him.

A tense, weighted silence fell between them, broken only by the soft, shuddering sound of the Slayer’s breath. Spike kept his head turned away, his eyes closed as he carefully rotated his jaw, trying to feel whether or not it was dislocated. It seemed to be in working order, but he did not speak, waiting in silent caution for her to speak…to react…to make the next move.

Buffy drew in a sharp, gasping breath, skittering backward across the bed, off him to kneel between his legs, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. Spike tentatively looked up at her, and was alarmed by the wide-eyed panic on her face, the way she was shaking her head in desperate denial.

“No…oh, Spike,” she whimpered. “No…”

“Buffy…”

She shifted slightly up the bed, pointedly shying away from too much contact with him as she reached with trembling hands to remove the agonizing clamps from his nipples, dropping them over the side of the bed to the floor in obvious disgust. She then unfastened his cuffs from the bedposts, before crawling to the foot of the bed to free his ankles as well. She shook her head, refusing to accept the gentle sound of his voice, the tenderness she heard there which indicated that yet again, her violent outburst would not be held against her.

“No,” she whispered her protest, moving back to kneel between his spread legs, but further away from him, a listless hand rising to her cheek to swipe at the tears that flowed freely there. “Spike…I’m so…so…”

“Buffy, love…’s all right, pet…”

“No, it’s not,” she insisted, meeting his eyes for a moment in horrified dismay. “It’s not all right.” She hesitated, before speaking words she had already spoken many times that night, only this time with a much different connotation. “You…you don’t deserve me, Spike. You don’t deserve…this…” She waved an accusing hand in the general direction of the bed, indicating the violence and degradation to which she had subjected him.

Spike watched her closely as he rose on sore, trembling arms, sitting up to face her. “Buffy…love…” He tentatively reached out his throbbing, tingling hands toward her arms, sensing that she was ready to flee at any moment, and wanting nothing more than to keep her here, with him, for just one moment longer.

She pulled weakly away from him, all her strength seemingly having vanished with her rage, her shoulders shaking with sobs as she whimpered, “Don’t. Don’t touch me. How can you…how can you *want* to touch me, after…after what I’ve done to you…? I can’t believe I…I’m such a *monster*…”

“No,” Spike objected earnestly, shaking his head as he followed her attempt to evade him, strong but gentle hands taking her arms and holding her in place. “No, you could never be…”

“But I am. I’m not…not right, Spike! Something’s…wrong with me,” the Slayer sniffled, this time making no effort to escape his tenderly restraining grip. “You were right. I c-came back…wrong…”

“I was a bloody fool to ever say it,” Spike declared, his voice trembling with self-directed anger. “You didn’t. I was just…just trying to hold onto you, I guess. To make you…make you think you should be with me. But you’re just the same as you ever were, Buffy. You’re just fine…”

“If I was just fine,” she insisted, her eyes downcast, unable to bring herself to look at him in her shame. “I wouldn’t have…I wouldn’t treat you this…this way.” She choked back a sob as she finally forced herself to meet his gaze, shaking her head in bewildered wonder. “I didn’t think it was…possible. I mean…you’re a vampire, but…but you…you love more deeply…more completely…than anyone I’ve ever known. H-how is that possible?”

Spike shifted in slightly closer to her, a soft, almost shy smile rising to his lips as he looked up at her from under lowered lashes, impossibly dark and thick.

“Let me show you.”

Buffy raised her arms slowly, tentatively, her shaking hands closing on Spike’s arms and drawing him in nearer as she nodded hurriedly, sniffling back more tears. “Please,” she whispered, her eyes closed, gasping softly as she leaned in toward Spike, her yearning a palpable feeling between them. “Please…”

Spike silenced her desperate plea with a tender, intimate kiss, his lips caressing hers gently, cautiously, as though she were some fragile thing that might fall apart if he pushed too hard, moved too quickly.

In point of fact, he realized with an awed sense of wonder and reverence…she was.

Her lips softened, her body yielded, the hard lines vanished in the face of his tentative advance. When he turned them slightly, guiding her down onto her back on the bed beneath him, he raised his eyes uncertainly to hers, a silent question in his deep, searching gaze.

Her eyes were wide, her breath quickening, as she nodded her consent, and Spike lowered his lips to her throat, caressing the sensitive skin there. Buffy felt her pulse quicken, the back of her neck tingling at the dangerous proximity of the vampire – the vampire whose chip no longer worked on her – to her vulnerable throat; but she did not withdraw, did not push him away. Rather, she arched her head backward, one hand rising to the back of his neck, pushing him gently forward, welcoming the contact.

“I love you,” he raised his lips from her throat long enough to murmur. “Believe me?”

Buffy nodded, gasping as he kissed her again, his hands sliding slowly up her sides, his thumbs gently pressing along the line beneath her breasts. “Spike,” she whispered urgently, leaning into his touch, pulling him closer to her, desperate to lose herself in the intensity of his touch.

She didn’t even notice the fresh tears that still streamed from her eyes.

Spike did.

“’S all right, love,” he whispered in her ear, one hand rising to stroke her damp, disheveled hair back from her forehead. “I know things are hard…know it’s hard to see how it’s gonna get better. But I’m here for you, pet. I’m yours. I’ll do anything you need me to do to make this better, love…anything I can do for you…I will…”

Between uttering soft, reverent promises of devotion, Spike’s lips trailed gradually down from her throat, down her shoulder to the top of her breasts, worshipping her body with his mouth as he held her close.

“Please…make me…”

“Yes, love?” he pressed her when her trembling words trailed off, looking anxiously into her eyes. “What?”

“Make me forget…”

Spike studied her expression for a long moment, worry creasing his brow, as he froze over her. Sensing his tension, Buffy opened her eyes, looking up at him with a question that slowly faded into understanding. She raised a tender hand to cup his cheek, holding his gaze with her own eyes serious and open in a way he had rarely seen them.

“Things aren’t going to be like they were,” she promised him softly. “I mean it. I…I get it now. I know I can’t just…just hide from everything. I can’t…can’t use you like that. Not anymore. I *will* deal with it…*we* will…but for now…please…just make me forget…”

Spike saw the honesty in her eyes, and an overwhelming sense of relief washed over him, an elated smile spreading across his face, lighting up his eyes with his adoration for her.

“Now, *that*,” he whispered in a low, seductive voice, trailing one hand down her side toward her hot, aching center, “I can manage…”

As Spike’s expert fingers set about a task at which he had become quite adept over the past few months, Buffy let out a soft gasp, her head falling back against the pillow as her hands clutched him closer to her. His hand swiftly had her in a frenzy of need, thrusting her hips upward urgently toward his touch, her breath coming in short, shallow pants.

“Spike,” she whispered breathlessly. “Please…please…”

He could not help but smile at her unabashed pleading, her game forgotten as she simply gave herself to him freely. “Please, what, love?” he prodded gently.

“I need you…inside me,” she gasped out. “*Now*…”

“As you wish, love,” he murmured, positioning his still-bound member over her sodden sex. “Always…whatever you need, love…whatever you want…”

As he lowered himself into her, she let out a hoarse, broken cry of shock and pleasure, desperate fingers mindlessly clutching his bare hips and drawing him nearer to her. Spike winced at the intensity of the contact on his engorged, over-sensitized erection, biting back his own cry, which would have been more of pain than anything else at the moment.

She had forced him to wait so long, at this point he was desperate, aching for release.

But Buffy and her needs were more important to him right then.

In his desperate need, he considered reaching down and unfastening the leather ring that bound him, but knew that once he did, it would only be a matter of moments before he achieved his elusive release…and Buffy needed longer than that. Despite the aching, frantic agony that pulsed through his body, he would have to endure it, have to hold out for just a few minutes longer, for her.

“Spike,” she gasped, her fingers digging greedily into his bare flesh, holding him to her as she thrust upward toward him. “Spike…gah…I’m…it’s almost…*Spike*…”

*Okay…so maybe closer than I thought…*

She let out a primal, animalistic cry of pleasure and release as she reached her completion, holding him to her as she collapsed onto the bed, gasping for breath. “Spike…God, Spike…I…I…” She opened glassy, distant eyes in a slow, lazy smile of sated pleasure, raising her hand to his face again as she whispered, “You’re so…so amazing…”

“Buffy,” he whispered. “I…I love you…”

She gazed up at him, her expression softening as she traced her thumb over his trembling lips. “I know,” she replied with an apologetic little grimace. “And…and I…I think I might…” She hesitated, looking away for a moment before meeting his gaze again. “I…I’m not ready yet,” she admitted. “But…but I know. Is that…is that enough? For now?”

Buffy’s eyes were wide and searching, open with a vulnerability Spike had not seen there in a very long time, at least not so pure and unmasked as it was now. Her tousled, damp blonde hair falling around her face, the way her lips trembled slightly as she waited for his response, only contributed to the impression of vulnerability and need.

He was intensely relieved to see it.

Spike nodded, his disappointment almost completely overcome by the promise of her honest words. “Yeah,” he replied with a nod. “It is.”

She looked down with a shy, relieved smile, running her hands over his hips again with a soft moan of satisfaction. Spike drew in a sharp breath at the continued sensations coursing through his body, wincing at the intensity of the friction as her body moved around him, still nestled inside her.

Buffy’s eyes widened with realization, and she went still all at once. “Oh,” she whispered, swallowing hard, her gaze lowered in apologetic shame.

“Buffy,” Spike began hesitantly, his voice hushed and reverent. “Love…can I…?”

Buffy looked back up at him, bewildered at the question…and then stunned as she understood. “Spike…” She shook her head slowly. “…you don’t have to ask. We’re not…the game…the game is over…”

Spike smiled shakily, giving her a grateful look as he reached down to unfasten the leather ring that bound him and cast it aside. He let out a slow, shaky breath as he settled deeper into her, his arms encircling her as his eyes met hers.

The intensity in his gaze, his words, stole her breath away as he began to move slowly within her, awakening sensations she had thought herself past for the moment.

“I was never playing.”

Buffy felt fresh tears spring to her eyes, though this time of gratitude and relief, as they moved together in a perfect rhythm, each body knowing the intricacies of the other’s needs, until they achieved a simultaneous release, locked in each other’s arms. As Spike collapsed upon her, his cool body a welcome, comfortable weight on hers, Buffy slid her arms around him, embracing him and holding him close to her.

She wasn’t ready yet to face the depth of what she felt for him – or to admit it at any rate – but she was ready to claim the gift he had offered her, that had made this Christmas special, and better than it could have been otherwise.

The gift of himself.

As the last hours of the night faded away, the Slayer held her vampire close, and the two of them drifted off together into the peaceful embrace of sleep.