Andrew had filmed it. She didn’t know how he got there, or why, only that he had and with his cinematographic ineptness, he’d destroyed her world before she was able to rebuild it again. Before she was to know Spike was back—but now gone again.

Her heart couldn’t take this many batterings before it broke completely. The Slayer in her had managed to hold it together with the superglue abilities of her friends and only acknowledgeable family, but it was of the bandaid variety. And she knew how easy it was to pull off one of those suckers—if they’d managed to properly stick to the skin in the first place.

The little twerp hadn’t even brought it straight to her. He’d done the grand first preview showing for Giles and Willow, all of them remaining terrifyingly quiet as they stared at the screen. Just so happened, Andrew didn’t know Buffy was in London, delivering The Immortal’s head in a glossy little black bowling bag. She thought it was all manner of cuteness and nobody at security asked to check after the initial scan showed nothing to be concerned about. Sure, it lacked all that cryogenicy ‘keep the head preserved’ stuff that would have really floated Giles’ boat, but hey, Bounty Hunter Girl here. She wasn’t into the research. Action girls did the kill, and handed over the dry-cleaning bill. It was a perfect arrangement, and if Giles had really wanted the thing cared for in a scientific manner, he should have sent Willow to play girlfriend and kill her faux lover.

Not that she’d ever let him touch her. Dancing she could handle—a little wiggle, a little grind. But anything below the belt? She so wasn’t ready to go there. Wasn’t sure if she ever could again without imagining how nobody could possibly love her like Spike.

And then stupid Andrew showed up with footage of LA that made her want to scream, but which kept her silent in the study’s doorway while she watched her heart be beheaded and fried by the breath of a dragon.

He was all wet, that startling hair plastered to his head this time with water, not gel-type substance. And something had blossomed, making her take the first quiet step into the room, bowling bag deposited silently on the table by the door as her other hand drifted to cover her wobbly lips. And then she’d seen the hordes, watched as Angel played at being a hero on the dragon’s back and Spike got a fiery beating.

When he went up like a Roman candle, she screamed, making everyone in the room jump in sudden shock and terror.

“B-Buffy? I- I thought you were in Rome,” Andrew stuttered bravely, a shaky smile on his face as he stood in front of the too large television screen.

“No,” she croaked in answer, and as she saw the dimmed light in Giles’s eyes, the too late apology at the strain he continuously put her under, she knew it was true. They’d managed to keep Spike from her again and this time she’d lost him for good.

And her heart could never be mended again.

Second

She didn’t want to hear it. Not again. Not when she’d spent years bowing down to insincere platitudes and forgiving them all one by one till they ate her very soul. This time there was nothing they could say that she could buy. They’d known. Chosen to not tell her he was back, taken her ‘happiness’ in their hands and squished it to nothing but ugly mush.

It was no secret she’d mourned. Was still mourning every time she was forced out of her bed. Just because she hadn’t had tears continually streaming down her face and had that pathetic look of grief that Willow had somehow patented, didn’t mean she didn’t hurt. That she didn’t ache. That she didn’t die inside every day that she was gone from him. Knowing he’d been brought back—that he could have assuaged that sense of failure and joined her in requited love, well, it lanced hotter than any Hellmouthy fire could have done.

She’d found her man and lost him within a day, and knowing he’d been brought back—for whatever reason, she HAD to believe the Powers had had something to do with it. If they had deemed Angel too important to lose from the world then they would be too cruel to turn their backs on Spike.

Then again, maybe it had never really been about Angel. Or Spike. What if all those times she’d been told it wasn’t really all about her, it really was? What if they’d brought Angel back as a reward to her—only he didn’t get it and ran from her instead. What if Spike came back, to give her the second chance to make him see, but he was too busy disbelieving her and refusing to let her be ‘the one’ to let her know he was back in her world?

What if the Powers truly were on her side and took pity in the constant barrage of hurt that the world and her friends piled on her head, and tried to give her unconditional love—only to be foiled every time by insecure vampires that could never trust her heartfelt devotion? Sure, she had no trouble seeing how Spike might have had difficulties believing her at that stage. She hadn’t exactly been all with the obvious when she’d spent those last nights with him. She’d taken his strength, got a little obscure with admitting that the time they were together was special to her—that it was everything to her—but then backed off and kissed Angel.

It was a mistake.

Everything she’d done had been a mistake and it was too tragic for her to bear the price now. She’d had her chances to show him she cared, to let him in a little further than she’d ever allowed him or anyone before, and she’d squandered every single one. Her friends had kicked her to the curb of her own house, had stripped her of belief and security and attempted to eradicate the one real solid support in her life—and what had she done?

Nothing.

At the crucial moment, she’d kissed Angel. And rendered it impossible for Spike to believe in her depth of love for him—even though he clung to his belief in her courage and dedication to the world.

He thought he was an after effect. The solace that came when everything else that meant something to her had been stripped away. He didn’t get that he was the ‘everything else’ and she had no solace—that there was no solace—from that.

And now he was gone—and they’d all known.

They’d kept her locked away from happiness again.

And they were her friends.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Giles and Willow stared at each other, eyes locked in mutual worry. They felt concerned, of course they did, and more than a little guilty. But as was their experience over the years, it slithered away until just self-righteous belief stood between them.

“She’ll be okay. What we did was for the best.”

Andrew stood in front of the television set, arms crossed and body partially obscuring the paused view of a screaming and burning Spike as his body disintegrated in the picture. The youngest and barely accepted Scooby member shook his longer curly locks and fidgeted. He felt insecure and unconvinced.

“She really didn’t look like happy Slayer that was going to be okay. You guys really take a lot of decisions out of her hands. It kind of reminds me of Warren—“ His eyes wandered to stare dreamily into his past, remembering a time when Warren’s schemes were the most fun of his life. Until he’d thrown his lot in to help against the First and spent real quality time with Spike.

Willow seemed a little unsure as she shook her head in denial. “I know that Buffy thought she loved him, but—“

“What?” burst passed Giles’s lips as this new piece of information floated around him. “She never said she loved him.”

“Yes she did.” The cold certainty in a remote voice shocked them out of their well-intentioned justifications and the conversation hit an abrupt end. Three sets of wary eyes lit on her hardened face, took in the packed bag at her feet and suddenly hearts started to beat erratically at what it could mean. It wouldn’t be the first time Buffy did a runner—but it was the first time she had nowhere to run to.

“I told him I loved him. In the Hellmouth. As he faced death down a barrel of sunlight—and everything collapsed around us. I told him I loved him and he didn’t believe me. Does that make you happy?” Her eyes were shiny as she stared each and every one of them down, and the flickers of hate and resentment seemed to push passed previously held barriers.

They’d never believed she could hate them before. Xander with his spite and judgemental attitudes, Willow with her kablooey magic that effected Buffy more than any other and then her subsequent ‘black’ phase where she wanted to kill her best friends and everything in the world. Giles, the father who should have known better, but ended up treating her as much of his property as her real father. None of them knew her. None of them respected her. None of them truly wanted her happy. They wanted the bot, and Buffy felt like that plastic contraption had a more real smile than she herself had ever sported around these people.

“Silly me. Of course it makes you happy. Because you kept him away from me again—and now he’s dead. Again. And I don’t see any of you being sorry or even slightly broken up about the fact that one of the world’s heroes died while saving it.”

Andrew whimpered, obviously not in full agreement as he already mourned the loss of the white knight he’d fantasised about since he’d shared the back of a bike with him.

“Well, okay,” Buffy conceded. “Maybe Andrew is sorry. But you all knew. You kept his return a secret, and what? You sent Andrew to spy on another apocalypse that spelled disaster for men I cared about and thought nothing of ever mentioning the possibility of helping them. We have slayers coming out of our asses, a monumentally powerful witch sitting behind a desk doing paperwork for the council, and you thought to do nothing to help Angel and Spike?”

She shook as she looked at the faces of the people she’d always thought would be there to encourage her; to love her. Their smarmy arrogant attitudes pissed her off for the last time.

“You make me sick. Spike at his most evil was more humane than you.”

With a dreaded purpose, Buffy seized the Immortal’s head—still firmly wedged into a bowling bag and tossed it to the watcher whose face she wasn’t keen to see again in quite awhile. Her last mission in the council’s name was complete. Services rendered, head delivered.

The Slayer picked up her bag from the floor, her hand steadying herself on the doorframe as she took one final look at the people who would never see her as a human being with feelings and a heart that bled.

If Spike was gone, then so was she.

Her feet just trod on, weary but unfeeling as her body shutdown the hurt. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to stop that would lessen the stabbing pain in her heart and head. It was nothing but instinct that drove her to the airport, that got her onto a plane and flying across the world to only the Power’s knew where. Her eyes saw very little as signposts rushed past, as roads became repetitive and boring. As the sky remained blue and cities looked comically small. It was all left to chance until something snagged her attention and she saw her feet on torn tarmac, and sensation rushed back to her person in a rush that was completely disorientating.

He’d stood right here. She could feel the left over presence of Spike as if he was standing there fighting with her right then. As if he was sticking out his lip and sneering at her to show how very much he wanted to strip her and show her the depth of his devotion. Yet he wasn’t. There was no scorch mark, no leftover ashes to show her this was the place—and that in itself seemed odd.

But she knew. As well as she knew her own name and the failure that was her lovelife. She’d lost Spike right in this spot as he succumbed to death.

She’d thought she had no tears left to cry. Thought every single last drop of water had left her in her hysterical fleeing from Giles’s house. As usual she was wrong. They surged to the back of her throat as she struggled to hold them back, dug in and forced their presence. And her cheeks were wet. Her eyes were blurred, and so she didn’t see the sweep of leather as an Angel seemingly dropped from the sky.

She choked and fell to her knees and cried for all she was worth, screaming inside at every word that attempted to fall from her lips. One left. One vampire with a soul—and finally she felt it was the wrong one. Maybe not wrong for the world, but certainly wrong for her. And yet she was dragged to her feet, and they kept to blissful silence as she was lead away, longing looks still at the spot on the pavement emphasising to her where she had finally and thoroughly lost Spike.

She spent her days and nights locked inside a hotel castle, silence imprinted on every wall, and kept in by every door. The world didn’t exist inside, and nobody ever spoke. It was what she needed to keep the pain in her heart festering.

She never acknowledged Angel. Never even really looked at him. Not as the weeks passed by and they shared space but drifted like strangers beyond each other’s grasp each day. He didn’t offer and she made no demands, yet still a black cloud rained down on their heads just for being in the same room.

She never saw him feed. And he never left the hotel. Never went to replenish whatever blood reserves he must have had, though when she took the time to notice, he looked haunted and hungry. It was almost welcome. The threat. The possibility that this could be it, because Buffy just knew Spike had to have made it to Heaven this time. Because she believed in something. Not life. Not faith. But Spike, and the Power’s capacity to make things finally right.

They had to give her back Spike. And if she could drift in a place that was warm and made her feel loved, Buffy knew it would have to be Heaven in Spike’s arms. And this time she couldn’t be finished, because there was so much she still needed with him. So much to share and qualify. So much truth to lay bare.

One morning she looked—and raged. Hate swelled out of nowhere as she waited and waited, waking every morning in a soft bed and her neck unmarred. A venture downstairs found him brooding and it was suddenly the one thing that she couldn’t take. How dare he? He had life. He had existence and he wasted it by being guilty. Who did he grieve for? She knew how much he’d hated Spike. And that hate was left in the air—unfettered and misguided. Spike wasn’t there to wield such a weapon, but she felt more than up to the challenge.

Her lips hardened as she watched his morose slump of shoulders. Resented the opportunity he had to sport a black leather jacket. Felt like pulling every one of his hairs out painfully, and breaking his perfect nose. And it was enough to crack her voice, tear away her reserve and finally call to question the stupidity of what they’d done. Not that she knew precisely what that was exactly, except for that everyone seemed to be dead.

Except Angel. Lucky lucky Angel with the undeadness and the home.

Buffy had never felt such rage. Not even the night she’d pummelled Spike half to death for trying to save her from a life in prison. Not the night she’d found Willow leading her sister into the pits of hell for a magic fix.

She was so mad she could have easily staked Angel, just for existing where Spike didn’t.

“You bastard.” And it exploded into the stale air like the bullets that had almost killed her but took from them Tara. Laced with hatred, despite the scratchy disuse of her voice as it targeted Angel and shot him to the wall.

His raised, shocked eyebrows did it. Moves she could never forget had her smashing a table for an immediate makeshift stake and she ran to take him out. To plant wood in his chest so he could look just like Spike in her life. Gone! Then maybe she could find how to embrace peace. If he wasn’t going to eat her in her sleep, she’d kill him by virtue of not knowing when to die and stay dead.

Angel hadn’t moved until the stake was almost at his chest, and then a twist and a shove sent Buffy careening into the wall behind him. It calmed the Slayer slightly, but not Buffy. Buffy needed to vent and she had a vampire at the ready. Where once Spike was her punching bag for all that was wrong in her world, now it was Angel, and he had a whole lot more flesh.

Eyes blurred with resentment and grief, Buffy felt the first punch strike home and beyond that was pure slayer instinct. She wanted him to hurt. She wanted him bleeding and bruised. She wanted him dust.

Yet when the moment came, something stronger than her kept the stake back, gave her a moment to think and helped Buffy loose her fingers from the wood and left her to cry brokenly as it cluttered uselessly to the floor.

“How could you?” was implored past bleeding lips, terror at being alone and lost making Buffy bite hard to stop herself from screaming.

“How could I what? Save the world?” Angel’s eyes were glued to her lips, the scent of blood driving him almost crazy now that his self-imposed prison of people and silence was broken. His ability for control seemed impaired with the strength of slayer blood freely shed.

Buffy snorted. Then laughed hysterically as if she’d been practising ever since Spike had abandoned her in the Hellmouth.

“Saved the world? I seriously doubt it. Especially not on your own. How could you keep him from me?”

Something dark shadowed his eyes and Buffy shrunk back, wondering if this was it and he would kill her, and before he even bothered to offer answers. Explanations.

“You kept him away from yourself,” he told her, his voice dripping with disgust. “Seeing you with the Immortal was enough to turn both of us off.”

“Oh my God. You are such an idiot. Do you KNOW how much crap I put Spike through because he didn’t have a soul?” She snorted as a small hint of uncertainty rubbed away the darkness that had been taking over Angel. It made her want to rush him and force it to come back. Bring back her death sentence so it was close by her side once again. “Why on earth do you think I would dishonour what he did for me by being with a creep like the Immortal? It was a job. I was being the slayer. Doing Giles’s bidding—because don’t I always?”

The depth of his stupidity shocked him, though it really shouldn’t have. He hadn’t been ready to have Buffy back in his life back then—had been more than ready to think she’d waste her time baking with another of his enemies. But Spike should have known better. He should have guessed how Buffy worked a lot better than him, and should have left to be with her, seeing through her capricious decision and altering it by revealing himself to her. It was Spike’s fault for…

“You have got to be kidding me. You’re going to blame Spike for this, aren’t you?” Buffy laughed at Angel’s start of surprise at having been caught in exactly that thought. “And of course you weren’t at his ear at all saying ‘let her be happy.’”

He was slightly ashamed—not enough to cripple him though.

Angel raised chocolate puppy dog eyes and implored at his future to understand what it had been like for him.

“If you couldn’t have me, then Spike certainly didn’t deserve me either. Is that the way it was?”

Damn, she was getting way too good at this guessing his motivations crap.

“He knew you! He should have guessed what you were doing.” He couldn’t help the whine that took over. He was suddenly full of whine, and no one was around except for Buffy to hear it.

Buffy just rolled her eyes and built that little wall of irritation and anger at her friends and watcher a little higher.

“Spike was insecure. He lost so many times in the name of love that when he finally was offered it, he didn’t believe it was real. God, he probably thought it was The First trying to pull him away from REALLY SAVING THE WORLD.”

“I saved the world. I totally saved the damn world. You’d be living in demon central if it wasn’t for me.” Angel was mad, and he felt slightly tipped towards irrational.

“Oh really? Then where is Wesley? And all the others? And SPIKE?” Buffy screamed, feeling the hysterical bubble surging inside to be the only way to stop her ending this conversation with the picking up of her stake.

“They helped. But it was me. I gave up the shanshue and I gave up Cordy and my son. We all have to make sacrifices, Buffy.”

He actually looked like he believed it was all him, that the others had barely been sidekicks in his grand plan to do whatever the hell he’d done.

“You arrogant selfish ass. You think you’re the only one who lost? I’ve never hated anyone more than I do right now, so if you have half a scrap of intelligence left in that pea soup brain of yours, I would seriously make with the decision to stay away from me.”

It was the crackle of magical energy in the air that stopped them this time, curbing the words that would distance themselves more from humanity. The crackle of something that heralded the arrival of the unexpected.

And it smelt indelibly of miracles.

The swirling dust of flesh and leather stirred the air, making Buffy gasp and Angel roll his eyes. It was so familiar, and despite the heat it would take off him, he felt a surge of animosity that he was being ripped away from Buffy yet again. Because this entrance? Was being witnessed by the one being in all the world who was going to fall apart at William the Bloody’s return.

Dust formed into the being that had been gone, and Buffy set her eyes on the fully reconstructed form of the true love in her heart.

Spike.

“Seriously bloody over that,” snarled an unmistakably irritated British voice.

There was a scream torn from her throat and his arms were suddenly full of seething Slayer flesh. She punched him hard on the nose and then was kissing the stuffing out of him. Fingers clawing at his tender scalp in desperate need to be reacquainted with his bleached curls.

It was what he would have loved to happen the first time he was released from eternal damnation, showing up in Angel’s office to an audience of strangers. What he would have loved the poof to witness about his time with Buffy—that the Slayer wasn’t just pandering to his need to feel important in her life. To be wanted by someone.

He tasted salt as she sobbed into his mouth, her frantic kiss almost as confusing to a returned dead undead person as the actual resurrection. At least this time he apparently wasn’t a ghost. Then she was torn from him and he was wide-eyed and confused.

Until she slapped him again and left his cheek stinging.

“You idiot. You shirty, carrot topped poophead.”

His eyes couldn’t get any wider.

“Bleeding hell, Slayer. Give a recently resurrected do-gooder a chance to acclimatise, would you?” The burgeoning smirk on his lips faltered as he took in the water shimmering against her irises, felt the clench in his gut as her bottom lip wobbled. And then she was sobbing into her hands with Angel rushing to comfort her. Spike stood rooted to the spot and watched as his worst nightmare came to life.

But she shrugged the brooding git off and sunk to her knees, her arms winding around Spike’s legs like some perverted groupie that couldn’t let her fix go. And his confusion just grew.

Slowly she climbed up his body, and despite her chin rubbing against his long neglected crotch, his pleasure came from her need to just hold him—like those nights too long ago that he could never forget a detail of. She reached standing again and her lips caressed his throat. Warm heated lips against the chill of her tears.

“I can’t stand it anymore, Spike. Every night I see you dust. Every night I lose you, and I can’t take it anymore. I’ve lost my heart.”

He held her as she shuddered her grief, and he knew. She barely believed he was back—not that the concept hadn’t thrown him for several loops as well. But seeing it the first time around hadn’t been a problem for his grandsire and hangers on. This time he had a new audience—and one completely ravaged with loss. Even Angel’s eyes were haunted and hollow while looking at him in bewildered acceptance. Even welcome.

And that’s when it hit him. His girl was broken, whether she really was his or not. And he had no clue how to put her back together again.

He’d rip the bloody Immortal’s head clean off his shoulders. How dare the git destroy Buffy like this—shred her so much that she was a cripple in his arms. His. Spike’s. Didn’t the fool know that she had too many leave her behind. He shouldn’t have listened to Angel. They should have warned her back then, done something to eradicate the lying too smooth piece of work from her life. Happy? Pah, she was only playing.

And now she was shattered.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He felt the same. All those days she’d spent craving his touch had left her reeling from the loss, but now he stood and she had her arms around him. And he felt the same.

There was nothing Buffy could do to stop the shaking once it had started. Shock had found her in a way that was new. No disappearing inside her head, no turning heel and bolting away from the greatest thing to ever happen in her life. This time, she clung to Spike, let her arms tell him the story of her pain and hope that finally he would believe and she would have the chance to show him for years to come.

His name stumbled past lips numb and eager to be against him. The syllables were n an endless litany as Buffy strived within to come back down a few clouds and ground herself in reality. He was back, and he was home. Yet her heart struggled to embrace the fact, and rebelled against the promise of having her man back.

It hurt so much. The pain, swirling around and around and making her body shudder in ever increasing violence as he attempted to hold her still. Knees buckling, Buffy grabbed hold of the coat, the duster that was all Spike and so familiar she could have traced each tear and imperfection with her eyes closed. And she did—except she was wrong. No tears remained where they should, imperfections were now perfect and it seemed only to make everything worse. Made it all less real.

So much fury and pain bubbled up inside and Buffy felt too lost to make it still, too wary to control the surge. And so hysteria erupted and she started to moan, to rock until something split down the middle and she was screaming, teeth zeroing in frantically for his throat and she sank into a bite that only partially curbed her fear.

Buffy tasted blood. Felt it flood around her teeth and pass down her throat, all without swallowing. She was impervious to noise, back to blocking out all that was going on around her. Being yanked away from the sensation of his form had her body and mind freezing in shutdown. Blood swirled down her chin and finally her eyes rolled back and she was out, Angel carefully taking his hand from the pulse point on her neck that gave them a chance to calm her. Or restrain her.

Spike was horrified as he watched Angel slowly lower Buffy’s body to the floor, his blood smeared around her lips and her hair reflecting the little bit of light that shone from the electrics in the room. The gash in his neck didn’t register as the enormity of Buffy’s pain rose and sucker-punched him in the gut. His eyes were dry as he raised them to Angel, yet the monstrous emotion pushing inside him made him desperate to escape the other souled undead so he could recover and recoup from the confusion of his return.

“What the bleeding fuck did the Immortal Wanker do to her?” His eyes were huge, unable to tear away from her tiny figure vulnerable and broken on the floor.

Angel looked like a startled deer caught in a Spike showdown and no matter how much he wanted to go along with the theory, he knew how close he was to being expired due to Slayer wood if he didn’t pave the way for understanding.

“I, er, don’t think Morty had anything to do with this.” Seeing this side of Buffy was something frightening and Angel began to wonder if she was entirely balanced. Then again, with all the loss in her life, he guessed it might be a bit much for him to judge how she reacted to a shock too many.

“What are you talking about? She was bloody fine last we saw of her. Happy. The littlest Scooby git told us. And now she’s falling apart at the seams. What the hell happened?” Spike looked torn between ripping someone’s head off and being the insecure little boy Buffy had guessed him to be not so long ago. Terrified that the girl he loved didn’t love him back, though he would defend her no matter who she was with.

Angel felt side-swiped. Seeing the true meaning of love so blatantly in his face was a reality he hadn’t been prepared for.

“We kind of read the whole Immortal situation wrong.” He looked guiltily to the dusty floor, and suddenly wondered why he laid Buffy out there when there was a perfectly good sofa available.

When he looked up, Spike was hitting him with heavy expressions of betrayal. He blanched and rubbed his neck, feeling like collapsing on the floor and letting this century be over. And before he could say another word, Spike had swept in and carried Buffy away. He watched the leather as they ascended the stairs.

He should feel better. He knew that. With Spike back, he hadn’t destroyed everyone. He wasn’t fully culpable.

Angel sank to his knees and gave in to the weakness.

Buffy woke with her face wet and securely held against the comfort of squeaky leather. Memories were a flood in her mind as she remembered back, getting pulled further into her past to a time where stress made her see her vampire in a new light. And had finally completely let him into her heart.

She couldn’t be strong about this. There was no strength left in her body to sustain more loss, and in reaction to that she refused to accept the appearance of this. This miracle. This answer to her greatest unspoken wish.

Buffy scrunched her eyes closed, feeling the whirl in her gut as the thing that held her shifted on her bed. A masculine clearing of the throat and her lips trembled. It was too close, too real and she just couldn’t take it anymore. That ounce of control she had fought for since waking snapped and Buffy found herself once again shuddering against the doom of her life, and the cruelty of this tempted bliss.

It was no secret she was awake. She couldn’t have pretended if she wanted to—not with the way her body betrayed her with every traumatic breath. Still, Buffy held on and waited, needed to keep within her arms the presence she just knew would disappear as soon as she opened her eyes. This weakness was so wrong, went so far against the grain of who she was, but Buffy recognised within a blink of a second that it wouldn’t have mattered how strong she was. This moment with the spectre of Spike would strip the confidence from anyone desperate to regain the love they’d lost.

Still, this was more real than she’d ever experienced since losing him at the Hellmouth. Maybe this was her chance to make him believe in her, to say goodbye properly so that one day she could actually find peace. Finally find rest.

“Before I died, you told me that you knew I would never love you, but that I made you feel like a man. I think you were always a man, and before you died, you made me feel like a strong and powerful woman. But you had it wrong. I would love you. I did love you, and I do love you. So much now even though I know it’s too late. I dream about you every night and wonder what I could have done, how I could have dragged you out of there to be with me. But I lost you and you died not believing that I could be telling you the truth. I know how much it hurts now, Spike. That one hundred and forty seven days you were without me? It hurts so much.”

And the floodgates slammed open with the gush of relief at finally getting it out. If he disappeared now it would be okay. She wouldn’t be bouncing around the world all ‘Happy Girl’, but she could survive. Could at least get out of this hotel and run as far from Angel as she could get.

She was used to the silence. Even though the arms still held her, still comforted her while she wept, she expected silence.

She should have expected the opposite. This was Spike after all—the one to break the boundaries of expectation and achieve the superior. Silence was like a challenge to Spike and it just had to be broken.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy. I didn’t know.”

Buffy stopped immediately she heard the voice, felt the movement beneath her as his diaphragm inflated and he released words. Real words. Words that she could hear and that soothed her.

The wondrous experience of running her fingers over the body under her face changed the view, and something she’d felt was a dream now seemed to be a scary reality. An abrupt push and Buffy hefted herself away from him, shock and hope making everything inside seize in anticipation.

And there he was. Peroxided hair a little rough with the curls that respite had released. Piercing blue eyes that had always seen too much, unless it was the thing he most needed to. The monochrome colour scheme of his chosen wardrobe and finally the soft smile on those lips she knew so intimately. The smile he’d given her that night she’d thought she was close to losing everything. How wrong she’d been—the things she’d considered the most important had suffered a massive shift since then, and with it brought the startling understanding that the one she’d valued most had perished in the final battle. Her rock had crumbled and buried itself in the rubble of the Hellmouth with the dust of those too unworthy to share his resting place.

“Spike? Are you real?”

After a short blink and a smile, there were Spike lips. ‘Mmmmm, lips of Spike’ and Buffy knew she’d finally lost her sanity or Angel had killed her and she was drifting on a slow wave to Heaven.

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” he murmured into her mouth and Buffy didn’t care. So what if no one told her. She didn’t care that she’d missed the before, as long as the now was hard and undead. She’d hear the reasons later, stew over the excuses later when her future was for once on solid ground.

Feeling his touch was all she needed for now.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

For the life of him, Spike couldn’t work out what the repulsive git Buffy had been dating could possibly have done to bring her so low. And why it would have brought her into the presence of the brooding survivor of their little homegrown backyard apocalypse.

Or why he was back.

Not that it seemed to matter, not with Buffy finally in his arms and the chance to hold her the way he’d craved for the whole of last year. Even while telling himself he didn’t love her as much as he’d always thought, he’d felt too bereft to fully believe it.

Not even he’d hurt Buffy this much. Not when he’d almost…and then run off to get himself a soul. To be the kind of man that Buffy should be around. Now she was in his arms, and she was beautiful. And he still wasn’t good enough.

He’d felt in his bones when she was awake. Her body shook against him as she struggled with emotions too big for her tiny frame. Sure, she’d gained back a few pounds the last few years had stolen from her, but she was still tiny—and unfortunately perfect for him.

He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable with the enormity of everything. He was back from the dead…again, and this time with a broken Buffy as his greeter. And she was trembling in his arms, crying as she clutched at his leather.

And then there she was, speaking his wildest dreams into his chest and making him choke on excited hope. As soon as the L word passed her lips, he felt like squeezing her hard. It was too much and yet he could hear the pain in her voice, and it was connected to him.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have believed she wouldn’t want to know he survived? How did he become so gutless? He could only put it down to being in his poofy-haired grandesire’s presence too long. That grief for missing her needlessly all the previous year knocked him sideways and he could do nothing to make it better.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy. I didn’t know.”

As much as he wanted to watch her face, see every emotion he’d missed since his first dusting, he was surprised at the abruptness she pushed away from him and fixed her eyes on his features. Wondrous jade swept over his face, lingering on his hair, his eyes and his clothes and he felt an absurd pride that she desperately wanted to see him as he was.

And then she stopped at his lips, and though words pressed into the space between them, it was all he could do to hold back the two seconds it took for her to speak. And then he was kissing her. He couldn’t have stopped himself now, not when she seemed so happy to be in his arms. Not when she succumbed so softly and he nearly cried at all the beauty beheld in that moment.

He couldn’t pull his hands away from her soft form, even though he knew this was not the way they’d parted. That the calloused rub of his palms over the flesh he was revealing was way beyond where they’d left things off. She was like a drug. Her acceptance tipped him over the edge and he was returned high on love. Buffy would always possess his heart and if she asked him to stop, he would. But so far, she hadn’t made a move to knock back his touch.

He groaned in agony when she pulled away, taking small comfort that she kept her hands on him, held onto the reality of him so tight that he was convinced he would indeed fade away if she ever let him go.

Spike blinked at the intensity of how she watched him, of how she searched deeply his eyes for the marker that would guide them through.

“Do you believe me now? Will you give me the chance to show you the truth?” A salty tear slid down her cheek. Mesmerised, Spike lifted an unsteady hand to swipe it away with his thumb, his palm cupping her face when he found once he touched he couldn’t let go.

“I want to, pet. But what about the bloody Immortal wanker? Wouldn’t he be a bit pissed off with me stealing his girl?” Spike jumped when she snorted and felt something icy cold slip through his veins when she rolled her eyes. It was so normal, so back to real everyday Buffy that he didn’t know if he’d stepped back in time or into a world where the last hour hadn’t really happened.

“You have so got to be kidding me. As if I would be with a jackass that talks about himself day and night. Only way to shut him up was to take him dancing, and even then it was a close call. Besides, don’t think he’ll be doing much complaining with his head all tucked away in Giles’s bowling bag.” Buffy threw her arms around Spike’s neck and hummed happily against his throat.

“Giles bowls?” It was all he could think of to say, and he knew it was wholly inadequate for the situation, but the concept was too shocking that Buffy hadn’t been in love with the Immortal pain in his rear. That he’d guessed wrong at her happiness and left her alone. All the better to wallow in his own inadequacies.

“If that was your way of asking if I was WITH Morty, then no, Giles doesn’t bowl.” She leaned back, taking Spike’s hand in hers and hoping this would be the last of the confusion. “I don’t know how you could believe it. I didn’t sleep with him. I pretended to date him so I could get close enough to kill him, and every second I was with him I was wishing I still had you.” Her eyes focused intently on suddenly shimmering crystal blue and she smiled a watery smile. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.” She looked strained, about to burst into more tears. “Please,” she added as an afterthought.

His answer was to slowly pull her back to his mouth. “Yes,” he whispered huskily before taking her promise and adding onto it with his own.

And in the background they heard an explosion of voices, arguing and screaming insults and explanations.

The blondes pulled reluctantly away from each other and their eyes met in surprised synchronised agreement.

“Scoobies.”

Buffy honest to God growled.

It did funny things in Spike’s belly and he buried his face in her hair to stop himself from seeking more than he was welcome to. Feeling each strand against his skin did more than he could have ever imagined, however, and Spike felt lost in the lust of her smell. Whatever else was going on, she was using the same shampoo.

A subtle move and he had slipped his focus. She was sitting up now and he found his lips brushing the outside of a breast while the noise of arguing Scoobies almost melted entirely into the background. And the reunion began singing a whole different tune. Forceful fingers threaded through his hair and Spike found himself almost breaking as he sought to press eager kisses against her top—wishing and wishing that he was the same Spike who could tear her clothes off and bury his face against her soft fragrant skin.

She was rolling against him. Her body was rubbing and relaxing, moans tumbling passed slackened lips as Buffy pressed herself closer. And then she stopped, just as his lips had begun tracing a path to flesh, and he almost cried knowing it was wrong. That he was pushing too far, too fast.

“Spike, I know why they are here.” Her voice was tired, resigned and it savaged him. He was bloody sick of how much they interfered in her life. Here was he trying to do the right thing and let her be happy, and he should have known it would be impossible with them positioned around her, pointing out every single thing that was wrong on her path to get there.

“Does it matter, pet?” He couldn’t believe he was holding his breath. The past minutes had been everything he ever wanted and he could hold onto them for however long his eternity had left if that’s what was on the cards. Still, she said she loved him, but how deep was that conviction in the face of her friend’s disapproval?

“Only in that we haven’t made love yet, and I was kinda looking forward to that part.” She looked sheepish, but with eyes so bright with hope that he almost swallowed his tongue.

He preened, rolled his shoulders into it and let his lips fall into that familiar leer as he practiced looking through her clothes. Her rosy nipples were burned into his memory—the soul having no ability to wipe that part of his devious past from his mind.

“So, we’re startin’ back as more than friends then, yeah?” He was all Big Bad, with a shade of William revealing his uncertainty.

Buffy looked confused at first, and then her lips formed a silent ‘oh.’

“Yes.” Her hand ghosted the side of his face, her expression soft and full of the love she’d never betrayed until the last. “We can never be friends. No more hate, only love till it kills us both. And none of them will ever come between us again.”

There was so much sincerity that he almost cried, but instead he consumed her lips in the kiss that held nothing back. A touch of his tongue butterfly soft against hers to show her that he loved to taste her. A light brush of his hand settling at her hip to show he loved her near him.

It was everything he’d dreamed Heaven to be once she’d described the sensations to him. Warm, finished, loved. Having her beside him, claiming to finally feel something deeply for him brought Spike all that and more, only he had consciousness to go with it, and that seemed the little added perfection that made it all complete.

But he couldn’t help that little part of his conscience that berated his trust in this.

“Are you sure, Buffy? Is this really what you want?” He expected her to pull away, to really consider what she was doing with her friends only a level below them. But the smile that curved her lips as she wound her arms around him completely disarmed his chivalrous intentions.

“After so long, I would have thought my clothes would be way over there by now.” Buffy waved carelessly over her shoulder and Spike zeroed in on parts of her that he would love to unveil again. He hadn’t seen all her flesh since before the soul, and he found that unlike when he first came back, he wasn’t so shy about what he wanted this time around.

“I’m not the same Spike I was, love.”

And he wasn’t, but he couldn’t help tease her a little. Still, it hurt him all the way deep in his pants when she pulled back and let that sexy little pout settle on her kiss-swollen lips. She wiggled back even further and he felt like crying out and clinging to her before she left him completely.

And then his eyes goggled as her top hit the carpet, a very flattering bra following the same path. And there they were, two round beautiful creamy mounds that he had so many past images to haunt him with.

She was all innocence. “Spike, my nipples are all dry.” And she looked at him with so much hopeful intensity that he was a git for even thinking no.

“Maybe I can help?” He bent his head and tucked a puckered nipple behind his tongue, letting his teeth catch and rasp over the peak as he sucked in the scent of pure arousal. God, he’d missed her so much. Missed the arch of her back as she fed his mouth with more of her flesh. Missed the security of her hands in his hair as she held him and not a stake. Missed the little gasps of desire as he suckled her beauty far inside himself. His fingers plucked the other nipple as his mouth feasted, and it was all his sensitised memory remembered, but better. Because this time, she was in his arms to share—not to experience and forget her other pain. This time it addressed a pain that he himself had caused, and Spike put even more into it because of that.

Still, his internal beast raged when she jerked backwards, eyes glazed and smoky.

“Skin. Want to feel you.” And his tee was whipped over his head to join the other discarded clothing. It was pure artistry on carpet.

“Oh Buffy.” He felt like praying as she pushed him back and lay atop him, her gorgeous breasts pressed erotically into his chest. One hand wound fingers through his roughened curls and he could feel the soft pink nails scratch lightly over his scalp as her lips found his again and sucked out his soul from his eagerly opened mouth.

Buffy lay completely over him, her body melting into his as one leg rested against his hip and the other rubbed slowly against his pained cock. He couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe the miracle that had been his return from a dusty damnation. And then her hand found the buckle of his belt and he was half stripped before he could register the sensations.

He didn’t miss the warmth of her palm curled around his aching cock, though. The slow, sexy roll of her fingers from base to tip was more than he’d experienced in so long that it wasn’t something he could ignore. It was the soft way she held him that told him for certain that this time was different. That and the tears that accompanied each little kiss she bestowed on his body from his lips, over his throat and down to his straining length.

He had always guessed that she loved sucking him. Never knew if it was something she’d tried with all her past miseries, but the way she lovingly lathed and kissed him while cupping his balls and rubbing her thumb over him was enough to make him stop caring. It was the sweetest torture to feel that wet tongue slide up his throbbing vein, her teeth nibbling gently around the bell of his head and her tongue lapping up each new little burst of fluid that seeped from inside his column.

She stopped before he blew.

He wanted to kill her. Make it hurt for teasing him so mercilessly then depriving him of feeling her throat muscles contract as she swallowed him down.

It took a moment to focus, and when he did it was to find her smiling in such a brilliant sappiness. “You know you were my first, don’t you?” His confusion made her frown, but the smile returned almost immediately as she leaned down to swipe her tongue once again over his slit. “This. There’s only ever been you. Could never do this for anyone else. No other boy is as pretty as you here.”

“Oi,” he felt necessary to object, but felt the distinct surge of pride that she liked his bits. “Truly?” He couldn’t help prodding with an excited boyish smile, just to make sure she wasn’t kidding him.

Buffy moved back again and nodded the truth at him. “I’ll never lie to you, Spike. Never.” And her jeans never looked better as they gathered at her ankles, revealing a scrap of fabric that he just knew would look better off her enticing flesh. As he opened his mouth to suggest it, it was done, and his mouth snapped shut with the obsolete idea.

She didn’t look any less stunning than she had the last time he’d seen her, so very long ago in the raw. He held out a hand and nearly choked when she took it, their grip easy but definite as they held on to each other. There was no force of pull as she held his hand all the way back to the bed. Still she held him as she crawled forward and straddled his thighs.

“This is the first time we’ve done this in mutual love. I won’t ever close my eyes, Spike. I want you to see every second of pain I felt while you were gone from me, and every second of happiness I feel to have you back.” She lifted her hips, directed his hand to the side of her face as she rubbed her wet need against the swollen head of his cock. Buffy’s other hand stroked against a nipple as she slowly sank down on him, feeling his girth stretch her to a width she had always found wonderful. Perfect.

She itched all the way down, her body expanding and her skin tingling to have him back so deep inside her again. It was so much more than she’d ever dreamed possible, and yet here he was. Buffy waited long minutes, staring deep into awed blue eyes as precious as Ceylon sapphires. He saw it, she was sure, and it was enough to make her give in to the need of her body to move. She kissed the palm she still held against her cheek, and allowed her pussy to suck him in the rest of the way.

The love that blossomed on his face was reflected on hers, each image, each word of poetry adding that flavour of belonging that Buffy had been sure was lost to her forever.

“I love you.”

She said it because she felt like it, and because the expression of awed acceptance on his face made her feel high. Finally she let go of his hand so she could better brace herself against his chest, moaning as two hands cupped her breasts and she worked her way up his length, only to slide back down with excruciating slowness. It squeezed tears from her eyes. Delirious happiness inextricably linked to the misery of loss.

“I love you,” she repeated, feeling the urgency now that he understand it; understand her and every angle she loved him from. It wasn’t new, was an emotion she should have shared long before her first botched attempt. “I need you so much. Don’t leave.” And she was crying again, her bottom lip wobbling as remembered pain ate a hole in her chest.

Being crushed against his chest was exactly what Buffy needed. The cold familiar feel of his muscles as she curled around him, still slipping him in and out of her needy lips as she struggled to resign her mind to really having him back. And having him in this new, wholly acceptable way was something she would hold onto with both hands. No way would her friends rip her away from this. No way would they deprive her of having all of Spike, all the time. She was done, and there was nothing they could do about it.

“You have me, Buffy. Whatever you need. Whatever you deserve, I’m here. I love you, kitten. I’m yours forever.”

And Buffy felt the first stitches in the repair of her heart.

Angel had a headache. One of those ones that just kept getting worse each time someone opened their mouth. The type that had him climbing the walls and ready to unleash Angelus just to get some peace and quiet.

“Were you lot always this annoying?” He winced as they all turned feral eyes upon him and he belatedly realised he’d actually said that out loud. Typical. Headache had him all pushed around and confused. Not to mention all their accusations and remedies while Spike was pounding into Buffy just above their heads. The world was just too damn cruel.

“Just tell us where Buffy is and we’ll be on our merry way,” Giles demanded as he stepped forward, eyes cold and menacing as he actually cornered Angel against the wall.

The vampire had had pretty close to all he could stand and his eyes drifted to the staircase, gasping in annoyance when he encountered green eyes suddenly more alive than he’d seen since she’d been under his roof.

“You called?” Her voice matched Giles’ in lowered temperature and Angel took an unconscious step back. He figured if she’d had a go at him then her precious friends probably hadn’t missed the firing line.

“Buffy, we’ve been worried about you,” Giles tried to placate, to soothe with his best caring watcher/father voice.

She wasn’t buying it. A lip curled in anger as Buffy finished descending the staircase, a black t-shirt clinging to her body and telling even the least observant exactly what she’d been up to. Apparently there was a level below ‘least observant’ because her friends didn’t catch on.

“You’re wearing carbon-copy Spike these days? What happened to the fashionable Slayer of the world we all know and love?” Dawn stepped forward, her nose crinkled at her sister’s wild hair and grungy look. “And what the hell are you doing taking off for a week without even calling? I could have been attacked by God knows what and you wouldn’t even care.”

Angel quite literally ducked when Buffy’s eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to the people she’d known for years, had defended and protected for years.

“I left you with Xander. What? I have to babysit you for the rest of my natural life now?”

The teen stumbled in her rant and snapped her jaw closed, for once wordless in the face of her sister’s sarcasm and obvious anger.

“Buffy, leaving all your responsibilities like that was really selfish. We might have needed you.” Willow stumbled slightly at the feral fury that Buffy flashed at her, but resolved to make her friend act reasonably. “Spike is gone, Buffy. We didn’t tell you he was back because we knew he wouldn’t be staying. Besides, what use was he to you now anyway? He would have just complicated things up, made your job harder. And you would have convinced yourself that his sacrifice earned him your love. You said enough times that you didn’t love him. We thought we were doing the right thing by not telling you.”

Buffy watched them, three of them, nodding in agreement like some special triumvirate of judges that had the right to shield her from whatever they chose.

“My mother died.”

There was a sense of stunned confusion as they looked at each other, trying to work out what it was she was trying to say. And Buffy laughed.

“She was the only one who I would have trusted to make that call. To make any kind of judgement of what was best for me. Besides the fact that she gave up doing that years ago because she accepted that I kind of grew up, and that I’m the SLAYER, she died. I didn’t give any of you the job of replacing her.”

Understanding flickered amongst them but still they didn’t shift, still stepped forward as if they could force her to do what they thought she should.

Xander stood across the foyer, watching and feeling slightly green at how they’d all taken her life over. He clashed eyes with Buffy and felt deeply his gratitude for all that Buffy had given up in the name of saving the world. They’d promised her rest on the bus, told her that she now had so many warriors on her side she didn’t need to keep sacrificing herself for the fight. In fact, none of them need put themselves in the middle ever again.

He understood that vacant depth in her eyes. That pain he’d seen crumble her every day ever since they escaped. Loss could do that, and it was only at the last—when Anya was no longer an option for his future—that he recognised the yearning for Spike that had existed in her battle weary expression for months. And then both were gone in a blaze of glory, two ex-evil demons fighting for humanity. How could he not see her pain more closely than the rest of them?

As they held each other’s gaze, he saw something that he thought would never exist again. He saw hope and then the clothing she wore clicked.

Xander Harris smiled and a tear drifted from his one good eye.

Accusations and less than friendly misguided advice fell past a trio of lips and broke Buffy’s concentration on the one friend that wasn’t pushing her. Wasn’t shoving her into a soulless life that she didn’t want. She’d made decisions upstairs, made commitments that she was never going to go back on. Spike was back and he was hers, and God, was he her only true friend? Another quick look at Xander found the brunette boy smiling happily, his quick glance at her tee and a thumbs up helped the tears to fall. No. One other stood in her corner and she never thought she could be so grateful.

“You all think you can just keep manipulating me.” It was the voice of the Slayer. Hard, brittle, determined and without a trace of the Buffy devotion to friendship that had clouded her in the too many years past. “It stops now.”

“But—” spluttered Giles, for once confident in his influence and position and just angry enough to keep his glasses entirely where they were most needed. On his face and no impediment to his vision. And then he attempted his intimidating step forward and Buffy was back in the middle of being told that she was making mistakes by caring for Spike too much.

“No buts. No maybes. Spike is what I need. He is who I love. You can’t respect that or allow it? Then I guess I don’t mean as much to all of you as you claim. I’m not the Slayer anymore.” And eyes as determined as his body language pinned Giles to the spot.

“You are so the bloody slayer. And he’s dead, as well he should be. He was nothing but a bloody nuisance from the day he stumbled upon my doorstep and we made the mistake of harbouring him. I admit he was a help, but he was a constant strain that needed all ears and eyes on him to make sure our stupid decision to let him live didn’t blow up in our faces. Get over it already and get back to where you belong. You don’t deserve to pine away over a cloud of dust.”

The room was shocked speechless and it wasn’t until a subtle throat clearing from behind the group was made that the new presence amongst them was noticed.

“See, that’s where you kind of veered from being the good watcher and got it entirely wrong. What’s up kid?” Whistler smiled and looked almost affectionately at the slayer that loved to hate him.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Giles was ignored as the little man with the much outdated hat became the centre of an amazed focus.

“Whistler?” Buffy and Angel spoke at once, though the tones were miles apart. The usually aggressive slayer looked at the messenger with dawning comprehension, gratitude and appreciation making her run and embrace the little man in one of her bone-crushing hugs. Angel’s head hit the wall behind him and he gave up finally on the whole scene. He was not the hero—left totally forgotten while Spike rested it up in a bed upstairs, thoroughly soaking up the mingled scent of himself and Buffy.

“It was you? You brought him back?” Buffy held her breath while the slightly sleazy interloper cracked another crooked grin and tipped his hat at her and looked pointedly at her new shirt.

“Champ made a wish a bit ago.”

Buffy looked at him strangely, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, he fought demons for his soul. He said he got it for me. But that’s all in the past.” Whistler was shaking his head, smiling as if he had a secret and then allowed his gaze to turn to the stairs where a peroxided vampire had managed to haul ass down to the rest of them, conspicuously sans tee, and looking very rugged in his usual tight black jeans.

“Lucky for him, it’s kind of ongoing.”

Spike’s confusion as he took that final step and crossed to Buffy was reflected in her own gaze, but for some reason it didn’t matter as she grabbed both his hands and tugged them around to clasp at her belly.

“How is that possible? Getting a soul is kind of a finite act.” Buffy suddenly looked uncertain, her eyes sweeping from Angel to Whistler and back again. “Isn’t it?”

“Oh sure…if that’s what the big lug had of actually wished for.”

Understanding shone in Spike’s eyes as they suddenly looked a step or two from completely dry.

“I wished to be made what you deserved.”

Whistler beamed. “And damn it all if the Powers didn’t think their best gal deserved you in her life permanently. You’ve got extra loud sobs, kid.”

Buffy looked lost, like she didn’t know whether to glare at the good natured ribbing or do some of that rather loud crying she knew had been a regular part of her day since Spike had first dusted.

She swallowed hard and watched the little man, her arms clinging to Spike as she turned and rubbed her cheek against his bare chest. “So, he’s mine? For like, ever?”

“Could be. I’ll let you into some little secrets later. Might just go for a bit of a wander, see first hand the mess LA is in. Place has just gone to hell last time I was here!” And then he was gone, merely leaving his shadow for all the disbelieving onlookers to gawk over.

Xander was the first to move and Buffy could feel Spike stiffen against her body. She smiled as she turned her face fully into him, knowing that Spike was in for the shock of his life.

A large calloused palm was shoved out on offer, and Spike looked at it suspiciously before looking and finding an unusual tolerance and welcome.

“Believe it or not, it’s good to have you back.” Xander squeezed the cooler hand as Spike conceded to the well-natured shake, both finding themselves drowning in a world they’d never crossed into before. It was new territory, and they both found themselves glad that enough had been swept away from their past that they could embark on it in confidence, both of them watching a happy Buffy snuggle further into the embrace of her love.

“It’s good to be back,” Spike confided quietly to the two of them and felt himself relax completely for the first time since hearing the whine of Scooby voices.


Acceptance was a shock, but with Buffy crying into his flesh, and Harris giving him a smile of welcome, Spike felt it was a place he could finally try to fit. Might be a bit of a squeeze, but now he had time.

And he had Buffy. The rest could wait.

The rest would wait.