Chapter One

“Oh, Spikey!”

Spike groaned, glaring in the direction of the door, wishing he’d remembered to lock it.

“Spikey! Guess who’s here to make you feel all better?”

Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard as she pushed open the door. Spike closed his eyes in defeat and hoped that she didn’t plan on staying long.

Harmony, dressed head-to-toe in pink, blonde hair perfectly coiffed and make-up immaculate – and how did she do that so well anyway, without a reflection? – appeared in the doorway of his apartment, wide grin on her face.

Her nails were sparkly and pink, and she had a leather bag – pink, of course – clutched under one arm.

“What d’you want?” Spike asked. He could probably stand to be a bit nicer to the bint, but he was already in a foul enough mood – what with having had his hands cut off and all – and he’d much rather be drowning his sorrows in copious amounts of alcohol than listening to Harm prattle on. Not that he would have been able to open the bottles anyway, with his hands still trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

“I brought you a present to cheer you up,” Harmony said, closing the door behind her and setting her bag on the kitchen table.

“Beer?” Spike asked hopefully.

“No, silly! I brought you…” she paused for dramatic effect, and opened her bag, pulling out a laptop. “This!”

“What do I want with a bloody pink laptop?”

“Oh, you’ll just love what I have to show you!”

Spike wasn’t so sure he would.

***

Spike was stunned speechless and that didn’t happen very often. He stared at the screen, then switched his gaze back to Harmony, who looked very pleased with herself.

“Didn’t I tell you?” She gushed, “Aww! You’re so happy you can’t speak!”

“Harm,” Spike began, voice low and dangerous. “This is not a happy face. This is an ‘I’m going to kill that bloody boy’ face.”

“You don’t like it?” Harmony pouted. “But you’re like… famous! Isn’t that so cool?”

“No! No it’s not bloody ‘cool’! Hell, there are teenage girls on there saying they want to have my babies, for Christ’s sake!”

“Well that’s just stupid,” Harmony frowned. “Everyone knows vampires can’t have children.”

“Missing the point, Harm,” Spike rolled his eyes and tried very hard not to smash the computer into smithereens.

“You could like, become a major star now, Spike. I bet Lorne would hook you up,” Harmony took out a cell phone – pink, of course – and started to dial. “I’ll just call him now, he’ll get you an agent by the end of the day. Ooh, I know! Let’s do a reality TV show together! We could get the cameras to follow us around doing good deeds. It could be called the Blondie Bear Show. Oh my god! I’m so a genius! I’ll be just like Paris Hilton!”

“What, vapid and brain dead?” Spike muttered, then jumped up and began to pace up and down the living room.

“Harm, put the phone away an’ get back to Wolfram and Hart. I want to be on the next flight to wherever that little twerp lives. It’s about time he learned the truth about a vampire’s predatory habits.”

“Ooh, I liked that video!” Harmony said.

Spike sighed. “Whatever. Just get me on a plane. Now.”

“Fine. And whilst I’m there I’ll get Lorne to start planning our new TV show. Oh, I’m so excited! Bye!”

When she’d gone, Spike sank down onto the sofa, staring at the image of himself on the screen of the laptop that Harmony had left behind.

Bloody hell.

***

Harmony hadn’t been able to convince Angel to let him use one of Wolfram and Hart’s private jets – he apparently wasn’t important enough – but she had got him onto the night flight from LA to Heathrow.

Angel had been ‘like, sooo happy’ to cover the cost of the flight, glad to see the back of Spike for a few days.

As he boarded the plane, flashing a smile at the young air hostess and making her blush, he wondered just what – or who – he would find when he landed in London.

Harmony had procured Andrew’s address, a flat in an upscale area of London, and Spike knew for a fact that the new Watcher’s Council had set up base nearby, and that the boy now worked for them.

He’d rather not run into Giles, but if he did it wouldn’t be the end of the world – he was sure the old man would be more than happy to keep his return a secret from Buffy.

He sighed. Angel had said Buffy was in Rome, which was far enough away from London for him not to worry. But it was London… new Slayer-central, and where at least two of her friends now lived.

No. He wouldn’t see her there. He didn’t want to see her. Not at all.

He sighed. Who was he kidding? ‘Course he wanted to see her. And he had better stop this train of thought before he forgot all the reasons why he’d stayed away and got on a plane to Rome instead.

The air hostess soon began her demonstration in a high, nasally voice. It was going to be a long flight.

***

Spike tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult – his arms had started aching again.

Not to mention the fact that the woman in the seat next to him had woken up and kept shooting him surreptitious glances over the top of her Harlequin when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, and gazed past her and out the window. He’d never flown before, and was a little nervous over how thin the glass in the window looked. Seemed as though one good blow would knock it right out, and then where would he be? Well, likely still unliving, ‘cos he didn’t need to breathe – but still – it was the principle.

The woman sitting next to him had given up the pretence of reading and was now staring openly at him, eyes wide.

She looked like your everyday, average woman, if a bit fussy for a long flight – eyes made up, lips painted a vivid red, hair that had probably been neat and tidy before getting on the plane. She was an all-right looking bird, but her staring was making him uneasy.

Spike tilted his head and raised his eyebrow at her, and she blushed, eyes darting quickly away before looking back.

“Sorry,” she said, “but it’s just – you look a lot like this guy, er… on the Internet.”

Spike groaned. If he hadn’t already been planning to string Andrew up by the seat of his Han Solo boxers…

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me,” Spike said, tone bored, but he figured that it was only polite to answer. “I’m Spike, vampire with a soul and all that rot.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “I’m Lynn. I’ve seen all your videos. So you’re like, really a vampire?”

Spike nodded.

“So, no heartbeat?” She reached over and put her hand to his chest. “Wow! Muscley!”

Spike glanced at the onboard clock, saw there were still five hours of the flight to go, and whimpered.

***

The flight had been as long and as dire as he’d expected, though not for the reasons he’d thought it would be.

Lynn had spent most of the time telling him about how she loved all the videos, and did he know she was his number one commenter on YouTube? And hey, perhaps he’d like to do an interview for her fansite?

Spike worried that she would try and follow him out into London, but thankfully he was able to lose her in the baggage claim at the airport. It was about an hour before dawn, so he needed to find somewhere to crash for the day and then tonight…

Tonight, he’d go nerd-hunting.

***

Chapter Two

Buffy sighed, stirring the remains of her coffee and staring into the crowd, eyes unseeing. Her flight had been delayed due to poor weather conditions, and now she – along with the other however-many passengers headed for L.A. were sitting, bored, in the various cafés and restaurants the airport had to offer.

It was probably all a scam anyway: tell the customers the flight was delayed to get them to spend their money on overpriced food and drink.

Buffy sighed again, wondering when she had become so cynical, then put the thought directly out of her head. She knew exactly when it had been, and she didn't want to think of it. Not now, when she had a thousand other thoughts whirling away in her mind, the predominant one being that Spike was back.

She was on her way to see him, and the thought of it scared her half to death. Since booking the flight, Buffy had envisioned how the reunion would go hundreds of times, each time different.

In some, she got angry with him for not telling her he had returned. In others, they sat and talked and fell into uncomfortable silences. But the most frequent, and the most telling, were those in which she would run into his arms, and be swept into the classic movie-kiss, music rising to a crescendo in the background.

Buffy marvelled at these daydreams, wondering when she’d regressed to her sixteen-year-old self again. God… the last time she’d had thoughts like that was back when Angel had been her world, her everything.

Her dreams about Angel had been a constant back then, and now she was thinking about Spike in a similar way – though everything was more intense, more real than it had been when she was a teenager in the first flush of love.

Buffy didn’t know what to think, anymore. She didn’t know what she was going to find when she stepped off the plane in L.A., whether Spike would even want to consider pursuing a relationship. His last words to her had been a rebuttal of her feelings, what if he still felt the same?

What if… and the thought caused an almost physical pain in her chest, what if Spike didn’t love her anymore?

She glared at the coffee cup, and pushed it across the table with a frustrated sigh. Turning everything round and round in her head wasn’t going to help.

“Information for passengers travelling on the BA278 London Heathrow to Los Angeles, this flight has been delayed for a further fifty minutes. Please listen to announcements for more information.”

“Stupid plane,” Buffy muttered to herself, and stood up to throw her coffee cup in the trash. She sat back down at the table, now devoid of mess, and took a magazine from her purse. Might as well kill the time with celebrity gossip.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

Buffy glanced up to see a frazzled looking woman standing beside the table, mocha frappuccino clutched in her hand, her blonde hair spilling loose from its barrette and slight make-up smudges beneath her eyes.

“Sure,” Buffy replied.

“You’re a sweetie,” the woman replied. “I swear, trying to find somewhere to sit in here was like trying to raise the Titanic.”

Buffy smiled, and nodded. She wasn’t really in the mood to make small talk with a stranger, but it would be rude to ignore her completely. It seemed that she didn’t have to worry, as the woman took out a cell phone and soon had it pressed against her ear.

Buffy tuned her out, focusing instead on the hum of the crowd and whether Britney was back with K-Fed.

She tried to concentrate on the glossy magazine in front of her, and was halfway through an article about eyelash curlers when the blonde woman’s nasally voice rose to an even higher pitch.

“And oh my God, Jess, his hair is so soft! I know, right? You wouldn’t expect a man,” the woman paused, and glanced around furtively, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Okay, a vampire, who uses bleach like that to have such soft hair. But it was! And oh… those arms. Sweet Lord, I thought I was going to die!”

Buffy stared, the words ‘bleach’ and ‘vampire’ having caught her attention. It couldn’t be… could it?

“Well, he seemed kind of growly. You know? But he was so polite and answered all my questions. Yeah. Yeah. No… no! His accent is not put on for the camera! Yeah, totally British. So sexy. Uhuh. Yeah. Yep. Okay, sweetie, I’ll tell you everything later. Love ya!”

The woman set her cell phone down on the table, and took a sip from her frappucino. Buffy hesitated for a moment, but swiftly decided that she had to know if the woman had been talking about Spike.

“Excuse me,” Buffy said, touching the woman’s arm to catch her attention. “I couldn’t help overhearing… you were talking about someone. A man. With… bleached hair?”

“Oh he’s not just a man, honey. He’s an Adonis. I’m Lynn, by the way.”

“Er, right,” Buffy muttered, deciding that if it was Spike that this woman – Lynn - had been talking about, she didn’t like her, not one bit. Especially as she seemed to know how soft his hair was. “His name didn’t happen to be Spike, did it?”

“You’ve heard of him? You have to join my fansite. Isn’t he just the sexiest man you’ve ever seen? I bet he knows a thing or two about pleasing a woman, if you know what I mean.” Lynn’s words were expelled in a rush, her face red with excitement.

“More like a thing or a thousand,” Buffy muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Buffy said, blushing. “When you were talking to your friend, it sounded like you’d actually met Spike.”

“Oh yeah, I just did! He was even better looking in real life than on those videos.”

“Just?” Buffy repeated. “As in, just now?”

“Uhuh, on the airplane, I sat next to him the whole way over here,” Lynn said, smiling. “I think we were really making a connection by the end of the flight, you know? And there was definite interest, if you catch my drift.”

Buffy clenched and unclenched her fists, her mouth a thin line and a hard glint in her eyes. The thought of this woman being all over Spike, and him being a willing recipient of Lynn’s affections, was not a pleasant one. She took a deep breath, and tried to school her features into something resembling a smile.

It seemed that Spike had come to England, and if she wanted to know where he was headed, she needed to keep this woman talking.

“Did he happen to mention where he was going?” And couldn’t he have arrived here before I forked out five hundred pounds for the flight?

Lynn frowned a little, then beckoned Buffy closer with a coral-painted fingernail. “Sweetie, I don’t think he’s the sort of guy who’d want groupies following him around London.” She laughed. “Otherwise don’t you think I’d have gone after his sweet-self?”

“So he didn’t say anything? Nothing at all about where he might be headed?” There was a slight tone of desperation to Buffy’s voice, and she gazed at Lynn with anticipation.

“Well…” Lynn sighed. “He did mention something about going to see Andrew. You know, the guy who puts the videos up for him?”

“Andrew.” Buffy’s mouth thinned. “Right.”

She pulled her cell phone from her purse, and dialled quickly, Lynn watching curiously.

“Andrew, it’s me,” Buffy said. “Yes, I am supposed to be on the plane. Yes, I got your note about bringing you back some Lucky Charms, but I don’t think I’m even going to L.A. anymore anyway. Why didn’t you tell me Spike was coming to see you?” She paused, listening. “Well, he is. Apparently.”

Next to her, Lynn had started to flap excitedly. “Oh my god, oh my god, you know him? And you’re talking to Andrew? The Andrew? Oh my god, oh my god!”

“No, that’s someone Spike met on the airplane,” Buffy ignored Lynn, answering Andrew instead. “Yes, I’m sure. Listen, when he gets there – make sure he doesn’t leave, okay?”

She paused again, listening to Andrew speak, when she heard the doorbell of her apartment ring. It was soon followed by the sound of Andrew’s footsteps and the click of the front door being opened. There was a high-pitched, “Spike!”, and then a loud clunk as the phone was presumably dropped to the floor.

Buffy pressed the ‘end call’ button on her cell, and put the phone back in her purse. She needed to get home, as soon as possible.

As she started to walk out of the coffee shop, Lynn grabbed her arm in a surprisingly strong grip.

“Wait! Was that really Andrew you were talking to? How do you know Spike? Do you know him know him?”

Buffy sighed, deciding she’d have to answer Lynn’s questions as quickly as possible if she wanted to get out of the airport anytime soon.

“Yes it was Andrew, and Spike’s my…” she paused, frowning, wondering how to describe what Spike was to her. ‘Ex’ was too cold and clinical, and all the other words her mind came up with sounded far too cheesy and over the top. “Spike’s my… well, he’s… Spike.”

Sudden comprehension dawned on Lynn’s face, and her mouth dropped open. “Oh! You and he…” she winked and nudged Buffy in the arm.

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Listen, I have to go. I have to see… speak… I just have to go.” She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and strode purposefully towards the exit.

“Give him my love!” Lynn called after her.

Buffy smiled. Oh, she’d be giving him some love, all right.

Just not Lynn’s.

Chapter Three

Spike had spent the day in a darkened hotel room, restless and itching to find Andrew. He didn’t want to spend any longer than necessary in London, not with Giles and his merry band of Slayers only a few miles away.

He had sensed a Slayer presence almost as soon as the cab had come within city limits - more than one, too. All Spike wanted to do was find the boy, knock some sense into him, and be on the next plane back to good old L.A., before he ran into anyone he knew – or worse, a Slayer he didn’t know.

As he walked down the brightly lit corridor, searching for flat 2A, he had the strange sense that like all of his plans, this one would fall through disastrously.

Spike approached the door with some trepidation, and then shook himself and sneered. What was there to be worried about? It was only Andrew, who – yes, okay – was a pretty frightening breed of fanboy, but nothing for a big bad vampire to be scared of.

He rang the doorbell, and listened to the chimes echoing through the flat. He heard footsteps, and then Andrew’s voice chattering away excitedly. Spike barely had time to blink before the door was open and Andrew was in his arms, screeching his name over and over.

“Spike! It’s you!”

“Er, yeah.” Spike reached behind his neck to disentangle Andrew’s arms, but the boy was clinging on like a leech. “Look, mate, I don’t want to - well, actually I do want to hurt you – but I’d rather it be with my fists, yeah?”

Andrew released him, and took a step backwards into the apartment, broad grin still in place. “Welcome to my humble abode. Please, do come in.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at the formality, but put it down to another of Andrew’s odd and annoying little quirks. He stepped into the flat, and was immediately assailed by the stench of chemicals, artificial lemons and a hint of something that he recognised but couldn’t quite place.

He followed Andrew down the hall and into the living room, where the boy smiled guiltily as he set a can of air-freshener down on the sideboard.

“So,” Spike began, prowling forwards. “D’you know why I’m here, Andrew?”

“Um,” Andrew’s smile wobbled as he backed up a little. “You missed England so much you couldn’t stay away a moment longer?”

Spike shook his head, an evil grin on his face as he stalked his prey.

“You had an intrepid romance with the vampyre Angelus, but things soon went afoul and you’ve come to England to grieve for your lost love?”

That brought Spike up short. “Bit of a vivid imagination you’ve got there.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.” Spike cracked his knuckles and continued to move towards Andrew, who had scuttled as far back against the wall of the lounge as he could.

“Oh. Erm…”

“Not really in the mood for playing games,” Spike said, as he came nose-to-nose with Andrew. “Laptop. Now.”

Andrew shot a sidelong glance to the desk in the corner of the room, then his eyes darted back to Spike’s. “Don’t have it.”

“You’re lying,” Spike said, his voice soft and smooth. Seductive. “I can smell the lies.”

“Really?” Andrew said. “Wow. You’re so cool.”

Spike gritted his teeth and took a step backwards. “I’m not trying to be bloody cool, I’m trying to be scary!”

“Oh.”

“Did it work?”

“Little bit.” Andrew gulped, and looked towards the desk again. “But mostly, you were cool.”

“Oh, bloody hell!” Spike turned away, and took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the ceiling and jaw clenched.

He saw Andrew edging towards the computer table, and in a sudden show of vampire speed, Spike was standing in front of it, the laptop in his hand.

“What are you going to do with it?” Andrew squeaked, looking positively terrified at the sight of Spike holding his most prized possession. Well, after the mint condition Boba Fett figurine he’d managed to buy off ebay, anyway.

“Think that smashin’ it’d be a good place to start,” Spike said, and raised his hand to do just that.

“No! Smashing it wouldn’t do anything, everything’s backed up to a remote server and I don’t think Bu-” Andrew stopped suddenly, and looked away, eyes wide.

Spike narrowed his eyes. “What was that?”

“Buh-ill Gates! Him! He wouldn’t be very happy if you smashed one of his fine computers now, would he?”

As though a veil had been lifted, Spike suddenly began to notice things around the flat that he hadn’t taken into account before. Things such as the bottle of perfume sitting haphazardly on the mantelpiece, or the clothes-rail on the radiator that was filled with tiny thongs.

Spike’s eyes swept the room, his gaze falling on a cluster of photo frames on an end table. A smiling blonde woman and a girl with long, dark hair.

Buffy and Dawn.

Spike put the laptop back onto the desk, and ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t expected this, that Andrew would be living with his girls. He mentally shook himself, and snorted. What right did he have to call them ‘his girls’ anyway?

“Spike?”

“I…” Spike trailed off, not sure what to say. Now that he had realised it, he could see and scent traces of Buffy and her sister all over the apartment. Suddenly, he was filled with a sense of panic. He couldn’t see them, either of them – not now! He wasn’t ready, had nothing planned, no idea of what he would say to explain why he hadn’t contacted them after he’d come back.

Spike shook his head, trying to clear it, and started to walk towards the door.

“Wait! Spike, wait!” Andrew’s voice was panicked.

“I can’t be here,” Spike said, and pulled the door open, stepping out into the corridor.

“No, you’ve got it all wrong! Buffy doesn’t live here, if that’s what you’re thinking and I think that’s what you’re thinking, right?”

“I have to go.”

“I’m in love with her!” Andrew blurted, looking shocked at the unexpected lie. “With both of them! That’s why I stole the pictures… and their underwear!”

It was too late. Spike had stepped into the lift, and the doors had closed.

Andrew pouted, and slumped against the wall. “Buffy’s going to kill me.”

***

Spike didn’t know where he was going; he just knew that he had to get away from that apartment. Far away.

On some level, he knew he was being a coward. He knew that he should have stayed and made small-talk with Andrew whilst waiting for Buffy to get home, that he should have stayed to tell her he was back, that he loved her.

But he was terrified.

Buffy had told him that she loved him, down in the Hellmouth. He hadn’t believed her at the time, had even told her so, but there was a small part of him that wanted to pretend. To pretend that she had meant it, that the words had been more than a sop to a dying man.

He was scared that if he did see her again, he would find out that she didn’t love him, and he wanted to hold on to that part of him – no matter how miniscule it was – that believed her when she’d said ‘I love you’.

Spike ran his fingers through his hair, breaking the hold the gel had over his unruly curls. He sighed, and looked up, then chuckled to himself softly at the irony.

He’d wandered into a cemetery, the gravestones and empty tombs playing silent vigil to his inner anguish.

Spike moved to sit on one of the tombs, and closed his eyes, enjoying the relative silence of the night. In the distance, he could hear the hum of a busy road, and the thud-thud-thud of music in a nightclub.

He was torn. That small part of him that believed in Buffy’s love for him wanted to stand up, get off the sarcophagus and walk back towards her apartment. But the scared and cowardly part of him was winning, and for the moment, he stayed where he was.

It was sort of nice, just sitting. He hadn’t had much of a chance to do anything like this in L.A., not with being a ghost one minute and having his arms hacked off the next.

Spike closed his eyes again, and took a deep breath, letting his senses reach out. There was a cat, somewhere in the cemetery, hunting a mouse if he wasn’t mistaken. A group of teenagers had walked through earlier in the night; the lingering smell of sweat and teenage hormones hung heavily in the air.

Spike breathed in and out, and in again and then stopped dead, frozen as a scent he knew better than his own reached him.

He could feel her, standing in front of him. The vampire part of him that always alerted him whenever a Slayer was nearby, and the Spike part of him that always knew when Buffy was near.

“Spike.” Her voice was soft, awed.

He raised his head, and opened his eyes to see Buffy standing right there, not two feet away from him. Her eyes were wide, and shining brightly, and she looked as beautiful as ever.

“Buffy.” He ducked his head nervously.

“You never told me you were back,” Buffy said, a few moments later, breaking the silence. “I had to find out from some stupid videos Andrew posted on the internet.”

Spike opened his mouth to say something, but Buffy interrupted him.

“D’you know how much that hurt? Seeing those videos and finding out that everyone… Angel, Andrew – god, even Harmony – knew you were back, and you hadn’t even bothered to tell me?”

“Buffy, love, I’m sorry-”

“I mourned you! Do you even know how much-” she stopped, seemingly unable to go on speaking.

Spike stared at her, unable to believe that he was here, standing in front of her after months of indecision.

“I missed you.” Her words were quiet, almost a whisper. “I thought you were dead, but you were in L.A. all along, gallivanting around with Angel and getting yourself a fanbase of screaming women who know how soft your hair is and that you have really, really nice arms!”

“I’m sorry,” Spike said, ready to start in on an explanation for why he was an utter idiot. “Wait, what? Who’re you on about, love?”

“Your stupid army of fans,” Buffy crossed her arms across her chest and pouted. She sighed. “And now they’re ruining our reunion. This is really not how I imagined it would go.”

“Oh?” Spike took a step towards her, hoping that she wouldn’t move away. She didn’t.

“I’ve thought about what it would be like so many times,” Buffy said, her hand coming up to cup his face, her fingers brushing the harsh line of his cheekbone. “And not one of those scenarios had me yelling at you for flirting with Lynn the rabid fangirl.”

“Yeah? How did they go then?”

“There was kissing in some of them,” Buffy said, and put her other arm on his shoulder, curling her hand around his neck.

“Oh?” Spike was surprised at the sudden change in her voice. It had become light, flirty. “Tell me more about this kissing.”

Buffy smiled, and drew his head down to hers. Their mouths met in the softest, sweetest kiss he had ever shared with her. His hands slipped around her head, running through her hair as he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue against the seam of her mouth and pressing her body firmly against his.

They stood wrapped together in the dark of the cemetery, mouths moving together as they kissed. It was unlike any moment he had ever shared with Buffy. This kiss wasn’t driven by lust alone, nor was it just the prelude to sex. There was tenderness in every brush of his tongue against hers – and, dare he say it – love.

Long moments later, they drew apart. Spike laid his forehead against hers, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I never thought…” Spike trailed off, not sure what to say. “I never… all these months, I’ve been back, and it was hell – literally at some points – not being able to leave L.A. to see you, then not knowing if I should.”

“Andrew told me,” Buffy said. “That you were a ghost. I wish you’d at least called me when you stopped being all ghosty, though.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Spike squeezed his eyes shut. “There’s not much else I can say.”

“How about… ‘I love you’?”

Spike knew that his heart would have skipped a beat or two if he were alive at just hearing those words from Buffy again, even if she had only said them to prompt him.

“I love you.”

Buffy let out a strange noise, a half-laugh, half-sob. “Oh, thank god. I wasn’t sure if…”

“You’re daft then,” Spike said, smiling, and he felt Buffy laugh against his chest.

“You can’t use your silly British words on me anymore. Not now that I’ve been living here and know what they mean.” Buffy’s voice was muffled from where she had her face pressed against him. She pulled away to look in his eyes, and when she spoke, all traces of laughter had gone from her voice. “I love you, too. You know that, right?”

Spike felt like flying, singing and doing a tap-dance on the roof of Buckingham Palace. Instead, he just grinned and tugged Buffy towards him, and kissed her.

They pulled apart, breathless, and Buffy grinned. “You know… some of the reunions I imagined involved a lot more than kissing.”

“Yeah?” Spike raised an eyebrow.

“Yup,” Buffy smiled, swinging their joined hands between them. “None of them ever took place in a graveyard though. Which is weird, ‘cos you know – us.”

“You’ve got that nice flat, probably a big, comfy bed…”

Buffy didn’t say anything, just tightened her grip on Spike’s hand and led him towards the cemetery gates – and home.

-END-