Chapter One

It was a dance, just as he had said it would be, all those long years ago. It was the most joyous of dances--he always at her left hand, the two of them striking, leaping, flashing in such perfect sync that an onlooker might have thought it to be a choreographed fight from some martial arts movie rather than real life here on the Hellmouth, their voices trading jibes and jokes and laughter back and forth as they weaved and ducked and struck, vamp-dust floating everywhere.

Who would have thought that her life would ever be so perfect? Oh, the Hellmouth was still open, vamps and demons still appeared to plague them, but now with him at her side, the two of them moving in perfect harmony, it was a pure pleasure to deal with them. And then to go home after, to their house on Revello Drive, and there to move in a different though still perfect harmony all night long, to wake up with him still at her side, to go through the day talking and laughing and sharing things until it was once again time to set aside that dance to go back to this one. They were dancing all the time now, twenty-four hours a day, just moving from one set of steps to another, he as her partner always, in every way.

It chilled her sometimes to think that she might not have been in time to pull that amulet off his head after he had destroyed the Turok-Han. The blaze of sunfire that blasted through his body was bringing the caverns down. That would surely have closed the Hellmouth, but might have destroyed Sunnydale and would certainly have destroyed him. And that didn’t bear thinking about.

So the Hellmouth was still open. But that didn’t matter. She had lived with that for years and there was another in Cleveland anyway. Sunnydale was still here and back to normal, well, as normal as it could be for a town situated on top of a demon magnet. And Spike was here and alive and her lover. Life was very good.

The last vampire poofed into dust and she twirled her stake like a gunslinger in some cheesy western, then flipped it into its sheath at the small of her back just as Spike came flying through the last flakes of vamp-dust and collided full-on with her. She staggered back against the cold, stone wall of a crypt, laughing as his full weight came on her. Fighting always got both of them horny. They kissed fiercely, laughing and passionate at once, holding each other so tightly that the pressure would have broken ribs on a normal human being.

"I love you so much," she said and his eyes blazed down at her, incandescent blue flame, so completely adoring that she thought her heart would burst, it was so full. "This is perfection. I’m so happy."

***

Buffy was miserable.

She should be happy. Glory was defeated. Dawn was safe. She and Dawn had finally adjusted to the pain of losing Joyce. Hank was still often behind on support payments, but Giles had wangled a stipend out of the Watcher’s Council that was enough to feed her and Dawn, keep a roof over their heads and allow Buffy to continue to go to college. Willow and Tara were happily co-habiting a small one bedroom apartment near the college. Xander and Anya were busy planning their wedding with Anya blissfully running the Magic Box since Giles was back in England with Olivia. And Giles being in England was turning out to be not as terrible a loss as she had thought it would be, since he kept in touch by phone and email, the workings of which Olivia had finally driven into his reluctant head, and was also perfectly willing to come back at a moment’s notice if he were needed. Everything should have been perfect.

So why wasn’t it?

Because she was lonely. There. It was out in the open. Everyone else was paired up--Willow and Tara, Anya and Xander, even Giles, for heaven’s sake! Only she was left out in the cold. It was not that she needed a guy to validate her. She was the Slayer. She didn’t need anybody. But every human being needed to love and be loved. And, oh, she wanted that. She didn’t want her life to be about nothing but staking vamps and demons on the Hellmouth. God! If that was all she had to look forward to for the rest of her life, she could understand why most Slayers had an early expiration date.

Damn Angel and his curse! Chasing his redemption over in L.A. and leaving her twisting in the wind here in Sunnydale. Though, to tell the truth, she was so, so tired of the whole angsty thing and the brooding and the entire supercilious I-know-what’s-good-for-you-better-than-you-do schtick. If somehow he got rid of that curse and turned up looking to go again, she had a sneaking suspicion that she would turn him down flat. He was her first love and would always have a special place in her heart, but their time had come and gone.

And Riley? Vamp hos. So not going there again. Besides, there had always been something missing there. She had never really let him into her heart because of lingering issues with Angel, and he had always wanted her to be something other than the Slayer, had never really wanted the whole package, which was not only the human-girl Buffy, but also the way-more-powerful-than-him Slayer. Plus, the sex hadn’t been that great, with her holding back all the time the way she had, for fear she’d do him some kind of damage.

Maybe no normal boy would ever make the grade. So where did that leave her?

Nowhere. That’s where.

She was so furious she just whaled on the next vamp to show up. To her delight, he was not a fledgling and could actually give her a fight. She beat him bloody before she staked him, then dusted herself off and gave a nasty grin to the Scoobies waiting behind her with their mouths wide open in shock.

"Whoa, Buffster!" Xander gasped. "PMSing much?"

"So not in a good mood right now, Xand."

"Getting that."

Willow exchanged a glance with Tara, then put out a tentative hand somewhat in the manner of someone trying to calm a raging pit bull. "Is something wrong, Buffy?"

"My life." Something moved in the blackness of the cemetery and she turned, eager for another duel, then subsided with a grunt of displeasure as moonlight glinted off platinum hair. "And now my night is complete."

Spike stopped in a swirl of black leather. There was a bruise on his jaw and he was holding his right arm awkwardly.

"Travelin’ in a pack now, Slayer? Beasties getting so dangerous you need help?" he drawled provokingly with a mocking smirk in her direction.

Buffy flushed. It hadn’t been her idea to come out in a group; the others had insisted.

"Willy said there was a Chiriwan demon around," Willow explained. "You must know they’re awful big and deadly, Spike. We didn’t want Buffy going up against it alone."

"It’s dead. Ran into it a few minutes ago and took it out."

"What?" Buffy was furious. She had wanted a good fight and here he had cheated her out of it. "Why did you do that?"

He looked at her with that impassive face he had begun to wear around her these last few months, ever since they had defeated Glory. He had killed Doc and saved Dawn, which was a good thing. But then he had started hanging around them as if he thought they owed him something. Which they did, actually. But that knowledge made her even more angry with him. She didn’t want to feel obliged to an evil, disgusting thing like Spike.

Something moved behind his eyes. Hope? Couldn’t be. Hope of what?

"Thought it would help."

"I never need help from you, Spike!"

His gaze dropped, but not before she caught the sudden flash of pain in his eyes. But that was not possible. Vampires couldn’t feel. Physical pain, yes. But not emotional pain. There had to be a soul for emotional pain. And he had no soul.

So why did she feel guilty?

He was driving her crazy. Ever since Glory, he come and hang around, turning up outside her house, at the Magic Box, messing with the Scoobies even when they and she tried to push him away. He’d turn up on her patrols, taking out extraneous vamps or demons. Even when she wouldn’t actually see him, her Slayer sense would feel him pacing her through the graveyards, always somewhere around. Okay, he liked fights and demons were the only thing he could fight. But there was something more. She could feel it. He wanted something from her and she didn’t know what, only felt the pressure of his wanting. And it drove her insane.

So she hit out. And yelled at him. And pushed him away. But it never worked. He was always there, looking at her with that strange, wistful expression in his eyes that belied whatever snarky remarks came out of his mouth. Just like now.

"Yeah, well," he said vaguely. "Doesn’t hurt to have someone at your back, Slayer."

"She doesn’t need you for that, Deadboy," Xander snarled. "She’s got us."

"Well, Harris, I can see that Red and Glinda might be of some use, what with the witchy powers and all. But you and Demongirl are just dead weight."

"That’s enough!" Buffy snapped just as Xander made an uncontrolled movement towards Spike. "Get out of here, Spike, before I let him stake you. Stay away from us. Just stay away from us, can’t you? Why is it that you can never understand that we don’t want you around?"

He shrugged and stepped back with a mocking sweep of his hand. His gaze was down, so she couldn’t see his eyes, only the jut of his jaw and the odd twist of his mouth.

"Come on, everybody," she said. "Things are dead around here, pun intended. Let’s call it a night and get back to my place."

Spike didn’t look at them as they left. His gaze was on the sidewalk as she went past and all she could see of his eyes was a flicker of blue behind the thick, straight lashes resting on his flat cheek. He had lashes most women would kill for. And she so did not just think that.

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? Because that was why she had to keep pushing him away so brutally. Because of those lashes, and those killer cheekbones, and the beautiful mouth, and the clever sensitive hands, and the beyond-sexy body in those tight jeans and T-shirt. He was a vamp and he was evil and he didn’t have a soul. She couldn’t possibly ever allow herself to even begin to feel attracted to something like him.

It was just so unfair. Angel and Riley couldn’t wait to leave her, but even the harshest words and the most complete rejection couldn’t drive the utter wrongness that was Spike away.

***

He was tired.

It had been growing on him ever since they had defeated Glory. A bone-deep tiredness. A sadness that the booze could not cure, that was slowly building to the point where he would one day sit on top of his crypt and watch the sun rise.

Nothing he did seemed to work. Even saving Dawn hadn’t brought a word of kindness from any of the Scoobies. They had no appreciation for what he was going through, didn’t even realize the sacrifices he was making. He could kill them all a hundred times over, even with the chip. He was a Master vampire and of the Aurelian line. All he had to do was snap his fingers and he would have a hundred fledglings vying to be his minions and bring him all the fresh human blood to drink that he wanted and kill anyone he told them to kill.

The demon world understandably rejected him now that he was killing his own kind, and the human world, in the shape of the Scoobies, refused to accept him. He stood outside both, trying desperately to do the right thing with no support at all. All for the love of one girl. Who despised him.

It was possible to return to the demon world. All he had to do was snap his fingers, call those minions, kill once again. But he couldn’t go back. Even if the chip were out of his head, he couldn’t go back.

Because of her.

He felt abandoned. Desperately lonely. He was the ultimate outsider. Even Angel, that great poof there in L.A., had friends around him. For him, there was no way out of the cold, no way into either world. There was no hope. And without hope, the thought of watching the sun rise was becoming more and more attractive.

He leaned back against the wall of a crypt and sighed. His arm was broken from where the Chiriwan demon had struck him and it hurt damnably, would hurt for the week before his vamp healing finally mended it.

Something touched him and he jumped.

"Glinda!" He hadn’t even noticed her presence and that troubled him, because it showed how uncaring of his own safety he was becoming. Not a good sign. "I thought you had gone with the others."

Tara shook her head and smiled at him shyly. "You’re hurt. I-I wanted to see if there was anything I could do."

He shook his head. "Broken arm. It’ll mend. Soddin’ hurts, but it’ll be all right in a week."

Tara hesitated for a moment, then said in a rush, "You did it for her, didn’t you?"

He opened his mouth to deny that vehemently, then was silenced by the understanding in her clear, sweet eyes.

"Buffy thinks she can take on anything," he muttered uncomfortably. "But Chiriwans are dangerous to humans, even to Slayers. They have a poison in their talons that can kill with the slightest scratch."

"I see."

She touched his arm very gently and said one word under her breath. A flush of heat surged up his arm. He caught his breath involuntarily in surprise at the sudden pain, then it was gone. She brushed her fingers across the bruise on his jaw and the same thing happened in a smaller scale.

"What..?" He moved his arm gingerly and realized it was no longer broken.

"Healing spell," Tara said. "I had it ready in case Buffy got hurt. Only needed one word to complete it."

"Shouldn’t have wasted it on me."

She shook her head at him in exasperation. "Yes, I should. That poison. Does it affect vampires?"

"No. We’re immune."

"But not immune to a broken arm. Or back. Or neck." She looked at him gravely. "You could have been killed."

"Ah, well. Takes a lot to kill me." He looked down at her and saw the caring in her quiet eyes and suddenly felt a lot better. "Thank you." For more than just the mending of his arm, he meant, and she smiled at him.

"You were owed that." She looked down and sighed. "You’re owed a lot more."

"No."

"Spike..." She broke off and turned her head at the sound of Willow calling her name.

"You’d better go."

"Yes. Spike?"

"Hmm?"

"Hold on. Things can get better."

There was a small silence. Then he looked away from her steady gaze.

"How did...?"

"Your aura. I can see it, you know. It used to be very beautiful, full of brilliant colors, reds, vivid blues. Very passionate. Full of vitality. But ever since last year, it’s been getting steadily darker, the colors fading, a lot of browns and blacks creeping in. Now it’s getting to the critical level." She bit her lip. "Just...hang on, okay? Just hang on."

He let his breath out in a gusty sigh. "Yeh. Trouble with me is I want too much."

She gave him a worried look.

"‘S okay. I don’t expect anything."

She touched his shoulder very gently, then walked away to where Willow was running back, frowning at Spike.

"Not even a crumb," he said under his breath and leaned his head back against the crypt, squeezed his eyes closed. "I just wish...I just wish she could see how good we would be together. I just...Oh, what’s the use, you wanker?" he growled and flung away towards Restfield Cemetery and his own home.

"Done," said a dark figure among the tombstones. "And I owed you that one, William, for my part in your unintended death."



TBC

Chapter Two

"So, the Bronze in half an hour?" Buffy said into the phone. "We can have a couple of hours of fun before I go patrol."

"Yeah, we can use the break," Willow’s voice came back. "Oh! What about Dawn?"

"She’s over at Janice’s. ‘Studying.’ And if you believe that, I have a bridge I wanna sell you."

They both laughed.

"Eightish then," said Willow. "Wear something sexy and slutty. You might pick up someone interesting."

Buffy grinned. "Sexy, yes. Slutty, no. I’m not that desperate."

‘Yet,’ she sighed, pulling on a black wrap-around skirt and a cream top that was like a bib, with no back and only spaghetti ties holding it on. ‘There y’go, Willow. An outfit that shows a lot of skin and comes off easy. Only, there’s not going to be anyone to take it off me but me. And, yeah, maybe I am getting that desperate.’

She was almost at the Bronze when her Slayer sense gave her that tingle that told her there was a vamp in the vicinity. She reached automatically for the stake in her purse, then stopped as a white-gold head came around the corner.

"Oh, it’s you, Spike." She gave him a suspicious look. "What are you up to?"

"Well, I was heading for the Bronze, but seeing that’s where you’re going, I won’t now," he retorted. He looked her up and down, brows rising. "Nice outfit. Hot date?"

"None of your business."

"Just trawling then." He leered at her suggestively. "I could be a hot date for you."

"As if," she snapped. Trouble was, he was hot, even if she tried to deny it to herself.

"Don’t know what you’re missing, Slayer."

"Ego much?" She yanked the stake out of her purse and poised it. "Just get out of my sight, Spike."

Oddly enough, he didn’t say another word, just shrugged and spun away.

She took another step and something hit her.

The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor of her livingroom at Revello Drive.

"Whaa...?"

She pushed herself up onto her knees and stared around her. It was her livingroom and it was not her livingroom. The couch was different and so were the curtains and the coffee table. The African artwork Joyce had put there had not changed, but a big screen TV and a truly impressive sound system had been added. ‘Am I in somebody else’s house?’ she thought wildly, staggering to her feet. But a picture on an end table showed Joyce and Dawn and herself, and there was another one beside it of all the Scoobies including Giles that had been taken a couple of months back, just after they had beaten Glory. The odd thing was that both pictures looked slightly faded.

Her glance fell on the newspaper lying on the coffee table and she almost fell over in shock. The date on it was June 11, 2010.

"No way," she mumbled and stumbled into the kitchen. The calendar on the wall was set to the month of June and the year on it was 2010. "A spell. It has to be a spell. I..."

She broke off at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

"Buffy, is that Xander?" Dawn’s voice called from upstairs. "It better be, otherwise I’m going to be late getting back to the dorm."

"Dawn. At least Dawn’s here." Then it hit her. "Dorm?"

The front door opened and closed, then Xander came into the kitchen. Except it was a slightly older Xander and he was wearing an eyepatch.

"Hey, Buffster," he said. "Dawn ready?"

"Uh..."

There was a flurry of footsteps on the stairs and Dawn flew into the room. A Dawn who was four inches taller than her, had her hair cut short to her shoulders and was like college age. Which made sense of the ‘dorm’ business.

Buffy leaned against the island in the kitchen because her legs were threatening to fold under her.

"Xander, you are so late!" Dawn exclaimed. "I’ve got to be back at the dorm in like five minutes!"

"What, do they have a curfew or something?"

"No, but I’m meeting someone." Dawn gave Buffy a significant look that meant nothing to her, but seemed to mean a lot to Dawn. Buffy smiled weakly and said nothing. Neither Dawn nor Xander seemed to see anything different about her, so she must look more or less the same.

The back door slammed open and Spike stamped in. He was carrying an axe stained with some pinkish fluid. The same fluid was splashed across his clothes, his duster covered with it and the front of his black T-shirt and jeans was darkened where it had gotten past the duster.

"I hate J’Havren demons," he growled and flung the axe back out through the door where it fell with a thud onto the back porch

"Also called a Pepto-Bismol demon?" grinned Dawn and he gave her a sour look as he ripped his duster off.

"I wish." He tossed the duster on the floor, ripped off his boots and left them by the duster, then went over to the sink and began washing his face and hands, scrubbing hard.

"That’s supposed to be blood, huh?" Xander said. "And from the amount of it, I’m supposing you killed the thing."

"Oh, yeah, mate, it’s gone," Spike said with satisfaction, then whipped around as Dawn bent to retrieve his duster. "Whoa, Niblet! Don’t touch!"

"But..."

"Don’t get that stuff on you. ‘S like super itching powder. Think poison ivy’s bad? That stuff’s a hundred times worse."

"Good thing it wasn’t you who ran up against it, Buff," said Xander. He grinned at Spike. "You just keep trying to prove that you rate that Champion label, don’t you?"

"Sod off," said Spike, but he was smiling.

That interchange was puzzling, but Buffy was more in shock over how friendly the two of them seemed to be.

"Gotta go!" exclaimed Dawn. "I am so late! Is that stuff washed off your face, Spike?"

"Yeah, but I’m covered with it everywhere else."

"Right."

She caught his face in her hands and kissed him on the corner of his mouth, being careful to curve her body so that she didn’t touch him anywhere else where the blood might have landed. Buffy nearly fell over in disbelief, not only because Dawn was kissing Spike, even if it was just on the cheek, but because Xander wasn’t having a cow about it, just grinning benevolently as he watched.

Dawn descended on her for a hug, then danced back, caught Xander by the hand and dragged him towards the front door. "Bye, Buffy. See you in a week."

Buffy watched them go, her mouth open in shock, leaning against the kitchen island for support.

"What’s the matter, luv? Demons don’t usually faze you."

She looked around to see Spike leaning on the other side of the island, directly opposite her.

"I...uh..."

He leaned over the island, took her face in his hands and drew her gently forward.

"Sp..."

And then his mouth was on hers and her whole body seized up. His lips moved sweetly on hers, sucking at her lower lip, and his tongue moved so smoothly along the line of her lips that he was inside her mouth before she knew it. She would have expected a kiss from Spike to be harsh and demanding. Instead it was soft and sweet and leisurely and oh so thorough. His mouth tasted not unpleasantly of cigarettes and whisky. It took possession of hers, tenderly, unhurriedly, his tongue exploring every corner of her mouth, slipping along and around and under hers, sliding across the roof of her mouth, teasing her.

"Mmm," he purred, a vibration against her lips, into her mouth. "Been too long. A whole three hours."

He kissed her again, softly, lingeringly; and her brain had stopped working, her whole body had gone liquid, her bones had gone to water, and if it hadn’t been for the island holding her up, she would have gone straight down to the ground. ‘God,’ she thought blankly, ‘I could come just from his kissing me.’

She realized that he had let her go and had stepped backwards to where his duster lay on the floor. She leaned heavily on the island and stared at him dazedly.

"Gotta get out of these things," he muttered. "That blood’s driving me crazy. Gotta wash it off."

He was pulling his T-shirt off, dropping it on top of his duster. Her lips parted stickily, but she had no voice. ‘Oh my God, look at those abs!’ She had never realized quite how ripped he was. Grecian statue time. Skin pale as marble, copper tinged nipples, an utterly lickable sixpack...

"Whuh..."

He had stripped out of his jeans and tossed them on top of his T-shirt and duster. Naked! He was naked! She had totally lost her breath, thought she might pass out from pure lack of oxygen. Commando. And why hadn’t she expected that of him? Hung like a Percheron. ‘All that suggestive innuendo and he really had something to back it up with!’ Put Angel and Riley to shame, for all that they were taller and beefier than he was. And pretty. Lord, he had a pretty cock, all rose and ivory...

The totality of him was beautiful, no bulk, just perfect definition; and he moved all easy and lithe, completely unselfconscious, as if...as if he had been naked in front of her a thousand times.

"Don’t touch those, kitten," he was saying. "I’ll run them through the wash after." He grinned wickedly at her. "Wanna come up and scrub my back?"

"Uh..."

He was heading for the stairs. She drifted after him, as if hypnotized. Watched that really beautiful back and flat ass as he took the stairs two at a time.

He was turning on the shower when she got up to the bedroom. Shower stall, a new addition, that, from her day. It was the main bedroom, the one that had belonged to her mother. New king-sized bed, new bedding. She opened a closet warily. Her clothes, but beside them, his. All cozily together, cheek by jowl. Drawers, the same. It really began to dawn on her that they were living together, that they were lov...that they had a...relationship.

"Come and scrub my back," he coaxed from the shower. The bathroom door was open and she could see him clearly through the transparent shower door, turning and twisting under the stream of water. "I’ll make it worth your while." His voice had dropped into a low, deep, sexy purr that went straight to her core.

God, she was wet between her legs. She could feel herself all buttery and throbbing.

"I’ll, uh...I’ll wait for you downstairs."

She had to process. It had begun to sink in that this really was the future, or some alternate dimension. It was definitely some kind of spell. So she had to be careful what she learned, because when she got back, she might mess up her timeline. Things that Giles had talked about, but to which she hadn’t really paid attention, were starting to come back. Mustn’t look at the TV or the newspaper. Should she tell people what had happened? She’d gone forward, not back, so nothing she could say would mess up their timeline. Besides, she needed help getting back. She was the Slayer. She slayed things; she didn’t fool around with magic, didn’t have a clue about that. Were Giles and the Magic Box still here? What about Willow and Tara? They were the ones she needed.

She called the number that she remembered, but it was disconnected. That meant that they had moved. She would have to ask this Spike for their number. Which meant that she would have to tell him. Right. Let’s start with that. Okay, find a way to explain that wouldn’t make her seem totally out of her mind.

Her train of thought derailed itself as Spike came into the livingroom. He was wearing a fresh pair of black jeans and a black silk shirt open and unbuttoned, flying behind him as he moved forward at his usual fast pace, even more silent than usual because he was still barefoot. Her brain hung itself up on the flexing of his stomach muscles as he moved. She wanted to put her hands on them, wanted to run her mouth all over his body. And she could. The Buffy of this world did. It wasn’t a forbidden thing, the way it was in her world. She could...

Oh, God, she was insane. She shouldn’t be thinking these things, wanting these things.

Then Spike was dropping down on the couch beside her and then falling back so that he was lying with his head in her lap. She stared down at him in a kind of frozen shock. He caught her hand and pressed her palm against his mouth. She felt first his lips and then his tongue slide over her palm and had to repress an involuntary shiver of pleasure. Her voice had gone missing again, as it was seeming to do constantly whenever she was around this Spike.

His other hand brushed the material of her top. "Haven’t seen you wearing this in years, pet. Not since college. Found it at the back of your wardrobe, did you?"

"You remember what I was wearing? Even from back then?"

He smiled, a real genuine smile, not the mocking smirk that she usually saw. It was beautiful, a long dimple slashing down his cheek, his eyes lighting up. Gas flame blue eyes, vivid and adoring. Her breath caught.

"Of course I remember. Loved you a long time. Loved you forever. Remember everything about you, I do."

"Lo..." She stopped. Finally remembered how to breathe. "When...when did you start l-loving me, Spike?"

He laughed, a breath against the heel of her hand, then rubbed her palm back and forth across the hard line of his jaw. He had a lovely jaw. Her fingers curled involuntarily around it.

"You like my telling you about that, don’t you? Must have told you about it a hundred times."

"Tell me again."

He kissed her thumb, then sucked it into his mouth and ran his tongue around it. She shuddered and he smiled.

"Wanted you the first time I saw you. Dancing in the Bronze with Willow and Xander. Arms above your head, body moving to the beat. Got a hard-on right away. Desire, right from get go. Not love, not yet. But every time we fought, every time I even watched you fighting, Christ, I’d get such a hard-on. The way you move, the force in you. Irresistible."

He pulled her hand down over his throat, rubbed it back and forth over his chest and naked stomach. She felt his bare skin silken under her hand, his nipple hard as her palm brushed across it, the muscles of his stomach flexing as her hand was pressed over them. The tips of her fingers brushed the soft line of hair leading down under his low-slung belt buckle. She found herself trembling.

"Dru knew. That’s why she left me. Told me you were all over me, told me she saw you floating all around me."

Even back then, she thought in astonishment.

"Didn’t want to admit it," he said. "Didn’t want to admit that I wanted, that I loved the Slayer. Didn’t know why I kept coming back to Sunnydale when there were so many other places I could have gone, could have been safe and happy. Dreamed about making love to you one night, woke up the next morning and truly realized what had happened to me. That I loved you."

His breath hitched for a second in his throat.

"Knew I was screwed. Knew it was wrong. Hello, vampire here. Evil, soulless thing, right?"

His mouth twisted and this time she knew what it meant, saw the pain in his eyes.

"I..."

"Hey, no." He pulled her palm back to his mouth, kissed it again. "Water under the bridge, love. Yeah, it was bad, that time, the time after Glory, when I knew I loved you and you wouldn’t admit any vampire could love. But we do, y’know. Loved Dru a hundred years. Will love you forever. That time...I was so down, I swear I almost dusted myself at one point. But then..."

His eyes blazed wide with love and tenderness and adoration. She found herself falling into them, losing herself in them. He caught her head and pulled it down and kissed her passionately, devouringly, over and over again. She had never known kisses like this before, not even with Angel, so intense, so eloquent of everything that he was feeling. She was drowning in his mouth, in him. It was like being hit by a tidal wave—one minute safe on dry land, the next fathoms deep and drowning.

She had to tear her mouth away to be able to breathe. She gasped for air, her whole body shaking, incredibly turned on. Their breaths were ragged with passion, even his, though by rights he shouldn’t need to breathe. Still, she felt his breath shuddering through his open mouth as he slid it down her throat, across the slippery material of her top.

"But then you loved me," he murmured, and his voice shook with awe and wonder. "Bloody miracle. Went from hell to heaven in one leap. Been there ever since."

His mouth closed over her right nipple, sucking at it through the cloth. Buffy made a gasping, choking sound she had never made before and her hands clutched involuntarily at his head, holding him to her breast. Her whole body felt liquid, utterly boneless. She fell backwards, melting against the couch back, and he leaned over her, his hands sliding over her body, leaving trails of fire, and his mouth working on her nipple, suckling and pulling at it through the cloth. She was panting harshly, unable to move even to stop him as his hands went to the ties of her top and pulled them apart. The whole top fell away and his hands were kneading her bare breasts and his tongue was licking around and across her nipple, sucking at it, pressing it against the roof of his mouth.

She could hear herself moaning, and was too far gone even to be amazed by it.

"God, I love your breasts," he muttered. "I could spend hours playing with them."

"They’re too small," she protested unthinkingly.

"Anything more than a mouthful’s a waste," he said and opened his mouth wide and sucked in as much of her breast as he could.

Her head hit the back of the couch and she keened, arching up to that wicked, knowledgeable mouth that was driving her insane. This was crazy, crazy, and yet she couldn’t push him away. His hands were sliding up her thighs and she realized that he had unfastened her skirt and flipped open the edges like wings on either side of her. This was the day she had to choose to wear a wrap-around, and even while her mind was trying to tell her that this was a bad thing, her traitorous body was rejoicing.

She realized that he had twisted off the couch and was now kneeling on the floor, between her legs. She was spread out for him, naked except for a minuscule thong, and his mouth was sliding down her stomach and his hands up her inner thighs.

"Spike..."

"God, you’re so wet for me," he said in a exultant voice. "I love it."

It wasn’t his hand but his mouth on her inner thigh now, nibbling and biting at her flesh as he moved higher, the little pinpricks of his bite telling her that he was in gameface now, using his fangs, which should have worried her but somehow only added to her arousal. She felt his mouth at one side then the other of her pelvis, heard something snap. He had used his fangs to slice through the sides of her thong. Then even that was being pulled away and she was laid fully open to him.

"So beautiful," he said in a low, raspy growl that made her shiver with desire. She knew she should stop him, but her body was aching with need and she couldn’t have stopped him to save her life.

His tongue ran over the crease between her thigh and her torso, and she suddenly realized where he was heading.

"Oh...no...don’t..." No one had ever done that to her. She had read about it, but had never experienced it, and it was at once shocking and embarrassing to her.

"You love it. You know you do," he said against her mound. His fingers were spreading her labia apart, opening her to him.

"No, I...Oh!"

His tongue was sliding across her clit, his lips were suckling at it. Her whole body bucked at the lightning stroke of pleasure that flashed through her.

"Oh my God, oh my God!"

She could feel him smile as he worked at her. Her body thrashed under him and he had to put a hand on her stomach to hold her down.

"It gets better."

How could it possibly get better? she thought, but was beyond the point of coherent speech.

Two long fingers slid into her, pumping slowly, searching for, then finding that one spot of sensitive tissue inside her.

"GOD!"

‘Don’t know what you’re missing, Slayer,’ he had said to her and she had retorted, ‘Ego much?’ She hadn’t remembered that he had a hundred years of sexual experience behind him, that he would be an absolute master at sex play.

She couldn’t even think any more. Her mind had completely gone to lunch. There was only sensation. Nothing but this agonizing pleasure that was so intense that it was close to pain. She could only feel. And whimper and thrash and moan under him as his knowledgeable fingers stroked her G-spot and his mouth worked her clit, driving her higher and higher.

"OhmiGod, I..."

"Come for me, baby," he whispered. "Come for me."

Her orgasm hit her like a thunderbolt. Her whole body seized up and she fell for miles, seeing stars before her eyes, suffused by utter bliss.

She came back to herself to find him leaning over her, one arm cradling her to him, the other hand stroking her hair. His eyes were soft with pleasure at her pleasure.

"Hey," she whispered and he smiled, bent to kiss her mouth and eyes and temples and chin, covering her whole face with light, soft kisses. She kissed him back, her lips trembling and her body utterly limp in his arms. "That was...incredible."

"You’re incredible," he murmured. "The way you respond to me. Incredible."

She became aware of his erection pressing hard against her hip. "Oh, but you..."

He stood with easy grace and swept her up into his arms. "We’re not done yet, love. Haven’t even started."

"Oh, my God." Her head dropped onto his shoulder as he carried her up the stairs. "I don’t think I can."

He laughed against her hair. "Slayer stamina, remember. Oh, yes, you can."

He laid her down on the bed and she lay still, luxuriously limp, as he stripped out of his shirt and jeans. The lamplight washed gold down the planes of his body, emphasizing the sculptured musculature and she thought, ‘How could I have missed how beautiful he is? He’s so gorgeous. How can this be wrong? Clearly, it’s not wrong for her. For this world’s Buffy.’

Then he was settling himself over her, his weight on his elbows on either side of her. He looked down at her, smiling, the long dimple back, creases fanning out from the corners of his eyes over those supermodel cheekbones. Her hands rose without volition to grip his shoulders and she felt the length of him covering her, chest and stomach and hips pressed to hers. He made an odd sort of movement, a kind of side to side wriggle of his hips, settling himself between her thighs, making himself comfortable.

It felt wonderful. He felt wonderful. Her body arched involuntarily against his.

"Oh, yes," she said.

She felt his erection hard against her. ‘So big,’ she thought. ‘So big. How is it ever going to fit?’

His head came down and his mouth brushed hers, distracting her.

"Let’s bring you up to speed," he said.

Then his mouth and hands were all over her and he was driving her insane. She gasped and gasped again, helpless under his touch, breathing, "Oh! Oh!" into his mouth as her fingertips stroked his face. His eyes burned down at her, the brilliant blue darkened almost to black by his widening pupils, his eyelids heavy with passion, half-closed.

It wasn’t just sex. It was lovemaking. She felt it in the way he was worshiping her body, saw it in his face, his eyes, the way his body shuddered against hers. She was shaking, but he was shaking too, surrendered to her. Her hands clenched on his shoulders.

"Oh, please. Oh, please." She couldn’t stand any more. The pressure building up inside her was almost painful.

Then he was moving into her in one long, smooth stroke. She cried out, her head falling back on the pillows, her whole body arching and clenching about him. He filled her to the point that she thought she was going to split in half, and yet it was exactly enough, exactly right, there had never been so perfect a fit.

"Oh, God, yes!"

"You’re so tight," he gasped against her throat. "You’re always so tight. God, Buffy!"

He was pistoning into her now, going as far as he could go, then a little further, hard thrusts that were initially slow, then rapidly speeding up, his hips twisting at the end of every stroke, each thrust hitting every sweet spot in her body. She writhed under him, her nails gouging holes in his shoulders, her knees coming up to grip his sides, her sheath clenching with Slayer strength upon his cock at every thrust. This was the point where Riley would protest, unable to take the pressure, and she would have to hold back. With Angel, she had not known enough to respond this way, virgin and naive as she had been, almost passive. With Spike, she didn’t have to hold back. She could let herself go, grip him as forcefully as she liked, and he just groaned with delight, flinging his head back, eyes closed in ecstasy, mouth open and gasping as he rammed into her.

"Oh, God, I’m going to..."

"Yes..."

His head dropped so that he could watch her as she came, her nails digging into his shoulders, her whole body convulsing in an orgasm so shattering her brain whited out and she thought her heart would stop.

She came back to herself just as his hit. His body seized up and his cock pulsed within her. He was beautiful when he came, his face utterly open and vulnerable, surrendered to her, to this moment of pleasure so intense that it bordered exquisitely on pain, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips parted on a harsh, helpless groan of expelled breath.

His whole weight came down on her and his forehead hit the pillow beside her head. She felt his breath shuddering against the curve of her shoulder, held him tight to her, her cheekbone pressed against his. They lay there, spent, for a few minutes, spinning down from the high, then he moved to lift himself away.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders. He was soft within her, but she still did not want him to leave her.

"No, don’t..."

"Too heavy..."

He pulled out of her and they both groaned at the loss. He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him so that she lay half over him, her head on his shoulder and her leg between his thighs.

"God, that was amazing," he said breathlessly. "And we didn’t even..."

"Didn’t even what?"

"I didn’t even bite you." He smiled against her forehead. "Well, except for the little nips that don’t count. Bite you anyway, shall I? Make you come one more time?"

‘He bites me?’ she thought incredulously as he pulled her head back and sideways, exposing her neck. He pushed her hair away from her neck and she tensed, her hands coming up, ready to shove him away.

Instead, it was he who jerked away, recoiling to the other side of the bed.

"Who are you?"

"What?" She sat up in shock, abruptly became conscious of her nakedness and pulled the sheet around her.

He was out of the bed now, grabbing for his jeans. "Who the bleeding hell are you?"

"I’m B-Buffy," she stammered. This was not the way she had meant him to find out.

He had his jeans on now, zipping them up. "No, you’re not. You look like Buffy and you smell like Buffy and you even taste like Buffy. But you’re not Buffy!"

"I am Buffy," she said weakly. "Except..."

"Then where’s the bloody claim mark?"

"What?"

"The claim mark." He flashed to her side and pulled her hair back from her neck. "I’ve got mine. Where’s yours?"

"You’ve got yours?" She looked to where his hand had gone to the left side of his neck and saw what she hadn’t noticed before. On the pale skin was a white, slightly raised scar in the shape of human teeth. "She claimed you? She let you claim her?"

"She?"

Oh, boy. She drew a shaky breath.

"I’d better explain."



TBC

Chapter 3

It was just like Spike to try to protect her by going after that J’Havren demon by himself, Buffy thought with fond exasperation. Like it or not, they were a team and she wasn’t about to let him take the brunt of all the dirty work on himself. Happily swinging her axe, she ran towards the sounds of an already escalating brawl.

Then something hit her and she dropped the axe.

The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor of her livingroom.

Or rather, the floor of her livingroom several years ago.

"Ohh-kay," she said, sitting up and looking around her. "What the hell is going on?"

After several apocalypses, evil Firsts and sunlight-focusing amulets, she was getting pretty nonchalant about weird occurrences happening to or around her. Getting seemingly thrown back in time didn’t freak her out the way it would have even a few years ago. She sat still for a few minutes, looking around with nostalgia at the differences in decor of the livingroom. Once she had her thoughts in order, she got up and went into the kitchen to take a look at the calendar and nodded with satisfaction when it confirmed her guess: a few months after their confrontation with Glory.

Which meant that Dawn was still living with her, Willow and Tara were at their apartment on Marriot Street, Giles was probably back in England and Spike...Spike and she were not yet together and he was probably still living in his crypt in Restfield cemetery.

That was going to be the hardest thing about being in this time—that she couldn’t be with Spike.

"Right," she said out loud. "I’m just gonna have to try to get back as fast as I can. First things first—where’s Willow?"

It had to be a spell of some kind, and that meant that Willow was the one who could do something about it.

Buffy headed down to Marriot Street, interestedly noting all the differences in Sunnydale between her time and this. Funny how one never noticed the changes while they were happening; one just went with the flow and took it all for granted. It was strange seeing how much was exactly the same and how many things had changed, like different stores and restaurants and even stop signs.

She took a deep breath outside the door to Willow and Tara’s apartment. This wasn’t something that one could discuss over the phone; it needed a face to face confrontation and she was nervous about it. There was no answer when she rang the doorbell and she bit her lower lip in indecision.

They could be anywhere at this time of the night—at the Bronze or anywhere on campus, at any of the several libraries, computer rooms or residencies.

She decided to try the Bronze rather than searching through the entire college and was relieved to find them there. Anya and Xander were dancing, but Willow and Tara were at a table, sipping at colas.

"Hey, Buffy," Willow smiled as she stopped beside them. "You’re late. I was wondering if you were even going to show up. And, hey, didn’t I tell you to wear something sexy? Shirt and jeans? Good for patrolling, yeah, but so not of the good for picking up guys."

"I’m picking up guys now?" Buffy made a face. "Really not into that."

"But I thought..."

"Um, yeah. Forget about that for a moment, would you?" One good thing: she couldn’t have changed so much if Willow thought she was their Buffy. "I’ve kinda run into a little problem."

"What’s wrong, Buffy?" Tara asked, frowning in concern. She at least seemed to be picking up vibes that something was off kilter.

"Um, Will? Have you been doing any spells lately?"

"Oh, yeah," said Willow with enthusiasm. "A couple of locator spells and floating a rose around the room, oh! and reading auras—Tara’s really good at that and she’s showing me how to..."

"N-nothing really major, Buffy," Tara interjected quickly. "Just l-little stuff."

Willow looked at Buffy’s frown and flushed as red as her hair. "Oh! Just little stuff, really, Buffy! No big things that could backfire, like that my-will-be-done spell. Because backfiring, so not of the good, and things could really go wrong. As they have in the past. But not now. Definitely not now. Because we really haven’t done anything big or major or..."

Tara put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Sweetie, calm down."

Willow took a deep swallow of her cola. "I just don’t want Buffy to think..."

"I just wondered, Will." Buffy caught Xander’s eye and waved him over. "Because I’ve kinda run into a really big problem and I’m like a hundred percent sure it’s a spell."

"What kind of problem?"

"Who’s under a spell?" asked Xander as he and Anya joined them.

"I am. I’m not your Buffy. Well, I mean, I am Buffy, but I’m not the Buffy of your time. I’m from the future. I’m Buffy of 2010."

"Great Marty McFly!" exclaimed Xander and Buffy sighed.

"Yeah, the whole Back To The Future thing."

"You’re serious," said Willow.

"Yes. You were expecting to see your Buffy here, weren’t you?"

They all nodded.

"Well, I’m here and I’m future Buffy. Which means that she’s probably in 2010 where I should be."

"It’s a spell," Anya agreed. "And a very powerful one. Too powerful for someone like Willow to cast. I can sense the lingering magics and it’s more like something I would have cast when I was a vengeance demon."

"That’s some very heavy mojo," Xander remarked. "Could it be some other vengeance demon?"

"It could be. I’ve lost the ability to tell who it is, now that I’m human. I don’t even know whether it is a vengeance demon and not some witch or warlock, like Ethan Rayne. I only know it’s not Willow." Anya sulked a little. "If it is a vengeance demon, it’s awfully rude for her not to drop by to at least say hello. Like I’m a pariah or something. I was just unlucky, that’s all."

Tara patted her on the shoulder. "We don’t even know if it is a vengeance demon, Anya. As you said, it could be anything."

"All sorts of things could cast a spell like that," Willow agreed. "Whatever it is, it’s awful powerful. We’ve got to find out what and why."

"We’ve got to find out how to reverse the spell," said Buffy flatly. "Not to be rude or anything, but I want to go home."

Tara looked at her sympathetically. "I-I can understand. It must be horrible to be torn away from everything and everyone you care about."

"She cares about us," griped Xander.

"But not the same us."

"Let’s go to the Magic Box," Willow said while Xander was working out the ramifications of that. "We certainly can’t work any spells here at the Bronze and the Box has everything we need in terms of reference books and supplies."

"‘Not the same us’," Xander mused as they headed towards the Magic Box. "Future Buffy, huh? So, tell us, what are we like in the future?"

Buffy cast a glance at Xander and Anya, and bit her lip. "More or less, as happy as we are now."

"What I meant was..."

"She can’t tell you, Xander," said Anya. "If she does, it might change the future. You know that."

"Well, I’d like to know if I won the lottery and am a wealthy man in the future," muttered Xander under his breath. "You couldn’t tell us next week’s lottery numbers, could you, Buff?"

"You don’t need lottery numbers, Xand," said Buffy. "You own your own construction company and you’re very well off."

Xander puffed out his chest. "Well, all right!"

"If she’s telling the truth," laughed Willow.

Xander’s face fell. "You are telling the truth, aren’t you, Buffy?"

"Of course, I am, Xand," said Buffy and widened her eyes at him in a look of such obvious insincerity that all the girls laughed.

"She could say anything and you wouldn’t know whether it was true or not," said Anya. "So what’s the point of asking?"

"That’s not fair," mumbled Xander. "Our own personal pipeline to the future and we can’t use it."

"Suck it up and deal," grinned Buffy as Anya unlocked the door to the Magic Box. "We’ve got more important things to do right now."

An hour later, they still hadn’t made much progress. Willow and Tara had cast several spells, but had only succeeded in confirming what Anya had said at the beginning, that it was a spell, that it was powerful and that it had been cast by a very experienced demon of some kind.

"Way to go," muttered Xander and Anya shook her head at him.

"It’s harder than you think, Xander," she said. "They’re doing the best they can."

"We’ll keep trying, Buffy," said Willow apologetically. "I promise you, we won’t give up."

"Thanks, Will," sighed Buffy. "Counting on you."

"I just hope our Buffy is all right wherever she is in the future," Tara said.

"Oh, she’ll be all right. Sp..." Buffy was about to say that Spike would take care of her, then broke off abruptly, remembering that things were different here and now. "She’ll have the sense to get in touch with you all and you’ll take care of her," she amended lamely.

Tara gave her an odd look that meant she had caught that slip, but said nothing. Buffy looked away hastily.

"You don’t need me here, do you? Would it be all right if I went on patrol?

Willow nodded and Xander said, "Want me to come along?"

Buffy shook her head. Her Slayer sense was picking up that particular tingle of vamp presence that was Spike’s signature. She would rather have Spike with her than Xander. To be honest, Xander was a liability on patrol; Spike was an equal and an asset.

"Things look dead out there. It’ll be a routine patrol. I’ll just do a quick sweep and be back before you know it."

She went down Main Street, then cut across to the first of the cemeteries. She expected Spike to join her almost immediately, but he didn’t. It really was a quiet night; nothing seemed to be stirring. She left that cemetery and went on to the next, feeling him pacing her through the darkness, an ever-present tingle just on the edge of her awareness. She was a little puzzled as to why he was being so skittish. It was as if he were trying not to let her know he was there, while at the same time staying close enough to be able to watch her back the way he did in her time.

She kept waiting for him to join her, but he kept hanging back until finally she lost patience and called out, "Spike, I know you’re there. Will you stop lurking and just come out?"

There was a small hesitation, then he materialized out of the shadows the way older vamps do, one moment not there, the next solidly and dangerously present, right in front of her, way too close for safety. If she hadn’t known his signature so well, her reflexes would have driven the stake in her hand straight into his heart.

"Wasn’t lurking."

"God, Spike! Did you have to do that? I damn nearly staked you."

He shrugged. "So why didn’t you?"

She didn’t know whether he was challenging her or whether he honestly didn’t care. There was something off about him, the way he was standing looking not at her, but off into the distance somewhere. There was a kind of tired apathy to him that she couldn’t understand. Spike was always full of bounce and vitality, full of snark and mockery. Now from the tilt of his head, the half-lidded, inward-turned gaze, the mockery seemed to be directed at himself.

"I wouldn’t do that," she said a little helplessly.

"Wouldn’t you?" he said with a disbelieving look. "That’s nice to know, Slayer. Never would have suspected it. I must remember that."

"To use against me sometime."

"Of course."

"You wouldn’t do that."

His brows rose. "How do you know I wouldn’t?"

She smiled at him and he looked completely taken aback. "I know. Wanna come patrol with me? Since you’re here already."

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

She fell automatically into their usual patrolling position, she at his right hand, he on her left. Since he was lefthanded and she right, this allowed quite a wide area to be covered at once. Their strides fell into step, she lengthening hers just that little bit, he reducing his to allow her to keep up. She didn’t even think about it; it just felt natural and right for him to be at her side like this; they had been doing this for so many years that it was almost like breathing. What had felt strange was his not being there, being way off in the distance somewhere. The only thing she found unusual was his silence: her Spike was always talking, laughing, teasing her. This Spike was silent, slanting sideways glances at her in bewilderment as she, without thinking, talked as they usually did, about everything and nothing.

"What’s the matter with you tonight?" she asked finally when they had almost completed their circuit and were heading back to the Magic Box. "How come you’re so quiet?"

"Fella can’t win with you, Slayer. How may times have you told me ‘Shut up, Spike’ and now when I do, you start complaining." He gave her a frowning, sideways look, the corners of his mouth tightening. "Besides, you haven’t let me get a word in edgewise. What’s up with you anyway? You never talk this much."

"Yes, I do," she said in surprise. "People are always saying..."

"I mean, to me."

Movement in an alley saved her: four vampires, three of them fledges.

"Night’s not a total waste, after all," she laughed with satisfaction and threw herself into the fray, heading for the older vampire and sensing Spike beside her moving smoothly to intercept the fledges.

And there was the dance, after all, ducking and weaving, vamps dusting one after the other. Not the perfect dance that it was with her Spike, because this Spike didn’t have her moves down yet and they weren’t as perfectly in sync as they would be later on. But close enough for her to feel the joy of it, the sense of the two of them moving almost as one.

The last vamp vanished and she flung around, laughing, and threw her arms around Spike in a hug, completely forgetting in the heat of the moment that it wasn’t her Spike. His whole body went rigidly still in her arms and he stared at her with profound shock as she raised her head, realizing her mistake.

"Oops," she said weakly. "Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to..."

He caught her shoulders, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh, and pushed her back. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Buffy?"

He had phrased it as a joke, but his eyes belied that. His eyes were dangerous.

"Gonna be a little difficult to explain." She drew a deep breath. "There was this spell."

"Ah. Willow?"

"No. Not this time."

"Keep going."

"I’m Buffy. But I’m the Buffy from 2010, from the future. We think that your Buffy and I switched places."

He let her go and leaned dazedly back against the alley wall.

"Well, that explains a lot about tonight," he said after a while. "Who’s ‘we’?"

"Willow and Tara and Anya. They’re trying to figure out what happened, find a way to reverse the whole thing."

He was silent for a moment, studying her intently.

"So you’re the future Buffy."

"Yep."

"You don’t look any different. Sure...act different."

She flushed a little. "How?"

"You’re not staking me. ‘S an improvement, I must say. We friends then, in 2010?"

She didn’t know how much to tell him of what they really were. "Yes. Partners. Patrolling. You know. We make a good team."

"Always said we would. The Scoobies okay with that?" He gave her a look of total disbelief.

"Well, you saved the world a couple of times. Nearly died."

"I what?"

"Saved the world. What’s so surprising about that? You already have, a couple of times, back with Acathla, then with Glory. This time it kinda proved to them that you’re a white hat."

"You don’t have to be insulting." He drew a deep breath. "Why would I go and do something like that for?"

She said nothing. He leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes closed.

"For you," he whispered.

She nodded, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t have to: they both knew it was true. Her throat hurt. She wanted to put her arms around him, but didn’t dare because it would betray all the rest of what existed between them.

His eyes snapped open and widened in horror. "I’m not all soulful, am I? Tell me I’m not!"

She couldn’t help smiling. "No. You aren’t."

"Oh, thank God. If I knew I was gonna be as broody and soul-having as the great poof, I swear I’d stake myself."

"You’ve already got a soul, don’t you know that? Anybody who cares so much, already has one."

He looked at her with absolute shock. "You’re mental."

She reached out and touched him lightly just over where his heart should have been beating, but wasn’t. "William’s still there, Spike."

He looked disgusted. "What do you know about that ruddy useless git?"

"A lot." She turned. "C’mon. I want to get back to the Magic Box and find out how they’re doing."

"I don’t care," he said, not listening, still hung up on what she had said about a soul.

"A hundred years of caring for Drusilla. Sure you don’t."

"That was different."

"Keep telling yourself that." She smiled at him over her shoulder. "You don’t care for Dawn either, do you? And you didn’t care for my mother."

"Summers women," he mumbled under his breath, excusing himself.

"Yeah, Big Bad."

He followed her, shaking his head. "Can’t get my lobes around all this."

"Don’t have to. With any luck, Willow will find the solution soon. Then everything will be back to normal."

"Yeah," he said softly after a long moment. "Normal."

He was silent the rest of the way to the Magic Box, then balked suddenly as she opened the door.

"Better be on my way."

"Aren’t you coming in?" she asked, startled.

"Not welcome."

"After saving Dawn, after all your help with Glory and with patrolling these last few months..?"

The others had seen them now and Xander was jumping to his feet, yelling, "What is he doing here?"

She looked at Xander in surprise. "Spike helped me with my patrol. Took out a couple of vamps."

"Yeah, so he can kill you himself later. I knew I should have come with you!"

"Told you," said Spike quietly and began to turn away.

"No, wait!" she exclaimed, reaching after him.

"What’s the matter with you, Buffy?" Xander was demanding. "Don’t you know you can’t trust him? At least our Buffy doesn’t let him get anywhere near her!"

"Shut up, Xander!" she said with real fury and he gaped at her in shock.

Spike was stepping backwards, fading into the shadows. He made a tiny movement of his lifted hand, unaware that he was doing it, just a cup of his fingers as if he cupped her cheek, except it was from ten feet away and what he was touching was thin air. His face was impassive, but she knew him utterly and she could see the desolation in his eyes and the minute, dejected slump of his shoulders.

"You’re a fantasy, Buffy 2010," he said so softly that the only way she could hear it was because of her Slayer hearing. "This is the real world."

He turned and was gone with vampire speed, black leather disappearing into black shadow in an instant. Buffy walked into the shop and slammed the door behind her as hard as she could. It rattled in its sockets, she was that angry.

"What is your damage, Xander!"

Xander was gobbling like a turkeycock. "What are you doing, Buffy, getting all buddy-buddy with Spike? I mean, it’s Spike! Y’know, evil guy, no soul..."

"Yeah, yeah. Got the memo. No soul, evil, yadda, yadda, yadda."

"Buffy, he could kill you!"

"He could, but he wouldn’t."

"You don’t know that!"

"I do know that, Xander! I’m from 2010, remember? I know what all of you do. And Spike? He doesn’t harm anyone. He’s my right hand. He..."

"No! He can’t be! I’ll stake him first!"

Buffy shoved him hard, thumping him down into his chair. Xander sat there with his mouth open, finally silent, shocked beyond words. Buffy leaned over him, snarling her words into his face.

"If you even try to stake him, I’ll kill you, Xander. A couple of years from now, he saves the world from an apocalypse and almost dies doing it. I won’t risk the world because of some stupid, ignorant prejudice of yours!"

"P-p-preju..."

"That’s exactly what it is, Xander. Who has he hurt over the last couple of years? Tell me."

"That’s only because of the chip..."

"The chip doesn’t keep him from hiring minions to kill us. And what has he done over the last year? Let me tell you. He’s helped defeat Glory. He killed Doc and saved my sister. He’s been killing demons to help me keep the Hellmouth clear..."

"Even when we didn’t know about it," Tara said suddenly and everyone looked around at her, startled. She blushed. "I-I’ve been talking to Willy. Spike patrols on his own and doesn’t tell Buffy. That’s why there’s been so much less demon activity around here recently. He kills a lot of the ones that cause trouble. The other demons hate him. They call him a traitor."

"Why would he do that?" Willow asked. Tara and Anya flashed each other knowing glances, then looked hurriedly away.

Xander thumped a fist on the table. "Yeah, why? He’s up to something, Buffy...!"

Buffy slapped him upside the head. It was a light slap, but it shocked him into shutting up.

"God, you can be so stupid! He’s not up to anything. I know why he’s doing it and it’s none of your business. Willow, in a few months he’s going to save Tara’s life. I’m over at your place and this moron starts waving a gun around, trying to shoot me. Tara almost gets shot, but Spike stops it, takes a couple of bullets for her. If it weren’t for him, Tara is going to die. Isn’t that reason enough to keep him around?"

"God, yes!" gasped Willow.

"Right. That just leaves you, Xander. And you are such a fucking hypocrite."

"What!"

"Hyp-o-crite," said Buffy, spacing every syllable. "There you are, sleeping with a vengeance demon who..."

"Ex-demon! Ex-demon!"

"Who has killed countless numbers of people, more than Spike ever has..."

"But she’s human now and she’s sorry!"

"Are you sorry, Anya?"

"Not really," said Anya simply. "It was my job, you know."

"Didn’t think so," Buffy nodded. "It doesn’t look to me, Xander, that you have any right to make judgements about demons. Or about anybody’s love life, for that matter."

"But he doesn’t have a soul!"

"Yeah, yeah. You know, I’m sick to death about hearing about this soul business. Hitler had a soul, Ethan Rayne has a soul, serial killers have souls. It seems to me that what you do with that soul is what really matters. Actions speak louder than words and for quite a while now all Spike’s actions have been of the good. So I’m saying it once and for all. New law. Not ever to be broken. No one stakes Spike. Except me. Understood?"

"Buffy..."

"And speaking of words, I’m so, so tired of hearing you dump on Spike all the time. I don’t want to hear any more of it. I’m not asking you to like him. I’m just asking you to keep your mouth shut from now on."

"Hear, hear," said Tara and Xander shot her a betrayed look. But both Willow and Anya were nodding thoughtfully.

Buffy smiled faintly. "Right then. Tara, can I speak to you for a minute?"

"S-sure," said Tara nervously and followed her across to a quiet corner near the door.

"Tara, what’s wrong with Spike?" Buffy asked, keeping her voice low.

"Oh! You saw that."

"I know him pretty well. He’s really down. I’ve never seen him this down before, even when Drusilla left him. He’s really quiet—and that’s not a good sign with Spike. When Dru dumped him, he got stinking drunk, loudly and dramatically all over the place. He wept on my Mom’s shoulder. Kidnapped Willow and Xander for some crazy plot. Damn near jumped up and down in the middle of Sunnydale, with a bull’s eye painted on his chest, asking me to stake him. But he never got all quiet and...and dejected like this."

"I’ve seen his aura," Tara said softly. "It used to be all brilliant and vivid, even if it was with conflicting, clashing colors. Now it’s all dark."

"You see things, Tara. You empathize. Do you have any idea what could be wrong?"

"Well, I wasn’t here when the Dru business happened. But...He didn’t have the chip then, did he?"

"No. Is it the chip?"

"Not just the chip. It’s kind of a combination of things. When Dru dumped him, he was still part of the demon community. He had a place, you know? But now he’s killing demons for you, well, for our Buffy. So they’ve cast him out."

"You said they think he’s a traitor."

Tara nodded. "And he doesn’t have any other place. Not even with us. We won’t let him."

"You do."

"I realized what was happening only recently. It’s made him feel a little better. But..."

"Yeah."

"He can’t be human, but he can’t be a real monster either. He’s the...the most alone person I’ve ever seen. And I think the rejection’s starting to get to him. It’s been month after month of rejection, from everybody, for so long now. And...and our Buffy..."

"She’s been kicking him really hard. That’s the impression I’ve been getting. Even when he’s helped so much."

"I-I think she’s scared." Tara looked sideways at her. "He’s really hot, you know..."

Buffy grinned. "Why, Tara!"

"Hey, I might be gay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a hot bod. Aesthetic appreciation," said Tara primly.

"Aesthetic, huh?" They both laughed, then sobered.

"She’s tempted. So she keeps pushing him away," Tara continued. "Which is her privilege. But because she’s scared, she keeps being really brutal about it. And I think he’s lost all hope. And without hope..."

"My Spike said that there was a time he was so down he almost went for a walk in the sun."

"Depression can kill, Buffy."

"It can go both ways at this point, can’t it? Nothing’s fixed. The timestream’s always in flux until something actually happens. So he really could decide to dust." Her eyes widened in horror. "And if he dusts, then my Spike..."

"Might cease to exist," Tara nodded grimly.

"I can’t lose him, Tara!"

Tara looked at her seriously. "What is he to you, Buffy?"

"My lover. My dearest and best friend. My everything. I love him. I can’t lose him."

"Then don’t," said Tara.

***

Then don’t.

As if it were as easy as that. She spent the rest of the night thinking of ways and means, woke up the next morning with the solution staring her in the face.

She laughed, shaking her head at her own stupidity. Simple. So very simple. She packed Dawn off to school (how easy it was to fall back into the old routines), then headed out to Spike’s crypt.

He would be sleeping at this time of the day. Despite that, she knocked scrupulously at the door of the crypt before letting herself in. The ground floor was empty, the ancient TV set cold when she laid her hand on it: he must have gone to bed at first light. She pulled up the hidden trapdoor and climbed down the ladder, letting the trap close behind her and making sure that the latch Spike had installed was locked. He had left it carelessly undone, unconcerned that enemies might break in. It was another bad sign, that he should be so lax about his own safety.

He was deeply asleep, sprawled on his back in the middle of the big bed, his head turned to one side. When she was with him, he would spoon around her, holding her close. Left alone, he starfished, arms and legs flung wide, the sheets half-kicked off and barely covering that beautiful, carven, alabaster nakedness. She smiled fondly down at him now, relishing the sight of him, this breathtaking, savage, deadly creature that belonged so utterly to her.

Or would. In the future. Not now.

"Spike," she said and he came awake with lightning swiftness, sitting up with a jerk, then pulling the sheet across his hips as he registered who was standing in front of him.

"Buffy?" he said incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

She sat down at the foot of the bed. "Not your Buffy, I’m sorry to say. Just Buffy 2010, as you phrased it."

"Oh." After a moment, he slid down to sit beside her, gathering the sheet around his waist. "Okay, what is Buffy 2010 doing here?"

"I wanted to be with you. I miss my Spike. It hurts, not being with him."

"Your...Uh." He shook his head as if to clear it, then raised a hand to rub at his eyes. "I’m not processing things properly. Still half asleep, I guess. Uh, give me a moment to get dressed."

"Why?"

"Why? If you haven’t noticed, I’m naked here."

"Oh, I’ve noticed." She cocked her head sideways at him and smiled. "You never used to have a problem with being naked."

He gave her a halfhearted leer. "I don’t. You do."

It was the perfect opportunity to make the point she had come here to make.

"Not this Buffy. I always love seeing you naked. You’re beautiful naked."

His jaw dropped. "Always? What do you mean always? You’ve seen me naked a lot?"

"Lots of times. We’re lovers, you know. Been lovers for years."

How do you keep him from watching the sun rise? You give him hope.

He looked for a moment as if he were going to pass right out with shock. His lips opened, but no sound came out. She laughed softly and ran a hand down the left side of his neck, rubbing lightly at the point between his neck and shoulder where her bite mark should be, but wasn’t yet.

"It’s strange not seeing my mark. It would be right here, a little raised pattern on your skin."

He looked even more faint. "You...you claimed me?"

"Uh huh. Just like you claimed me." She thrust her hair back to show him the marks on the right side of her own neck.

His hands caught her upper arms and pulled her forward so that he could look closely at the mark.

"My God, it is my mark! My God, you let me claim you!"

She laughed a little at his incredulous face. "Oh course. I’m yours, just like you’re mine. We’re mated."

He touched the mark disbelievingly, fingertips rubbing lightly over it, and she felt the usual little jolt of electricity and heat flash through her as it always did whenever he touched his mark. Her breath caught and she gasped involuntarily, her head falling back weakly.

He looked at her, wide-eyed. "It’s real."

"Of course it is." She smiled at him. "You can’t fake something like that."

He looked beyond words. He was panting a little in rapid, shallow catches of breath, seizing at air that his vampire’s body did not need, but shock made necessary. It was one of the things she liked about Spike, that unlike other vampires like Angel any intensity of emotion would make him breathe, that shock or lust or passion would have him panting and struggling for air. It showed how deeply he felt things.

She could feel his breath against her face, shuddering through his open mouth. His lips were so close, so tempting. She took his face in her hands and kissed him.

His whole body jerked. Then his arms were fierce about her and he was kissing her with such intensity, with such need, that it was like being hit by a tidal wave. She toppled over, her arms tight about his neck, and then they were lying there, clasped in each others arms, and he was kissing her over and over again, his mouth desperate on hers, devouring her. And the feel of him against her, his body in her arms, the scent of him, the taste of him, were so familiar, so sweet, that desire came in a rush and she found herself surrendering unconditionally to it.

She hadn’t meant to make love to him. She had come here just intending to tell him what they would be in the future, to give him some hope. But this was Spike and he was hers and he loved her and she loved him and it just felt so right.

She kicked off her sneakers, pulled the tank that she was wearing over her head. He was looking at her in wonder, his hands shaping the lace-covered curves of her breasts, barely touching, still hesitant.

"Help me," she said, working at her jeans. He slid them down her legs, came back up, his hand sliding up the outside of her thigh disbelievingly.

She scrambled up the bed, pulling him with her. When their heads were on the pillow, she pushed him onto his back and leaned over him, smiling.

"Let me make love to you."

"What?" The word was blurred against her mouth. He looked up at her dazedly, his eyes darkening as his pupils widened.

"Let me make love to you." She caught his wrists and stretched his arms out to either side. "Don’t touch, okay? Hold on to the headboard if you have to, but don’t touch."

"God! Anything you want, Slayer. You know that." He shuddered as her hands ran back down his arms, his eyes half-closing, surrendering to her. "You own me."

"Good." She kissed him softly, her hands stroking his face, sliding through his hair. "We’re gonna do this real slow, okay? Gonna take my time."

"Okay," he said breathlessly, his tongue sliding into her mouth, trying to take deeper possession of her mouth than she let him.

"Cheat." She sucked on his tongue, then kissed along his jawline, then the hollow of his cheek, then sweetly his eyelids, one after the other. She felt him tremble.

"Buffy..."

"I love you."

His whole body jerked. "Oh, Christ! Buffy, I love you! I love you so much."

"I know. Hands!" She caught the hands that were trying to clutch her to him, pushed them back down on the bed. "We’re going to do this my way. Do I have to get out those chains I know you have and shackle you to the bed?"

"Promises, promises." But his eyes were wet when she looked down at him.

She kissed them again, tasting his tears, and her heart swelled almost to bursting. She pushed his head back and kissed under his jaw, then sucked down his throat. He arched his throat to her mouth, making a wordless sound of pleasure. She smiled, then moved sideways to kiss his neck where her claim mark would be later on, opened her mouth and sucked on the skin there. He shivered.

"Won’t claim you," she murmured. "Not yet." That was for his Buffy to do.

Her hands were sliding over his shoulders now and down over his chest. Her mouth followed them. She tongued the flat coin of his nipple, pushed the soft nub inward. It hardened under her tongue.

"God!"

"Love your nipples," she said. "They’re so pretty."

"Not pretty," he muttered.

"Yes, they are. You’re pretty all over."

"Handsome or sexy or hot, yes. Pretty, no."

"Handsome and sexy and hot and pretty."

She was working her way down his abdomen now, her hands stroking his sides, her tongue licking that very lickable sixpack. He was shuddering continuously now.

"Jesus, Slayer, you’re going to kill me."

"Always said I would. But I think you like this way better than the other."

"God, yes!"

She ran her tongue into his navel, then bit him softly just below it. His whole body bucked.

"Buffy!"

"Hands."

He flung them above his head and gripped two of the rails of the metal headboard. His head was raised to stare down at what she was doing, and his eyes were full of disbelief and awe. She kissed the hollow of his pelvis, first on one side then the other.

"Getting to you, aren’t I?" she remarked, smiling down at his groin. He was fully and painfully erect now.

"Damn right."

She flipped her hair so that it trailed teasingly over his stomach and his cock. He hissed.

"Bend your knee."

"What?"

She tickled the sensitive back of his knee, then pulled it up and pushed it outward, opening him up to her. Then she bit the inside of his thigh, high up.

"Christ!" His hips bucked right off the bed and his other knee started to tremor. "Slayer, come up here! I can’t take this any more!"

"Having too much fun down here." She licked the underside of his cock, one long sweep from base to tip, and he cried out in shock. "Oh, yeah. Loads of fun."

She took him into her mouth then and sucked, her cheeks hollowing. He yelled, a wordless sound of utter pleasure and disbelief. She really started working on him then, her hands pumping his cock, her mouth sliding up and down it, nibbling and sucking. One hand found the heavy weight of his balls and massaged them, then she sucked them one by one into her mouth, licked the sensitive bit of flesh between them and his cock, smiled at his yowl. She licked her way back up, probed the sensitive slit on the top of his cock with the tip of her tongue, provoking another yell, then sucked him back into her mouth as deep as she could take him, swallowing around him. He was babbling a litany of curses and praise by this time, his head thrown back and his throat arching as his hips thrust mindlessly upwards, driving his cock into her mouth. The rails of the headboard were starting to bend, he was pulling on them so hard.

"Oh, God, Buffy, stop! I’m going to come! Oh, God, Buffy! Stop!"

She smiled around him and kept on going. His balls tightened in the palm of her hand and then he was coming, unable to help himself, his cock pulsing in her mouth. She swallowed, held him through the aftershocks, then slid up his body to wrap her arms around his head while he gasped and shook and muttered, "God, God, God..." into the hollow of her shoulder.

He finally turned his head to press his forehead against hers, looking at her with dazed, marveling eyes. "How could you...I can’t believe that you did that..."

"Love doing that to you."

"You’re a bloody miracle." His face was ablaze with adoration. "That you would...I nearly blacked out. It’s never been this intense for me ever, not in a hundred and twenty years. Because it’s you. Because it’s you. Buffy, I love you so much."

"Love you too, Will."

"Oh, God..." He kissed her fiercely, possessively. "My turn. I need to...I want..."

"Anything you want, love."

It was like being hit by a whirlwind. Her bra disappeared; so did her thong. Then his hands and his mouth were everywhere. There wasn’t an inch of her skin that he didn’t fondle and caress and kiss. She was already aroused by her going down on him. Now he drove her into a frenzy so intense she thought she would die from it.

"Oh, God, yes...Now!" she gasped. "I want you in me. I want you inside me. Spike!"

"Yes."

He came into her hard, then froze. She opened her eyes to see him staring down at her, his eyes awed, unable to believe that he was really taking her. She smiled and raked her hands down the beautiful muscles of his back to his ass and pulled him demandingly deeper into her.

"Take me. Take me now," she purred, half-laughing, half-insistent. Then her laughter fell away in passion. "Darling. Darling. Don’t stop."

His jaw clenched and he thrust into her hard, losing control, pistoning into her.

"Yes. Hard like that. Yes. Harder. Oh, God, don’t stop!"

"Can’t," he gasped and then they were both beyond words.

Their hips battled; she thrust up as he was thrusting down and the sensation was so intense that she thought her heart would burst from the unbearable pleasure of it. Her body arched like a bow under his; her hands clawed at him, driving gouges down his back; she made wordless, helpless, unintelligible sounds to the rhythm of their bodies slamming into each other.

It was too much, unendurable. She found herself teetering on the cliff edge, almost ready to fall, needing just that one thing more. She looked up into his face, saw his head flung back, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips parted in a snarl of effort, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles of his cheek and neck were jumping. And she reached up and dragged his head down to her neck.

"Bite me."

There was no protest from the claim. This was Spike. Spike then and Spike now were the same. The claim mark recognized him. He froze momentarily in shock that she would ever consider such a thing, then his fangs slid smoothly into her neck and she felt the draw as he drank. It was indescribably erotic, exquisitely pleasurable for both of them. She felt his body seize up as he started to come, fell over the cliff herself at the dual penetration of his cock and his fangs.

"Ohhh..."

She thought she really had blacked out this time. She came back to herself to find him heavy upon her, his lips dazedly sucking on the bite mark on her neck. He hadn’t taken much, he never did, just a couple of sips, just enough to affirm the claim and intensify their orgasms. Now he licked the puncture wounds drowsily to close them.

"Stay in me. Stay on me. God, you feel so wonderful."

He lifted his head and looked down at her. His eyes were incandescent with joy, the intense vivid blue at the heart of a flame. She could see the power of her blood moving in them, in him. Inside her, he was starting to harden again.

"Gotta love that vamp refractory period," she murmured, wrapping her arms around him. And the dance began again.



TBC

Chapter 4

‘I’ll never get used to this,’ Buffy thought, watching this world’s Spike talking easily with Willow and Tara. They were deferring to him in the same way that they deferred to Giles, as the three of them went through piles and piles of ancient texts. It seemed that Spike could read Latin and Greek and various strange languages as easily as Giles could. Sometimes even better.

"Sumerian? You read Sumerian?"

He gave her an amused glance. "Learned a lot of odd things over the last century or so. Had plenty of time on my hands. Best thing about being a vampire is that you can keep on learning things forever. To follow knowledge like a shooting star beyond the utmost bounds of time and space."

Which sounded like a quotation from somewhere. Buffy gave him a dubious look.

"Guy never told us he had all sorts of degrees and fellowships before he was turned," said Willow wryly. "Oxford and Cambridge and whatnot. Who’d ha’ thunk it, with the punk look and the Sex Pistols music and all."

"Yeah, well..." Spike muttered vaguely, looking embarrassed.

"Really helps with the research," Willow nodded. "Especially on demon languages."

Another side of him that we’ve been ignoring, Buffy thought. Even Giles hadn’t considered that their Spike might be able to help with research. Why did we never remember that a century old being might have information that could be of use? Because of the Billy Idol shtick? Because of the whole punk thing and the youthful, rebellious attitude? Because we just didn’t want to? Just wanted to discount him in every way possible, not think of him at all? This Spike was turning out to be a revelation, in more ways than one.

All three of them had taken her coming from another time completely in stride. Their attitude seemed to be that if it conceivably could happen, it would and all that had to be done was to sit down and work out the solution. It was infinitely comforting that no one was freaking out, all of them just mundanely settling down to research.

"Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?" Buffy asked as the tomes piled up.

"Oh, yes," said Willow. "It’s definitely a vengeance demon. Tara was able to confirm that when she used the crystals on your aura. Don’t know who made the wish or what the purpose of it is. The way vengeance demons play games, this might not have been intentional."

Tara nodded. "We’re looking for a spell that will allow us to contact D’Hoffryn in Arashmahar. He’s their boss and might be able to tell us the implications of the spell and how to reverse it."

"I used to have a talisman," said Willow, "but I lost it. Otherwise, we could have just given him a chant."

"Oh," said Buffy blankly. "Why don’t you ask Anya?"

All three of them shared an odd glance.

"Um, she isn’t available right now," said Willow. "Sun’s gone down. You must be bored here, Buffy. Why don’t you and Spike go on patrol?"

And stop asking questions. Something else that might disturb the timeline if she knew about it. All four of them, Buffy included, were trying to be as sensitive as they could to any possibility of that and even the most innocuous conversation had its dangers. Taking out vamps looked like it would be a nice, simple occupation without potential minefields.

"Sure," she said, with relief. She had never been any good at research and she was bored.

It was strange to have Spike right beside her as she took her usual route through Sunnydale’s various cemeteries. She was accustomed to just feeling him pace her at the furtherest extent of her senses.

"Why were you always stalking me on patrol?" she asked abruptly.

"Wasn’t stalking. Was just watching your back." He didn’t look at her, just kept scanning the area around them. They were both avoiding each other’s eyes, ever since he had found out she wasn’t his Buffy. Worse, he had been strenuously avoiding touching her even in the slightest.

"Thought I couldn’t handle things?" she snarked, obscurely hurt by that avoidance. She didn’t know why it should hurt, but it did. She felt as if he were making comparisons between her and the other Buffy, and that she came out the loser.

"Everyone can use backup."

He had been trying to help. She had never let herself admit that possibility before, flatly denied it whenever the thought came up. Now she couldn’t turn that convenient blind eye.

He glanced at her briefly, glanced away again. "No one’s invulnerable, Slayer."

Slayer. He had started calling her that again, as if to differentiate between her and his Buffy, to keep that distance between them. She didn’t know about him, but she certainly needed that distance. She wanted him. Now she knew what sex with him would be like and, God! she wanted more. She was so aware of him now that if she closed her eyes even for a second, she would find herself remembering the feel of his skin against hers, the taste of his mouth...And that was bad. That was wrong. Those were forbidden, shameful thoughts.

But they weren’t forbidden to this world’s Buffy. That Buffy seemed perfectly happy with the way things were. And the heavens didn’t come crashing down because a Vampire Slayer and a vampire were lovers. It wasn’t wrong for that Buffy. And even the Scoobies didn’t seem to have any problems with her relationship with Spike.

"Do you have a soul?" she asked suddenly. That would explain a lot, both about Buffy and about the Scoobies.

"Pfft." It was a disdainful expulsion of breath. "No, I don’t have a soul. Don’t need one, do I? I’ve got her. All I need. Don’t have a chip no more either. And I still don’t go around killing people. Because she wouldn’t like it. Soul?" He made a contemptuous gesture. "That’s Angel talking. He’s the one got all of you so freaked out about the soul. He couldn’t control his demon without it. Me? My demon and I get along just fine. Don’t need a soul to keep it in line."

That opened up a whole new vista of ideas. She walked along, pondering it.

A vamp turned up in the shadows and she dusted it. Spike just leaned against a monument, calmly smoking while she worked, then fell into step beside her as she moved on.

He was always on her left. Even if she accidentally took that side, he’d jink around her and position himself determinedly on her left. It was completely unthinking; he wasn’t even aware of doing it. Once she became aware of his actions, she started studying that reflex curiously. When they hit their first gang of vamps, she realized exactly why he kept taking that side.

He stayed to her left because he was left-handed and she right. It was a fighting arrangement that meant they could easily reach and clear a circle some twelve feet across and not get in each other’s way. She found herself modifying her fighting style to allow for him, and he moved smoothly and exactly in step with her. Knowing that arc to be covered allowed her to extend her own effective arc several feet further and to the rear. Any weapons that they might have would extend the arc even further. It was an extemely effective combat technique and increased their fighting capacity exponentially; it wasn’t just that there were two of them now, it was the two of them squared. The vamps had no chance, even though there were more than ten of them. In less than two minutes, they were all dusted.

She found herself laughing. It was intoxicating to have someone beside her who was exactly her equal, who could match and synchronize with her every move. She had never had that sense of partnership before, not even with Angel, who would tell her of a threat, but never actually fight the fight with her. And Riley, with all his drug-enhanced abilities, had never been her match. This was like a dance, everything smooth, perfect, so completely in sync it could have been set to music.

She had had to modify her fighting style. He had not. She saw that he and the other Buffy had done this so often that it was completely automatic; they fitted together like hand in glove. To be able to rely on someone so completely...She had never had that before and now she saw what it could be like, this kind of partnership, and she found herself envying it.

Spike whirled towards her, his eyes vivid with laughter and his arms automatically coming out to catch her up. Then he remembered who she was and backed away abruptly, the light going out of his eyes. Somewhere deep down, it hurt her, that recoil. They had slept together, but now he wouldn’t even touch her.

"I’m the same person, you know," she said in involuntary protest, then flushed hotly, realizing how much she had given away.

"It’s not the same," he said, responding to what she had really said. He made a little, helpless gesture. "Look," he said. "Look. When we made love...I made love to you. You didn’t make love to me."

"I certainly..."

"I felt it at the time, but was too caught up in the moment to understand what felt wrong. You put your hands on my shoulders and let me make love to you. You accepted it. You didn’t make love back. Didn’t touch me, kiss me, take me."

It was true. She had been so shocked that she had accepted, not really responded. It had been sex to her, great sex, but not love. Desire, not...

"My Buffy..." He swallowed hard. "My Buffy loves me."

He turned away and she felt the rebuke in both his tone and his body language. The distinction he made between the two of them was both delicate and profound. She understood suddenly how deeply he felt, by this ‘accept no substitutes’ attitude, and was both chastened and humbled by it.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m sorry I’m not her."

"She’ll be back." He gave her a wry smile over his shoulder. "Nothing stops you when you really want something."

She gave a breath of a laugh, not meeting his eyes. "Hope not."

He put out a hand suddenly, not touching her, but bringing her to a halt just by the motion.

"Would you do me one favor?"

"What?"

"When you get back..."

"If," she muttered.

"When," he said flatly, then looked awkwardly down at the ground. "Just...just be a little easier on him. I don’t mean that you have to...to...Just don’t be quite so hard on him. Just don’t hurt him quite so much. He’s kind of a little fragile right now."

She looked at him, alarmed. "You don’t mean that..."

"There were times in that year," he said almost under his breath, not looking at her, "that I almost went out to watch the sun rise."

She was silent for a long time.

"I’m sorry," she said finally. "I’m so sorry."

"Tell him that."

They were almost at the Magic Box. She ducked her head, not looking at him, and hurried forward to open the door before he could do it for her. She did not want him to continue to demonstrate the care he had for her. He had given her too many examples of that already and what she needed now was time to process all these strange, new thoughts and sensations that he was bringing to the fore in her.

They walked into the Magic Box to find Tara and Willow sitting in the center of a circle of candles, the tomes they had been perusing discarded. None of the candles were lit, but their blackened wicks and the faint, pleasant scent of burnt wax that remained in the air suggested that they had been blown out just moments ago. Both Willow and Tara looked exhausted.

"What’s happened?" Buffy demanded at once.

Willow took a deep breath. "We managed to contact D’Hoffryn."

Spike moved forward sharply. "And?"

"We’ve kinda got both good news and bad. Which would you like first?"

"The bad," said Buffy firmly.

"Bad news is that he refuses to interfere with any decision his people make. He says that they’re the ones in the field and they know what’s really going on and he refuses to second-guess them."

"Isn’t that commendable," said Spike in the driest of voices.

Willow raised a reassuring hand. "The good news is that he says the spell’s almost over anyway."

Buffy fell into a chair. "It is?"

"He says don’t make a fuss and try to hurry things along. There’s no point. It won’t be too much longer. The two of you should be switching back any time now."

"Oh, thank God!" Buffy blurted.

"That means that whatever the spell was supposed to do is actually happening or will be happening," said Spike shrewdly. "Did he say what the spell was supposed to accomplish?"

Willow shook her head. "He said it’s none of our business. It’s up to Buffy to figure that out. If she wants to."

Buffy’s brows shot up. "If?"

"He said it’s not hurting anything and might even do some good, so what’s the big deal? Just go with the flow."

"Wonderful," Buffy sighed. "When do vengeance demons cast spells for good purposes?"

"Actually, they can," said Tara. "D’Hoffryn didn’t seem too pleased with what was going on, so that suggests to me that for once the spell really was intended for good."

"My curiosity is never going to let me rest until I find out exactly what it is," said Buffy honestly. "My experience with spells hasn’t been of the good. I won’t be able to relax until I know exactly what this one entails."

***

"Can’t think of any spell that’s had better ramifications for me," Spike sighed and Buffy laughed down at him.

"All the sex you’ve ever wanted, huh?" She pushed him flat on his back and swung a leg across to straddle him.

He lay still under her, letting her do what she wanted, his hands open on either side of his head and his eyes soft with contentment. "I know it’s tough on you, being out of your time and all. But, God, baby, having you like this, I think I’m in heaven."

She touched his face tenderly, ran her palms lightly down the lovely, hard planes of his torso, kneaded his stomach muscles until they quivered under her hands. "Not just the sex, then."

His breath hitched in his throat and his eyes were vulnerable as he looked up at her. "You know it’s not."

She bent forward and kissed him softly. "I know. I love you, Spike."

His eyes blazed. "God. I love you. So much. My heart...it’s so full, it hurts. Feels like it’s going to burst, I’m so happy."

"Let’s see if I can make you even happier."

"What...Ohhh!" he groaned as she took him into her, sliding down upon him until he was completely sheathed in her tight core.

"Don’t move." She interlocked her fingers with his and held his hands still on either side of his head. "I’m gonna drive now. You just lie there. Gonna ride you, baby."

"Till my knees buckle and I pop like warm champagne?"

"Huh?"

"Said that to me once. Sssss." He hissed as she clenched her inner muscles on his hardening cock. "What are you doing?"

She wasn’t moving her hips, was sitting perfectly still on him, her eyes narrow with concentration and her lips smiling. But her inner muscles had started a ripple effect, tightening along his length from tip to base, releasing, then tightening again. He was so thick within her, stretched her so completely, that every squeeze was felt and intensified for both of them.

"Oh, God, Buffy! Who taught you that?"

"We’ve done a lot of experimentation over the years, you and me," she murmured. "You’re a good teacher, you are. But I’m a quick learner. Like to branch out on my own sometimes. This? This is original sin. Like it?"

"Oh, yeah..." His voice died away as his eyes glazed over.

She smiled down at him. He was lying perfectly still in a blissful haze, his lips parted, his hands clenching and unclenching on hers, and his tongue curling in lazy repetitions behind his teeth. He looked absolutely euphoric. She loved giving him pleasure, loved seeing him like this, so lost in her and the sensations she gave him.

After several minutes, the sensation got too much for him and he couldn’t lie still anymore. His hips started to quiver under her, then lifted helplessly off the bed as he strained to get deeper into her.

"Almost there? Hold off a little longer." She kissed his open mouth where the breath was starting to shudder and hitch. His lips moved soundlessly, incapable of speech, and his eyes looked at her in wonder. "Wanna try one more thing."

"Mmm." It was an inarticulate sound deep in his throat.

She raised herself till only the head of his cock remained in her, clenched all her inner muscles till her sheath was closed tight, then bore down on him. The movement forced his cock to have to pry her flesh apart to enter her.

"Oh, Christ!"

"Like it?"

"Jesus!"

His hands tore free from her grip and clenched bruisingly hard on her hips, pulling her down hard on him as he thrust up into her. She laughed and repeated the movement over and over again.

"Can do different speeds too."

She rode him faster and faster till his throat arched back and his hips bucked helplessly against her, the two of them slamming into each other, losing track of everything but sensation. She felt his cock pulse within her just as her own orgasm hit with stunning force. She fell forever, fireworks going off in her brain.

She came back to herself to find him holding her fiercely tight and whispering love words into her hair.

"You’re incredible," he said and she laughed breathlessly against his collarbone.

"Love you."

"Oh, Buffy!" His face pressed hard against hers. "I don’t know how I can stand having to lose this."

"You won’t lose it. You’ll have it. It’ll just take a little time."

His breath shook against her skin. "No. No. You’ll go and everything will be back the way it was and all of this will seem just some mad hallucination I dreamed up just because I wanted it so much."

She stroked his face, his hair, kissed his mouth again and again. "But it’s not a dream. Feel me. Taste me. See?"

"I won’t be able to believe it once you’re gone," he said desolately.

She held him as tightly as she could, their cheekbones pressing painfully together. "Don’t dust. God, don’t dust. If you dust here, I won’t have you with me there."

"You won’t know. You won’t care."

She looked at him with terror. "Spike. You don’t understand. The next few years are going to be so hard. I need you with me. I need you. If you’re not there, I don’t think I can get through them."

He frowned, puzzled. "Sure you can. You’re the Slayer. You..."

"You told me once that all Slayers have a death wish." She saw understanding start to dawn on his face. "Certainly they have a short expiration date. Because they don’t have anything to live for except duty and obligations. Even family and friends can only take one so far. Loneliness..."

"She doesn’t want me."

"She will. She will. Believe that."

"I believe it when you say it." His lips tightened. "I don’t know how long I can continue to believe it when you’re not here."

She could see what he meant--how this could all seem a dream, a fabrication, once she was gone. He needed something tangible and yet the whole thing, all of this, was so intangible...

She sat up suddenly, looking down at her hands, at the rings on her fingers. The one on her middle finger had an unusual design: three strands of plain-gold, red-gold and white-gold braided together. She took it off and held it out to him.

"Will this fit on your finger?"

His brows rose. Then he took it from her and tried it on. It fit on his pinky. It looked strange on his big hand next to the silver rings that he was already wearing, very light and feminine beside those heavier, more masculine ones.

"See? Plain enough for you to wear, but still a woman’s ring. Not something you’d get for yourself. Something you were given. Is that tangible enough, do you think? For you to remember that this really happened?"

He rubbed at the ring with the ball of his thumb, pressing it into his flesh, then looked up at her and smiled. "That’s tangible enough."

She took his face in her hands and kissed him. "I couldn’t bear to lose you, Spike. Couldn’t bear to lose the love, the partnership, everything that we have. And we have so much. Don’t let it go. I can’t make it without you. I love you. Believe that. I, Buffy Summers, 2010 or not, love you. Believe it."

"I believe it," he said and crushed her to him so tightly that she felt their bones would fuse together.



TBC

Chapter 5

It was happening again, except in reverse. One moment she was crossing the livingroom of Revello Drive; the next, she was standing in Spike’s crypt. This time, it took only a second for her to orient herself and realize that she was back in her own time.

She staggered and leaned against a sarcophagus for balance. Some yards away, Spike was bending to look into the small fridge in his little kitchen corner. All he was wearing were his black jeans and the muscles of his naked back flexed beautifully in the light of the candles burning all around the crypt. The Spike of her time was just as gorgeous as the Spike of 2010, Buffy had to admit.

"What would you like?" he was saying. "I’ve got water and juice and even some cola."

"I thought you only drink blood and beer," she said, partly in surprise and partly to buy time to get her breath back from the transition.

"Yeah, but you don’t. Thought you might like something if you ever dropped by and..." He broke off abruptly as he turned and saw her. His eyes widened, the blue darkening to black as his pupils dilated. "Buffy?"

"Yes."

"This time’s Buffy." His voice went flat.

"Gee, how’d you guess?" she said sarcastically. "The other me must surely have been wearing different clothes."

He nodded automatically, then suddenly whirled and faced away from her so that his back was to her. She frowned at him, perplexed. He was leaning heavily on one arm on the fridge, his head down. All she could see was his back and just the edge of his profile. His jaw was clenched tight and the cords of his neck were standing out in strain. A muscle jumped in his cheek, again and again.

"What’s wrong?" she asked involuntarily. If she had seen this reaction on 2010's Spike, she would have thought that he was in pain.

"Nothing." His voice sounded oddly choked. Then he turned his head to look at her. "Why do you care?"

"I...don’t." She looked awkwardly away around the crypt. "Why was she here? The other Buffy, I mean."

There was a small pause. She looked back at him, puzzled. He straightened up and turned, his face completely impassive now.

"Came to ask whether I wanted to go on patrol."

"Oh. You’ve been patrolling together then."

"Yes."

He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was off in the distance somewhere and his face was like a mask of stone, totally expressionless. It made her feel uncomfortable. It seemed so wrong somehow, used as she was to 2010's Spike with all his emotions vivid on his face. She remembered when this Spike first came to Sunnydale, all bounce and vitality, mocking, smirking, laughing, leering. His emotions had been out in the open then. What had happened to change him to this quiet, withdrawn man? Is that what she did to people?

She heard her own voice, scathing and contemptuous, constantly insulting him, rejecting him, beating him down. She winced.

"What...what’s been happening while I’ve been gone?" she asked hurriedly to avoid her own thoughts.

"Nothing much. Took out a few vamps."

"With the other Buffy."

"Yes."

"I did too. With the other Spike."

That made his gaze finally come to hers, narrowing a little in curiosity. "What’s he like?" Then, as she floundered, searching for words, he said under his breath, "Happy."

"Why do you say that?"

"She was."

She suddenly realized that he knew what those two were to each other. The other Buffy must have told him. She flushed hotly and panicked, not wanting to think about that. She needed to get out of here.

"I’ve got to go. Got to find the Scoobies..."

"They’re probably at the Magic Box, trying to figure out a way around whatever spell it is. Was, I guess we should say now."

"Yeah, I got to tell them they don’t have to bother with that any longer."

She hurried to the door, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to get out. She glanced back as she pulled the door open, fearful that she might find him at her heels as he usually was. But he hadn’t moved. He was still standing by the fridge, looking down at his left hand, his thumb worrying at a ring on his little finger.

It was strange. He was strange. But she didn’t want to think about that now. She just wanted everything to get back to normal.

Willow and Tara were at the Magic Shop, poring over books when she arrived. The tinkle of the bell over the shop’s door made them look around and brought Anya out of the back room.

"Hey, Buffy," Willow smiled before turning back to the book she had open in front of her. Tara waved.

The bell tinkled again as Xander came in with a box of donuts. He nodded to Buffy awkwardly as he stepped past her in silence without his usual effusive greeting.

"Something wrong, Xander?" she asked, startled

"He’s been sulking ever since you pushed him around," Anya shrugged. "It’s certainly put a dent in our love life."

"I pushed him around?"

Anya stared at her, then gasped. "You’re back! Hey, everybody, she’s back! It’s our Buffy!"

They all fell on her at once, shouting.

"Whoa, whoa!" Buffy exclaimed after being hugged nearly to death. "Let me get my breath back." She slumped into a chair. "Boy, is it ever good to be home!"

"Didn’t like it in the future then?" Willow asked.

"Oh, no, things were great. It’s just that everything was so strange. Not in a bad way. Just different."

"Were we there? Were we the ones who found out how to reverse the spell?"

"Oh, yeah, you were there, Willow. But no one reversed the spell. Apparently, it just ran its course and ended. Did you guys have any luck finding out what it was supposed to do?"

Everybody shook their heads.

"Oh, well," she sighed. "I guess it doesn’t matter any more."

"Can you tell us anything about the future?" Xander asked and all the girls groaned. "What? I’m not allowed to be curious?"

"If the other Buffy wouldn’t tell you," said Anya, "why do you think this one will?"

"Because she’s our best bud?" said Xander hopefully.

"Timeline," said Buffy simply and Xander sighed. But everybody else nodded approvingly. "So what was the other Buffy like?"

"Scary!" Xander shook his head eloquently. "What made you get so scary, Buff?"

"A couple of apocalypses, apparently."

"She wasn’t scary," said Tara. "She just wouldn’t take any shit from anyone, that’s all."

"She pushed Xander around, it seems." Buffy raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

"He wanted to stake Spike," Tara explained.

"That would do it."

Xander stared at her. "You mean, you go along with the no staking of Spike?"

"Have to, Xand. If it wasn’t for him, a lot of bad things would happen."

Willow shivered. "She told us something about that."

"What is he to her?" Xander demanded angrily.

"He’s her..." Buffy stopped abruptly before saying ‘mate’, realizing that Xander would just not be able to handle that concept. "Right-hand man. They patrol together, work together. They make a great team. I found that out when I went patrolling with him. We’re really effective together."

Xander banged his head on the table. "Oh, God, not you too. Tell me you’re not considering..."

"I am. I really am. If you’ve got this really great resource, it’s a shame not to utilize it. Oh! And Willow? When you’re researching things, you might call Spike in."

"Spike?" Willow’s jaw dropped.

"Think about it. He’s over a century old and you know what a sponge he is at picking things up. There’s a whack of stuff in his head that we’ve never suspected. Plus, who better to ask about demons than a demon? He knows all sorts of demon languages, reads Latin and Greek and stuff better than Giles..."

"Giles!" Xander interjected desperately. "What would Giles think about getting all best buds with Spike?"

"Well, I don’t know about this Giles. But future Giles is all for it. And talking about best buds? That’s what you and Spike are in the future."

"Nooo!" Xander banged his head on the table again "Don’t say it!"

"Saw it," said Buffy simply.

"I may kill myself."

"Oh, stop overdramatizing, Xander," said Anya without sympathy. "I’ve never really understood why you’re so freaked out about Spike."

"He’s a killer! He’s evil!"

"He hasn’t killed anyone for ages," Anya shrugged. "And as for evil, he seems about as evil as I am nowadays. Though he’d probably stake himself if you even suggested that to him, he’s so proud about being the Big Bad and all."

"He’s not even the Somewhat Bad these days," Tara murmured with a grin.

Buffy was looking at Anya with interest. "Were you evil, Anya?"

"I don’t really know what that means,"Anya said honestly. "Demons don’t, you know. I’m human now and I’ve got a soul, so now one would think that I’d know. But I still don’t. Maybe I am still evil. How does one tell? Only, I haven’t done anything bad that I know of. Doesn’t that make me good?"

"The other Buffy said that it’s what you do with a soul that counts," Tara said softly. "Anya hasn’t hurt anybody recently. So one can say she’s not evil any more. But then Spike hasn’t hurt anybody either. So what does that say about Spike?"

"But he could!" yelled Xander.

Tara’s brows rose. "Anybody could. Soul or no soul. It’s whether they do that counts."

"If the chip were out..."

"Chip’s out in the future, Xander," Buffy said slowly.

"What!"

"It malfunctioned and future Buffy had it taken out. And he still doesn’t hurt anyone."

"We haven’t really been fair to Spike, have we?" said Willow thoughtfully.

Buffy looked around at all of them. Willow looked like she was definitely reconsidering her position. Anya had never cared one way or the other, but as an ex-demon had always had a certain fellow-feeling towards Spike. Tara, whom Buffy didn’t know too well, but who read auras and whose instinct Buffy trusted, was all for him. Even Xander seemed to be weakening.

"He’s done a lot for us this last year," Tara said. "And we haven’t given him any credit for it."

Buffy flushed. He had done a lot. Saving Dawn, fighting demons...

Willow snapped her fingers suddenly. "That’s what I was trying to remember! Last year, Giles said something about the chip possibly being a means for Spike to achieve redemption. That was soon after Spike got the chip and he was resenting it pretty strongly then, so when Giles said that to him, he got mad and just blew it off. But, y’know, he’s been trying. He tries to do the right thing and it’s not like he knows how, I mean, it’s not something that comes naturally to him, but he still tries. And...and we shouldn’t be stepping on him the way we do, pushing him back down into the dark. I mean, we’re supposed to be good people. We should be helping him come out into the light."

Buffy flushed even harder. She had been the one doing most of the ‘stepping on’-- pushing him away, insulting him, kicking him down every chance that she got. Because she wanted him, but hadn’t wanted to admit that to herself. Because he was hot and sexy and turned her on, but she was living on that river in Egypt, as she always did, and didn’t want to see it. Easier to focus on the other things—evil, bad, soulless—all refuted now by the Scoobies themselves.

"He could be so much more," Tara said very softly beside her.

Buffy had seen for herself what he could be. Lover, friend, partner, champion. She had seen how good it could be between them. To throw all that away, all that love and caring and passion and tenderness, which was what she had always wanted but never received from Angel and Parker and Riley. To turn her back on that...

Tara knew. Buffy could see that in her eyes. She didn’t know whether the other Buffy had told her or whether she had just guessed. But it was clear that Tara didn’t condemn her; Tara was all for it and would convince Willow. Anya didn’t care. Dawn adored Spike, whom she thought was coolness personified, and would be entirely jubilant about any relationship between her sister and him. Xander was the rub, but, if the future was anything to go by, even he would reluctantly come around, as long as she didn’t get his back up by rubbing his nose in it too soon.

So that left just her. And whether she had the courage to do this. She had always been a coward where relationships were concerned. But one thing was certain: there would be no abandonment issues here, not with a Spike who had stood by an insane Drusilla for over a hundred years until she had dumped him, not when the future had been shown to her with a clarity that was simply impossible to deny.

"A lot of re-thinking to be done," she said. Xander was sulking, but all the others nodded.

***

It was not so easy to change one’s modus operandi as Buffy had thought it would be. It was one thing to know that one was wrong and should change, and quite another to figure out how to go about it. She thought of the way Spike had changed. It had taken him nearly two years—first fighting it both visibly and vocally: "Can't any one of your damned little Scooby club at least try to remember that I hate you all?" Then helping Adam against them by setting them at each other’s throats, and finally coming back to their side when he realized that Adam wouldn’t help him get his chip out. Then helping on patrol because demons were the only thing he could fight and he loved fighting. Then helping against Glory because...because of her she realized now.

Okay, when exactly had he changed towards her—because that was the real change, the major change. She tried to think. Little piles of cigarette butts behind the oak tree in her yard. What had that been about? Had he been stalking her or—things were starting to reshape in her mind— or watching over her? Future Spike’s words when she asked him about stalking her on patrol: ‘Just watching your back.’ The look on his face when he had tried to kiss her in the alley behind the Bronze after their evening discussing his past: ‘You know you wanna dance.’ She had been so horrified, yet there had been that heat between them, the heat that she had not wanted to acknowledge.

And she had said, wanting to hurt him for making her feel that way, "Say it's true, say I do want to..."

And that look on his face when she said that, that look of absolute vulnerability and terrible hope.

And then the devastation when she had finished cruelly, "But it wouldn’t be you, Spike. It would never be you. You’re beneath me," and shoved him away, down onto the ground.

She had hurt him, she saw that now, really badly because he had laid himself completely open to her. And even then, in her back yard that night, he had still wanted to help: ‘Is there something I can do?’

God, she’d been such a bitch! So what could she do now, go up to him and say, ‘Hey, you turn me on. Always have. Wanna shag?" Yeah, right, like that would fix things, even if she had the courage to do it. What had Future Spike said? ‘Just be a little easier on him...don’t be so hard on him.’ Baby steps. Right. She could do that. She was still trying to come to terms with her own feelings, so baby steps were all she was capable of herself.

In the Magic Box that night, she found that Willow and Tara were still trying to figure out the spell.

"But why?" she asked. "It’s over now."

"Yes, but don’t you want to know what the wish was and who made it?" Willow said.

"You’re right. I do want to know that."

"We’ll keep working on it."

"I’m going to go patrol." She slid a stake into its sheath at the small of her back. "And I’m going to ask Spike if he’ll come with me."

Xander snapped bolt upright. "No!"

"I want to see whether we’ll make as good a team as we do in the future." She looked around at the rest of them. Tara was smiling, Willow looked thoughtful and Anya was indifferent.

"You don’t need him. You’ve got us."

"Like we’re such a big help," said Willow ruefully. "Face it, Xander. He’s way more useful to her than we are."

Buffy could feel Spike outside, waiting for her to start her patrol so that he could shadow her. She opened the door of the shop, leaned out and yelled into the darkness.

"Spike! Get in here!"

After a moment, he materialized out of the shadows, looking rueful and a little embarrassed.

"Yeah, Slayer. What do you want?"

"If you’re gonna trail me, you might as well be where I can see you."

"Who said I was gonna...?"

"I can tell when you’re there, you know. An irritating tingle on the edge of my awareness."

He hunched his shoulders a little, his gaze down and his face expressionless. Both of them were avoiding looking at each other.

"She may not need us," Xander said angrily. "But she doesn’t need him either!"

"Yes, I do," said Buffy. "I find that I like having a partner."

Spike’s head came up and he stared at her disbelievingly.

"Does it have to be him?" Xander yelled.

"Who else is my match?" Buffy said simply.

"Well, Deadboy here..."

"Shut up, Xander!" said all four women at once. Then all four grinned at each other.

"I thought we agreed that there would be no name-calling," said Buffy.

"That was Future Buffy." Xander was scowling. "How...?"

"I told her," said Tara smugly and shrugged a shoulder when Xander glared at her.

"And I go along with what the other Buffy said." Buffy frowned at both men sternly. "There’ll be no insults. From either of you."

Spike’s gaze was moving incredulously from one face to the other. He looked completely bewildered and taken aback. "Uh, sure, Slayer, but..."

"C’mon then."

"I’m going along as well," Xander insisted angrily. "I wanna see this."

Willow and Tara stood up also, but Anya shook her head, not wanting to close the shop.

"Okay," Buffy shrugged. "But stay out of our way. I want to see how the two of us work together."

The first cemetery yielded up one demon, the second another. Both times, Spike just leaned against a headstone and smoked, leaving Buffy to do the killing.

Xander looked at him with disgust. "Way to go, Evil D...Spike."

Spike shrugged indifferently. "Easy kills. Slayer wouldn’t like me spoiling her fun."

"Got that right." Buffy looked down at the last demon dissolving away into goo. "Easy cleanup too. Sweet. Pretty tame so far, though."

"Uh, no longer," said Willow, looking towards the cemetery gates.

"Oh, shit," said Xander, following her gaze. "That’s a pack."

"Yeah," Buffy nodded. "What do you think, Spike? Ten, maybe twelve vamps there?"

"Twelve. Willy said a couple of vamps were creating fledglings. Guess they decided to pool their resources."

"That’s too many, Buff," said Xander nervously. "We should come back tomorrow. See if we can track them down in the daytime."

"Hell, no. They might scatter tonight. We want them dusted, not just out of Sunnydale, eating people in some other town. What do you say, Spike?"

Spike was grinning like a shark. "We can take them. Toss me your stake, Glinda. I want an extra."

"The three of you stay out of sight," Buffy ordered as Tara handed Spike her stake. "No spells either, Willow. The two of us will handle it."

"There’s too many, Buffy!" Xander protested again in a desperate whisper.

"Pfft." Spike sneered at him. "Mostly fledglings. Piece of cake. But don’t play with them, Slayer. Just dust."

Buffy nodded, all business now. "I’ll take Big Ugly in the middle there, you take Ratface on the left, and then we’ll do cleanup."

"Right. Let’s do it."

They headed towards the unsuspecting vamp pack, two alpha predators running smoothly in step, hunting down their prey. Buffy had hunted with Future Spike, Spike with Future Buffy; they had both learned from the experience. They knew each other’s moves now and were almost perfectly in sync. The pack never knew what hit them. The two leaders were dusted before they even knew what was happening, then the fledglings desperately tried to fight the whirling dervishes that had suddenly appeared in the middle of their group.

It took about five minutes, if one counted the fledgling who tried to flee and whom Spike ran down like a wolf and dusted before he got even half a block away from the cemetery.

Spike came swaggering cockily back as the somewhat shell-shocked Scoobies crept out of hiding.

"Well, that was a bit of all right," he said with satisfaction. "I liked that move you did at the end there, Slayer. The underhand one. How did that go?"

Buffy grinned at him. "This one?" She demonstrated.

"Yeah." Spike copied the movement. "Neat. I can use that."

"I think they make a good team, don’t you?" said Tara and Willow grinned.

It was undeniable, though Xander of course glowered.

"So you get a partner," Xander muttered, "and you get used to having him around. And then he gets bored or decides being evil is more fun. Then where are you?"

"Same place I am right now, Xander."

"Oh, yeah? Remember when Angel took off on you. You were a wreck for months."

Buffy’s eyes flashed and Xander quailed. "I loved Angel. I don’t..."

"You don’t love Spike. Well, that’s one good thing, at least."

"Love has nothing to do with this. Why are you bringing that up?" Buffy made an irritated, slashing gesture of her hand. "You’re missing the point here. He’s not Angel. He’ll never be Angel."

"Got that right," said Spike harshly. But Buffy noticed that he had turned away and was staring off into the distance, his face grim and set.

"At least Angel had a soul," retorted Xander.

"And he’s way off in L.A.," shrugged Spike. "Fat lot of use that soul of his is to Buffy. I may not have a soul, but I’m here." He turned his head to look at Buffy. "I’ll always be here, Slayer. You might as well make use of me."

Buffy nodded. "I’ll make use of you."

Instead of looking pleased, his face tightened. He nodded abruptly and turned away, his lashes down so that she couldn’t see his eyes and the corner of his mouth twisted. Okay, what did I do wrong? she thought and glanced at the others. Willow and Xander were oblivious, but Tara was shaking her head slightly.

She suddenly realized how she had phrased that. She hadn’t meant to say it that way. She had just picked up on his sentence and only now realized how it must have sounded.

"I think we’ve done enough for one day, don’t you?" Tara murmured. "Why don’t we call it a night?"

Buffy nodded with relief. "Let’s. Tomorrow is another day."

That trite platitude was meant as a joke to ease the tension and everybody did smile weakly. Except Spike. He was looking down at his left hand, the ball of his thumb rubbing at a ring on his little finger.

"Why don’t you all head back to the Magic Box?" she said. "I’ll catch you up in a minute."

They nodded and began to move away, Xander looking suspiciously over his shoulder as he went.

Spike gave her an abrupt nod without looking at her and began to move away as well.

"Spike, wait."

He stopped, his face averted. "Yeah, Slayer?"

"I..." She didn’t know what to say. "That came out wrong."

"What did?"

"Dammit." He was definitely not going to help her here. "I’m trying to apologize and I’m not good at it. I didn’t mean to say that I was using you."

He gave her a brief, expressionless glance. "That’s what I’m here for, Slayer. You know it. I know it. Make use of me. I don’t mind."

"Spike..." She flung up her hands. "God! You get me so frustrated I could hit you!"

"Do me a favor and don’t hit the nose this time. I’m tired of having my nose broken whenever you’re in a bad mood."

"Dammit!" She hit a headstone with the flat of her hand. "I’m not making use of you!"

"If you say so, Slayer."

"Spike!"

She caught his sleeve as he turned away and yanked him back towards her. The movement pulled his left hand towards her and she found herself looking down at the ring on his little finger. It was a woman’s ring, three braided strands of variously colored gold.

His right hand flew to cover it, then stopped.

"She gave that to you, didn’t she?"

"Yes." He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking over the top of her head and there was no expression at all on his face.

"Why?"

He didn’t answer, just kept looking off into the distance. She was amazed to find a flash of intense jealousy strike her with painful force right in the heart. He was hers. That other Buffy had no right to touch him. She had her own Spike. Why did she have to mess with hers?

"You fucked her, didn’t you?" she accused.

He looked down at her and she saw something intense and painful flash through his eyes.

"No," he said. "We made love."

He pulled his sleeve away from her loosening grip and spun on his heel. She watched him stride swiftly away into the darkness and felt shame heat her face. It was the same rebuke that the other Spike had given her. ‘My Buffy loves me,’ he had said. ‘We made love,’ this Spike said. It was the same delicate and profound distinction. And it was the same Spike who made it.

"When will I ever learn?" she whispered.

***

"What was she like?" she asked Tara. "The other Buffy, I mean."

They were alone in the Magic Box. Anya was downstairs, storing away a new consignment, and the others hadn’t arrived yet.

Tara shrugged a little. "She was you."

"There must have been some variance. Sp...None of you seem to react to her the same way you react to me. Was she so different from me?"

Tara frowned thoughtfully into space. "She was sure of herself. It’s the kind of surety and confidence that comes with maturity. She’s older than you. You’ll get there pretty soon. Just takes time."

"That’s all it is? Confidence?"

"Confidence in who she is, what she stands for, what she wants. She knows what’s right for her and she doesn’t let anyone else’s opinions sway her. You should have seen her when Xander tried to give her a hard time about Spike. She just took him down." Tara giggled. "Hee. It was hilarious."

Buffy gave her a hard look. "You’re on her side about Spike."

"See, that’s the difference. Why does it matter to you what I think? Or anyone? She didn’t care what anybody else thought. The impression I got was that she simply asked herself: is this right for me as a Slayer and as a person? Then whatever answer she came up with, she stood by it."

Buffy was starting to understand where her other self was coming from.

"What was Spike to her?"

"Her exact words?" Tara’s eyes were serious. "‘My lover. My dearest and best friend. My everything.’"

Oh. Buffy scowled.

"She loves him. Why are you asking, Buffy?"

"She slept with him."

"Well, yeah..."

"Our Spike. She slept with him."

"Oh!" Tara’s eyes widened, then narrowed. "Why are you so upset?"

"He’s mine!"

The words were not even out of her mouth before she bolted to her feet, blushing wildly.

"Is he now?" said Tara. She was smiling.

"I didn’t mean...I...I..."

"Buffy, what do you feel for Spike?"

"I don’t know!"

"That’s the problem, isn’t it? Maybe you’d better find out."

"It...it doesn’t matter what I feel. She didn’t have the right! She’s got her own Spike. She didn’t have to take this one too!"

Tara’s brows were up as far as they would go. "She? There is no ‘she’, Buffy. She’s you."

Buffy’s mouth fell open, but no words came out. She could feel her face flaming bright red and her hands flashed up to try to cover her hot cheeks.

The door opened and Willow, Xander and Spike came in. Buffy whirled to face the table and pretended to be absorbed in some crystals there, to give herself time to get her equilibrium back and stop blushing.

"Anya’s downstairs," said Tara, apparently in response to some voiceless question that Xander made. He turned and went towards the stairs. Willow headed towards the bookshelves in search of some tome and Spike went to lean his back against the counter, his weight on his elbows bent back upon the glass top.

"Which cemetery did you want to start with tonight, Slayer?" he asked in a neutral tone.

She slanted him a glance from under her dropped eyelashes. He was carefully not looking at her. His eyelashes were down too and he was studying the floor.

"It’s pretty quiet," she said stiffly. "I don’t think I’ll need you tonight."

"Right," he said and she heard the relief in his voice. Neither of them wanted to be near each other after the awkwardness of their last meeting. "I’ll head on over to Willie’s then."

Anya came out of the door leading to the basement and gave him an irritated glare. "Spike, stop leaning on the counter. If you break the glass, I’ll make you pay for it."

He shrugged and pushed away from the counter. Buffy found herself watching the subtle movement of his hips thrusting forward as he did so. She suddenly had this vivid sensory memory of those hips against hers, his naked body upon her, in her, the scent of him, the feel of him thick and hard within her. Her thighs clenched together and her whole body grew hot.

Halfway to the door, Spike paused, his head whipping around. His eyes were narrowed and his face puzzled. Buffy scowled at him, biting her lip, and after a moment he shook his head, dismissing whatever he had apparently sensed in the air, and continued on to the door.

She gave him ten minutes to be well on his way to Willie’s before heading out herself to the first of the cemeteries she had chosen to patrol that night.

It was, as she had said, a quiet night, not even one lurking vampire to be seen. She slogged doggedly through cemetery after cemetery, finding every single one silent as the grave and as peaceful as their hopeful names implied. Two hours of absolute boredom later, she decided to call it a night and head on back home.

She was just passing the gates of the Shady Rest cemetery when something struck her and threw her with tremendous force against the concrete pillar to which the right gate was attached. She bounced off it and tumbled to the pavement, skinning her hands.

"Ow!"

A roar reverberated in the air, splitting the peaceful silence of the night. She looked up at a hulking shape eight feet tall, looking like a bunch of boulders thrown together and covered with a gray, warty skin.

"Boy, are you ugly!" She picked herself up and dusted herself off. "Anyone tell you the bigger they are, the harder they fall?"

It roared again. Two reddish-orange eyes glared at her from a lumpy, misshapen face. There was no intelligence in those eyes, just a ravenous hunger.

"No sentience," she muttered. "Just an animal. No point wasting any clever quips on this one, even if I could think of one."
She ducked as it swung at her. Four-inch black talons raked the air above her head. She danced away, considering her options. She only had a couple of stakes with her and, sharp as they were, she doubted whether they would penetrate that thick, gray hide and, even if they did, she didn’t think they’d prove more than a pinprick to something as bulky as this monster was. The Hulk was nothing to it. She needed a weapon and there was none. Knock it down? The massive feet were solidly planted on the pavement. Her slight weight wouldn’t even rock it.

She had to get around it, get up on its back somehow. She might be able to break its neck from that angle or drive her stake into the base of its skull. But it was fast for all its bulk, kept turning to face her despite every effort she made to maneuver around it.

She ducked as it slashed at her once again and its claws scraped across the concrete pillar behind her, with the sound of a thousand nails screeching down a blackboard. The nape of her neck shivered.

"And I say again: ow!" she muttered, and the thing itself shrieked and reared itself up in pain. "Oh, shit."

The other arm was swinging at her, talons glistening in the moonlight. She tried to fling herself away from the pillar, but it was moving too fast and she knew that this time it would connect.

Something black and silver flashed between her and the claws. She was knocked several feet away onto the pavement. She heard a grunt of pain, then the thud of a body hitting the ground and the clatter of something metallic striking the pavement. She rolled onto her hands and knees.

"Spike!"

"Chiriwan..." he gasped. "Willy told me...I’ve been looking for you...Talons poisonous..."

He did a complicated duck and weave, staggering oddly. The Chiriwan bellowed in outrage and she saw that Spike now had a death grip on both its forearms.

"The axe!" he yelled at her. "Cut off its head!"

She saw the axe lying on the pavement where he had dropped it when he had pushed her out of the way. She somersaulted to it, caught its handle in both her hands and came up swinging. Spike had the Chiriwan leaning forward as he dragged on its forearms, giving her a clear shot at its neck. She took it, chopping down with all her strength, the axe describing a silver wheel in the moonlight, from over her head straight through the Chiriwan’s neck. The head bounced on the pavement, the body collapsed with a thud, then to her astonishment the whole thing dusted, just like vamps dusted. Must be some sort of connection between the two kinds of demons.

"Way to go, Slayer," said Spike in a shaky whisper.

Then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed.

She caught him just in time, before his head smashed against the pavement. His weight dragged her to her knees.

"Spike!"

His head fell back like a rag doll’s against her arm. No breath, no pulse, no sign of life. The only thing that told her he still existed was the fact that he wasn’t dust.

"Spike, wake up!" She was terrified. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if...

She heaved him around awkwardly till she had him lying with his back against her and his head lolling in the curve of her shoulder. His duster had fallen open on either side of him. The T-shirt beneath was slashed into ribbons. She tried to pull it up and it tore open in her hand, revealing four great gashes across his chest. They were so deep that bone showed within the wounds.

"Oh, God, Spike," she whispered. She ripped the T-shirt the rest of the way off him and wadded it up against his chest, trying to stop the bleeding.

He had taken the blow for her. Using the axe would have kept him out of range of the Chiriwan’s claws. But he had had no time to use the axe. ‘Talons are poisonous,’ he had said. Even a scratch would have killed her. And so he had knocked her away and taken the slash of those claws himself.

"Spike! Spike, wake up!"

The hand lying limp on the pavement twitched. She shook at him desperately.

"Spike, are those claws poisonous to vamps as well as humans?"

His eyes opened just a tiny slit. She shook at him again.

"Don’t..." he protested weakly, still struggling back to consciousness. She shouted the question at him one more time. "What? No...Not to vamps...Immune..."

"Oh, thank God," she sighed in relief. He was still badly hurt, but at least she wouldn’t have to try desperately to find an antidote in time.

He was trying to sit up, but only succeeded in turning sideways before sagging back against her, his face in the curve of her shoulder.

"Hurts..."

She held him gently, one arm across his back, the other around his neck.

"Yes. Just rest, okay? Then we’ll try to get you fixed up."

"‘K."

She could feel his lashes fluttering against her skin. Then his head turned on her shoulder. She looked down to see him blinking at her in astonishment.

"Slayer," he said, identifying her with surprise.

"That’s me. Think you can sit up? I want to do something about that bleeding."

"Bleeding will stop soon...Not dust...Will heal." He turned his face back into her shoulder. "Give me a minute."

She rubbed his back reassuringly. "Take your time."

She realized that she liked holding him, the weight of him in her arms, the scent of him, the softness of his hair against her cheek. She was almost sorry when the sudden tension of his body told her that he had all his faculties back and was finally fully aware of where he was. He sighed into her shoulder, a deep, regretful sigh, then drew back. She found herself releasing him only with reluctance.

"Sorry," he said.

"It’s okay. Let me check that bleeding." She eased the wadded T-shirt away and saw with relief that the bleeding had almost stopped. "Do you think you can stand? I’d like to get you home where we can take care of those slashes."

"My crypt. ‘S closer."

"Okay."

She stood up, got his arm across her shoulders and her arms around his waist, then braced him as he heaved himself to his feet. His legs slid out from under him though when he tried to take a step. He leaned against her, hunched over in pain, trying to stay upright and to keep his knees from folding.

"If you want to wait here, I could go get the car," she suggested.

"No. Restfield’s not that far. I’ll be okay in a few minutes." He leaned back against the gate pillar, breathing deeply, his eyes closed. After a little while, he straightened. "Right. Let’s try again."

This time his legs were steady and he could walk, though he still bent over in pain. The gashes had gone deep. It took them twice as long to get to his crypt than it normally would have. Once there, he collapsed gratefully into his worn green armchair.

"Right then. I can take it from here."

"No," Buffy said flatly. "You need to be fixed up and you can’t do it alone. Do you have any bandages?"

"Box on top of the fridge. Slayer..."

"Shut up, Spike."

He gave a little breath of a laugh. "Ah, there’s my Slayer. Wondered where you’d got to."

"Don’t look a gift horse." She opened the first aid box and frowned at the contents. "You really should have stitches."

"Vampire healing is fast. Stitches can get healed over, then they’re a bitch to get out. Really hurts. Know that from experience. Just slap something over it to hold the edges in place so that the cuts close up properly."

"Okay. But let me clean them first."

"Don’t have to. Vamps..."

"Spike, are you going to fight me every step of the way on this?"

He grinned crookedly. "Probably."

But he fell silent and let her do what she wanted after that. She cleaned his wounds, put butterfly bandages over them to keep the edges together, and finished up by taping gauze over the whole area. She was very aware of his gaze on her face the whole time she worked. She was careful not to meet his eyes because she didn’t want him seeing what she felt. She wasn’t sure herself exactly what she felt.

"Do you realize that if those claws had gone even a little deeper, they might have scooped out your heart? Then where would you have been?"

"Dust," he said simply and shrugged.

This time she knew what she was feeling and it was terror. She just didn’t want to face the reason for it.

"Don’t you care?" she said furiously and he tipped his head onto the back of the armchair, his eyes closed.

"Worth it," he said so softly that, if it wasn’t for her Slayer hearing, she would have missed it. Then, in a louder voice, he said, "Painkillers in the box. Could I have a couple?"

She handed them to him, passed him a glass of water, then studied him as he drank. He was paler than she had ever seen him, bled nearly white as paper.

"You need blood." He had lost too much.

"Fridge."

There was only pig’s blood in the fridge. Those gashes were deep and he would be a long time healing even if it had been human blood there. What he needed was...

She sat down on the arm of his chair. He looked up at her in surprise. His eyes were glazed over with pain and blood loss, and he had to squint to keep her in focus.

She held out her left wrist to him. "Drink."

He recoiled so violently that he gasped involuntarily with pain when the movement jarred his wounds. "No!"

"Don’t want to bite? Okay, I’ll put it in a mug."

"Don’t want to drink your blood!"

"Don’t be silly. Slayer blood. It’ll help you heal."

"I won’t drink your blood!"

"If you don’t, I’ll knock you out and pour it down your throat," she said with determination. "You’re so weak right now, I could do it easy."

He looked at her helplessly. "Slayer. Why are you doing this?"

"Owe you."

"You don’t owe me anything!" he said furiously.

She touched the gauze on his chest very lightly. "There’s a kind of balance to everything. You took this for me. My blood will fix it. It seems right."

"Slayer..."

"You’ve a knife in your boot. Shall I cut my wrist?"

"No," he said very low, in defeat. "Give me your hand."

He went into full gameface, looking her right in the eye, deliberately trying to make her recoil in disgust, make her change her mind. Every Slayer instinct in her body shouted Vampire! and demanded that she go into either fight or flight mode. She shoved those instincts down and held out her hand calmly. The yellow eyes, the ridges, that whole, dangerous, deadly, predator’s face neither frightened nor disgusted her. It was simply another aspect of Spike. And there was a beauty to it, like the face of a lion or a wolf. She too was a predator, after all. Unlike other humans, a Slayer is not prey. The balance was there. They were matched, just like when they fought. Something in her recognized that now.

She had expected it to hurt when he bit her. But his fangs slid into the vein at her wrist with such exquisite delicacy that she hardly felt it at all. And then, when he began to drink, another sensation took over, a voluptuous sensuality, a languorous pleasure thrilling through her body. She leaned against his shoulder, her free hand settling lightly on the back of his neck. She could see how this could become addictive, could understand Riley a little better now.

After a few minutes, he drew back and licked the puncture wounds on her wrist to close them.

"Was that enough?" she asked quietly.

"More than enough." He was looking up at her, his eyes awed, his hand holding her fingers against his lips. She saw the power of her blood moving in his eyes, in the color coming back into his face. He frowned in concern. "Are you okay? Did I take too much?"

"I’m fine."

His eyelids were drooping. He was falling asleep in the armchair, his body shutting down as it went into healing mode.

"Can you sleep in that armchair? Don’t you have a bed or something?"

"Rather not move for a while," he muttered, fighting sleep. "I’ll go downstairs later."

"You have a downstairs?"

He laughed a little. "Yeah, I do. Show you tomorrow."

"Okay."

His hand tightened on hers as she rose to go. "Slayer. Why?"

She looked down at him and saw that unguarded look of vulnerability and terrible hope in his eyes.

"Because you’re not beneath me, Spike."

His gaze followed her all the way to the door, incredulous and disbelieving.



TBC

Chapter 6

She went to his crypt the moment her last class of the afternoon was over the next day, eager to see how he was. The crypt was empty, the ancient TV set cold. She frowned. Surely he would not have healed that fast, to be able to go out already. Then she remembered what he had said about a downstairs. She went searching for it and found the trapdoor at the back of the crypt.

Yellow lamplight came up when she opened the trap. There was a ladder leading down. She went down a couple of rungs and ducked her head beneath the concrete of the ground floor to take a look around.

He had made it surprisingly cozy down there. There was a big bed, rich rugs, candles, books. Very lush and sensual.

‘Try not to think that, Buffy,’ she told herself and went the rest of the way down the ladder, then hesitantly over to the bed.

He was there, starfished on the bed, his arms and legs flung out, fast asleep. The half-kicked-off top sheet only covered one leg and his groin. He was clearly naked under it. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart started to race. God, he was beautiful! All sculptured muscle and silken skin. She wanted to run her hands all over him, wanted to feel him against her. She bit her lip hard, trying to keep herself from just plain jumping his bones.

The gauze was gone from his chest and so were the butterfly bandages. She saw them lying a few feet from the bed where he had obviously thrown them after ripping them off. She leaned over him, peering at his chest. With surprise, she saw that the only evidence of the gashes he had suffered were four thin white lines, and even those were starting to fade.

Slayer blood and vampire healing. She smiled in triumph, tracing the lines with her fingertips a couple of inches from his flesh. She didn’t dare actually touch him. If she touched him with even a fingertip, she wouldn’t be able to stop touching him.

She looked down again at all that gorgeous male nakedness, then summoned up all her willpower and turned away.

Then gasped as his hand whipped out and caught her wrist.

"See anything you like?"

"Spike! God, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

He smiled up at her, his eyes amused and very blue. "It’s starting to become a recurring fantasy of mine, waking up naked and finding you beside my bed."

"I...I just came to see how you were."

He brushed his free hand across the scars. "All healed up. Powerful stuff, Slayer’s blood."

"You took the bandages off."

"Didn’t need them and the cuts started to itch as they healed."

She reached out and daringly ran her fingertips delicately along the fading white lines, feeling his flesh cool and oh so tempting against her skin. "Does it hurt?"

"Not at all."

"Good."

She started to turn away, but his grip on her wrist pulled her back.

"Stay."

Her breath shook in her open mouth. "What?"

"Buffy. Stay." The blue of his eyes was darkening, growing intense. "You know you want to."

She did. She caught her breath in wretched indecision, knowing that if she took this step it would change everything, that they would never be able to go back to what they were. Her heart was racing in her chest, pounding so hard that it hurt. Then she realized that she didn’t want to go back to what they were.

He pulled at her wrist suddenly and she lost her balance and fell onto the bed beside him. He rolled over and his torso was over hers, all that cool, hard muscle pressing her down into the mattress.

"We could be so good together," he whispered. His lips brushed hers lightly, the barest touch, but making her intensely aware of the cavern of his open mouth. "I could make you feel so good. Let me show you."

She didn’t have to be shown. She knew he could. She felt the hard muscles of his chest against her breasts and her breath caught and her body heated under his. He wasn’t constraining her in any way. His hand had left her wrist and his weight was on his forearms on either side of her. She could push him away if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.

He bent his head and his open mouth brushed hers again, coaxing, and his tongue ran the line of her lips so smoothly, so sweetly, that her lips parted without a thought. And, oh God, the way he kissed, the long slides of that wicked, knowledgeable tongue against hers, taking possession of every corner of her mouth. No one kissed like Spike, so intensely, so urgently, with his whole body and his whole concentration, as if nothing in the world existed but her. He kissed her and kissed her, his mouth so eloquent with everything that he was feeling, his hands tangled in her hair, whispering endearments between kisses.

"Buffy," he whispered. "Let me make love to you."

"Yes..."

She had no breath, but she didn’t need breath. All she needed was his mouth twisting on hers and the taste of his tongue and the little sounds he was making in the back of his throat and the feel of his torso heavy upon hers. The world spun away. There was only him and the way he felt against her. All her senses focused on that lean body under her hands. She couldn’t even feel the bed beneath her; she was only aware of his skin silken under her stroking fingers, the sculptured muscles of his chest and ripped abs and strong arms vibrant against her. He was so fine, his body vibrating against hers, so vital and vivid.

"I love you," he was muttering almost beneath his breath, his words a vibration against her sensitized mouth, tender from his kisses. "God, I love you so much."

She was trembling in deep, helpless shudders. "I..."

He raised his head and looked down at her. His face was tense with passion, but there was a warmth and tenderness in his eyes that stopped her heart.

"Not there yet? Doesn’t matter. Do you want me, Buffy?"

"Yes," she whispered. "God, yes. I want you."

"The rest will come then. Don’t let it weigh on you. I can wait."

He would take anything that she chose to give him. If she chose to give him nothing, he would accept that too. She saw in him suddenly the patience and the gentleness he had given Drusilla for over a hundred years. He had so much more courage than she did, she realized. He threw himself headlong into everything he did, holding nothing back. She was like that physically, but emotionally she held back, afraid to risk the pain. He never did. He always risked everything, risked the pain and bore it stoically if it came. He was more than she was.

"Only, don’t blow hot and cold," he said with sudden sternness. "Don’t change your mind and throw everything back in my face and go running out of here tomorrow, saying this is all a mistake. I love you, Buffy. But I won’t be your lapdog, desperate for any crumb. Either you’re with me or you’re not. Your choice."

She had seen what they could be together. Lovers, partners, the dearest of friends. Equals. He would always be there for her. He would never let her down. She was suddenly determined that, whatever happened, she would not let him down either.

"I’m with you," she whispered. "I’m not afraid any longer, Spike. After all this time, I’ve finally learned how to dance."

His breath caught and his eyes went incandescent with joy. Then his head came down and he was kissing her again, his hands tangled in her hair, muttering, "Buffy, Buffy," between kisses, his mouth devouring hers. She clung to him, losing herself in the taste of him, her hands sliding over his body, the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, the sharpness of his shoulderblades, the strong flexing muscles of his back.

"Too many clothes," she muttered. She wanted to be as naked as he was, wanted to feel his skin against hers.

She started to tug at her shirt, but he intercepted her, slipping the buttons loose one by one, licking every inch of her flesh as it became exposed, sliding her shirt and then her bra away so smoothly that she wasn’t even aware of their disappearance.

Then his hands were on her breasts and then his lips, suckling on her nipple, pressing it against the roof of his mouth. She was making helpless, inarticulate sounds in her throat, her hands clenching on his head, holding his mouth to her breast.

"God, you’re beautiful," he muttered.

"Want you," she whispered and felt the deep, racking shudder go through him with the words. He was shuddering continuously now and so was she, so turned on that it was painful.

"Buffy..."

He twisted around to cover her with his body. "Oh, yes," she sighed as his weight came full on her.

The length of his body was pressed against the length of hers, carven chest and hard stomach and narrow hips. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more, more. She writhed against him, her hands clawing down his back, dragging his hips against her, rubbing herself against his erection rock hard between her thighs. He made an anguished, helpless sound in his throat.

"Damn jeans," she growled, angry at them for being in the way, and tried desperately to push them off, her hasty struggles getting her nowhere.

He laughed breathlessly against the hollow of her throat. "Let me, Slayer. Just lie back."

"Ohh..."

His mouth was sliding down her ribcage to her belt buckle. He worked her jeans off smoothly, taking her thong with them. His lips slid down her thigh as he did so and she fell helplessly back on the bed, weak with desire. Then his mouth was nibbling back up the inside of her thigh, driving her insane, the little sharp pinpricks of his fangs hopelessly erotic so that she writhed and twisted desperately under him.

"Oh, God, Spike! Come on!"

"What’s the hurry, Slayer?" His mouth and hands were moving over her pelvis, her stomach, her ribcage, her breasts, caressing every inch of her, stretching it out unbearably.

"Oh, God, you’re gonna kill me!"

Her brain had stopped functioning, and her body was thrashing wildly, uncontrollably, under the sweet cruelty of what he was doing to her.

"Spike!"

His forearms settled on either side of her shoulders and his body rubbed sinuously the length of hers, pressing down hard and demandingly. She moaned and her body arched involuntarily to his, thighs lifting to grip his waist. His hips settled to hers and he made that little, side-to-side wriggle that she found so touching, nestling his hips into hers.

Her thighs gripped his hips and she rubbed against his erection demandingly, moved against him urgently, raking his smooth back and shoulders and biceps with her hands, kneading his flesh. She bit his shoulder involuntarily, and his whole body jerked and he groaned aloud. Bites to a vampire. She bit him again deliberately, his shoulders and his throat and his nipples, everywhere that she could reach, felt the racking shudders that went through him, clawed her nails down his back.

"Want you in me now, Spike!"

And finally, finally, he was thrusting into her. And all she could think was: he’s inside me, he’s inside me!

And it was utter perfection. He filled her so completely, stretching her to the limit, thick and hard, almost too much, so right, no one had ever been so right for her as he was, thrusting into her in long, deep strokes that went as far as he could go and then just that little bit farther so that she moaned helplessly in absolute completion, his hips twisting at the end of every stroke so that he hit every sweet spot in her body.

"God, the way you feel, Buffy! God, you’re so tight..."

His head flung back and, through fluttering eyelashes, she saw his throat work as he groaned in rapture at the resistance of the tight Slayer muscles of her sheath.

"Oh, God, yes!" she gasped, arching against him, writhing uncontrollably under him. "More. God, Spike, more! Harder...!"

"Oh, my girl," he gasped. "That’s it, take me, take all of me..."

They strained against each other, hips battling. Through flashes of dazed sight as her eyelids fluttered open and closed again, she saw him above her, his eyes closed in an agony of pleasure so intense that it bordered on pain, the cords of his neck standing out, lips parted, jaw clenched with effort.

He was ramming into her with all his strength now, driving her closer and closer to the edge, and it was too much, too intense, unendurably wonderful.

"Oh, yes," she muttered, unable to keep delirious, wordless, inarticulate moans of utter delight from spilling from her throat. "Oh, yes."

His forehead dropped to hers and she saw his face more naked than his body, saw that look in his eyes, that look that said she was the center of his universe, that she was amazing and beautiful and powerful and precious, that she was cherished, that she was loved. Saw that absolute, unconditional love and adoration and tenderness in his eyes. And that look sent her spiraling over the edge, splintering into a million fragments of insupportable joy.

"Love you," she whispered and felt his body seize up and his cock pulse within her and a groan of unbearable pleasure tear from his throat.

His whole weight came down on her and she sighed with satisfaction, holding him as he panted into her shoulder. After a moment, he raised his head and stared at her in awe and disbelief.

"What did you say? What...what did you say?"

"Love you," she repeated and kissed his astonished mouth.

"But before...you didn’t..."

She wrapped her arms around his head and sighed against his cheek. "I meant to say it then, but I lost my courage."

"When did you...?"

"I think I started realizing it when I learned you had slept with the other Buffy. I was...so angry and upset and hurt. I was jealous. You’re mine!"

"Always yours," he whispered. "Till I’m dust. You own me."

"And I’m yours."

"Buffy, do you mean it?" His eyes were helpless, so vulnerable that she caught him to her and kissed him fiercely.

"Yes. Always wanted you, y’know..."

"You did?"

"Yes. You said it yourself once. ‘You know you wanna dance.’ And I did. But I wouldn’t admit it. A Slayer with a vampire? I thought it was wrong. Until I got thrown forward in time and saw what we were in the future. It wasn’t wrong. It was right. Absolutely right. That Buffy had no problems with it. And that Buffy was happy."

"Best spell that was ever cast," he muttered.

"And then when that Chiriwan...I was so scared...I thought you...I was terrified. That’s when I knew what I really felt about you."

He caught her shoulders and dropped his face between her breasts, burrowing there, replete and spent, breathing in her scent. "God, this is unbelievable. Everything I ever wanted."

She caught sight of the ring on his left hand, asked what she had been wondering about ever since she came back. "Why did she give you that ring?"

He smiled into her skin. "You are jealous."

She thumped his shoulder lightly with her clenched fist. "Answer the question."

He raised his head and looked down at the ring on his finger. "It was a promise. That one day you would say what you just did. That you love me."

"Oh." It was a long sound of complete understanding, everything falling into place, finally accepting what Tara had said. "She isn’t ‘she’, is she? She’s me."

"Mm."

They looked at each other, smiling. Then he drew the ring off his finger and started to lay it on the night table. She stopped him and held out her hand. He lifted a brow, then dropped it into her palm. She picked it up and slid it onto the middle finger of her right hand. He let out a little breath.

"That’s the finger she...you...took it from."

"Figures. That vengeance demon really has everything neatly wrapped up."

Spike sat up abruptly. "What?"

"Didn’t you know? It was a vengeance demon that cast the spell. Future Tara confirmed it."

Spike had a panicky look on his face. "Buffy..."

Buffy’s mouth fell open. "Oh, God, it was you, wasn’t it? It was you who made the wish!"

"I...I..."

She jerked upright and grabbed his shoulders. "What did you wish for? Oh, God, Spike! Don’t tell me you wished I’d fall in love with you! Because if what I feel is just a spell..."

"No! No! I wouldn’t want it that way either! That all of this should just be a spell, that it wouldn’t be real. Couldn’t bear it if it wasn’t real."

"Then what did you wish for?"

"I just wished you could see how good we could be together."

They stared at each other blankly for a moment, then slowly began to smile.

"Well, I did," said Buffy wryly, then laughed. "One of your better ideas."

He nodded, tongue curling behind his teeth. "Worked better than I ever dreamed."

They fell into each other’s arms.

***

It wasn’t the crypt any longer. Between one step and another, her surroundings changed to her livingroom in Revello Drive.

Buffy lost her balance and fell against the wall. Spike was at the front door, apparently just leaving. The thud made him swing around and brought him racing back.

He grabbed her shoulders to hold her upright. "Slayer, are you all right?"

She caught at his duster. "You’re still here! You didn’t dust!"

"Why should I dust? There’s no...Buffy?" His eyes widened as he met her gaze. "My Buffy!"

"Oh, yes. Your Buffy."

Their arms swept around each other.

"It’s weird having two sets of memories," Buffy remarked a little later. "Think one of them will fade after a while?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter." Spike stroked her hair back from her face, sifting it through his fingers. "All that matters is that you’re back here with me and that you’re my Buffy."

"And that you’re not dust." Buffy wrapped her arms about his neck and held him fiercely close. "I was so scared. I couldn’t have borne it if I’d lost you."

"Only needed the slightest hope, pet. Just a crumb." His eyes blazed down at her, incandescent blue flame, completely adoring. "Wouldn’t give up this dance of ours if even the tiniest grain of hope remained."

She nodded, sighed deeply with relief and satisfaction. "This is perfection."

"That’s why it had to end up this way, pet. The two of us, we never can settle for half-measures. Hating or loving, we’d still end up always and forever treading the steps of this dance."


The End